Almost in Brazil!!

Sorry it took so long, the internet hasn't been working correctly
Go Giants!!


Hi Everyone!!! Happy Carnival!! Carnival is Brazil’s 3 day long celebration (very similar to Mardi Gras, but crazier) A guest speaker on our boat, Javier, said you are allowed to do anything you want, but only for 3 days. Feb 1st is day one of the celebration and at noon, he said he still hadn’t heard from his wife back home. Brazilians are partiers and this is the best of the best. There are huge parades that roam the streets (I’m not sure how organized it is) and you buy a shirt that is specific to the truck you will be following. I think I will watch from a distance, I’m not sure I want to get squished in a fight or lost in the whole mess. I’m sure you are all excited to hear from me, I’ve been trying to write as many free semester at sea post cards as I can. If you haven’t gotten any, please email me and tell me you want them. Special thanks to Mumma and Poppa Bear for sending a card and money… and also to mark who drew me a wonderful picture. To Randi for putting all of my emails together so perfectly and also writing me about the family. Also, to Mumma (jessi) for the email, Juli for keeping my facey friends updated and to Kristofer for making sure I can graduate when I come home! You are all wonderful and I miss you tons. Who wants to hear about the ship?!?!
It’s officially a ship and not a boat, eventho I will continue to call it the boat, because it holds other boats. That’s the actual definition of a Ship… Just skip over any of this if I’ve already told you… Our classes run on A and B days (similar to MWF and TTh days in college) But they very nicely give us a day off every 4 or 5 days if we are sailing for a week or more. Everyday, we have a class called global studies. It tells us about the country and area we are going to be visiting. We do a lot of reading for all of our classes because we only have 23 days of each class. I am taking all 100 level courses, so my classes are pretty easy, I couldn’t even imagine how much reading I would have to do for a 400 level class. After the first two days of classes, there were 2 days of Add/Drop. This was set up ridiculously and I’m not sure anyone knew what they were doing. Our voyage is the biggest so far with 731 students, so the system they have used in the past could not accommodate for everyone in a timely fashion. I have intro to archeology, World’s Religions, and a class called sacred spaces that deals with architecture.
Tomorrow is our first laundry day!! That means we jam all of our dirty clothes into a 1’X1.5’ bag and pay them 5 dollars. I have no idea why it is so expensive; the bag can only hold a quarter of a load of laundry. Needless to say, I’ve been using a good amount of febreeze.
This blog is not nearly as exciting as my first one because we have been on the boat the whole time. It isn’t very eventfull. We have been doing a lot of planning. Me and a couple friends are going to Lencois in Brazil after we check out Carnival. It is supposed to be very pretty and I’m excited to go on an adventure. We have also been trying to plan our trip in China. It is super difficult because the internet is very expensive on the boat so we rely heavily on traveling books. I have nicely asked randi to try to do a little research for us so I can keep the cost down. Our boat, or ship, docks in Hong Kong on Thursday April 3rd, we are there for 2 days, get back on the boat travel for 2 days to Shanghai where we stay for 2 days, then we’re off to another country. We have no class on those 2 days between the Chinese cities, so we have decided to meet up with the boat in shanghai. This will allow us to see the great wall, forbidden city, and experience much more of china than we would otherwise.
I have a couple semester at sea trips to go on in the coming countries. In Mauritius, a small island east of madascar, I am going to learn about the medicines they use, traditiona,natural and modern medicines used by ancestral Indians. We’ll also stop at a market to meet traditional herbalists. I am doing lots of SAS trips in India. First, on Tuesday, march 11th, I’m going to where the ‘untouchables’ live and we’re doing a service project. We will help them paint, or garden, or whatever they need. The untouchables are a group of very low class people that have the worst jobs in the country, but they can not get out of their lives because of the system they were born into. Then I go on a homestay with a family that lives in India. And finally, I go to Kancheepuram “The city of 1,000 temples”and Mamallapuram, an ancient city of the pallava kings. I can’t wait for the experiences I’m about to have.
I’ll try to write another blog while I’m in Salvador, but if I get too busy, I’ll write it the day we set sail again. Keep the emails coming, I’ll do my best to respond asap. I will check what you write on my blog as often as possible, but I’ll def. get to my emails before your blog posts!!! Love and Miss you all!!!! See you soon!

Ps, Be home in 94-ish days!!

PSS!! I crossed the equator yesterday at around Noon!!