5/21/08
Panama Canal
My most loyal and dedicated reader requested a new post. I guess it will keep you guys on your toes. Here are some pictures of the Panama Canal. You would think 12 hours going thru a system of locks would be annoying, but it wasn't. I really enjoyed it, probably because I'm a nerd for structures. Over 21,000 workers died when the french attempted to remove the mountain to form the canal. John Stevens took over the project under Roosevelt. Stevens sent everyone home until plumbing and sanitary facilities were installed in panama. The mosquitoes were killed and workers were allowed to work in the area again. Stevens decided to build a lock system rather than removing the mountain. At the end of the project, the death toll was 27,000. The documentary we watched said more earth was moved for the panama canal than for the Egyptian Pyramids. Oddly, after the plans for the canal were finalized and construction was finally going smoothly, Stevens abandoned the project. The project started May 4th 1904 and it was opened August 15 1914. Enjoy.
5/15/08
SUPRISE!! another post
okay, so these are pictures that i wanted to post form Hawaii, but i couldn't find the internet. Keep in mind, they're unedited and not as perfect as they will be after i spend hours on them in photoshop. There are plenty more to be seen, these are just a couple to curve your craving! (it's also another blog that my dad and kristofer can post on) it's good to be home.
5/6/08
Costa Rica!!
Costa Rica!!! My last port of call. Easily top three in all of the places I went to. Before I get into what I did during my stay I want to bring something up. My three favorite places on my trip were the three places that I wasn’t excited about at all. My three favorites were Brazil, Costa Rica, and Malaysia. Before I left Pittsburgh, I wanted to go to south Africa, and China the most. Although I enjoyed those places very very much, they were not my favorite ports at all. Of course I loved my safari and I loved seeing The Great Wall, they still didn’t make top three. Maybe it’s because I set my expectations so high, or maybe it’s because I went to my three favorites with my best friends on the trip. I don’t know but it’s something that I think about every once and a while.
Now, onto my adventure. Like all of the other ports since South Africa, I had no idea what I was going to do until last minute. I had made plans with Mal to hang out with her in Costa Rica, but we had no idea what to do at all. Semester At Sea did a really shitty job at preparing us for our last port. Our finals week was the days leading up to Costa Rica so we obviously didn’t have any classes that week. That would have been fine, but we didn’t talk about Costa Rica in our last days of class either. Needless to say, we had no idea what to do at all. Whatever tho. So mal and I went to the library to look at the lonely planet for Middle America. As we sat there, we realized it was closed and wasn’t gonna open. We just decided to go to Montezuma with my roommate and two of our other friends because they had actually made plans while we were just being lazy. When I went back to my room, Tea said they had decided not to go there because it was 3 hours away and we only had two days there so they didn’t want to spend a majority of their time traveling. So we were basically screwed because there were no books available, our school didn’t give us any information and Montezuma was out. So when we woke up the next day (when we arrived in port) we just decided to go to the bus station and just pick somewhere to go when we got there. To make an already long story short, I talked to tea and the other three girls decided to just go to Montezuma and not worry about the traveling. Best decision ever. We ended up going there and it was beautiful. I’m not sure if everyone knows this or not but Jurassic Park was filmed in Costa Rica. That pretty much means that the roads we were driving through to get to Montezuma were lush, and full of plants I had never even seen before.
So to get there, we walked to the fairy terminal, took the one hour fairy, then took a taxi to the little city. Let me back up for a second. Mal and I really wanted to go to a little authentic place for our last port. we didn’t want to do anything crazy, we just wanted to hang out and have a good time with some locals. When we got off the fairy we had a good feeling about where we were. We found a taxi very easily and on the way, our taxi driver had on some American music that we were singing to. He was laughing at our terrible singing voices, and we were laughing at the fact that he was playing American music.
So about 40 minutes into our taxi drive, we turned off the paved road onto some skinny dirt road and we all got kinda confused, but it felt right. So we were on this twisty road for a while- but it was beautiful. Some of the places were very steep and sometimes it was really bumpy because the dirt had been eroded away after hard rains. When we pulled into the city, I was sooo excited. The town looked exactly like I had imagined and wanted it to look. It was small, there were artists selling jewelry and drug paraphernalia. I decided that’s how you know when you’re in a chill town. So the taxi driver knew a friend that had a room for us to rent that would hold 5 people so we said we’d take a look. It was exactly like a little that you would rent at wildwood NJ. It had two rooms, a table and a kitchen. Very cute. It was only $50 for a night. Between the five of us, that was a steal and the location was directly in the center of town with the beach about 50 yards away.
So we had dinner, walked along the beautiful beach and looked around at the shops. The beach was super pretty. It was a black sand beach. I’ve never been to one before (unless you count the jersey shore- but I would call that dirty, not black) so that was a first for me. I love beaches when there are huge rocks right off shore, and this was a prime example. By like 8:00 I was tired. I had only slept 1.5 hours the night before so I was ready to hit the sack. Right now, my sleeping schedule is super messed up. My friends stay up late so it’s kinda silly for me to sleep at night and then be up during the day when they’re all sleeping. I blame it on all of them. I may not have had awesome friends before I met them, but at least I slept normally. So after dinner, I basically went to go to sleep. When we got back to our room, we found a crab in the bedroom. Just one lonely crab. So I scooped him up in a pan and we let him back onto the beach.
When we were getting ready for bed, we realized why our hotel was so inexpensive considering its location. The club that was two doors down from us was playing loud music alllll night. Luckily, I had only slept a few hours the night before. Poppa bear, I would have made you proud, if I were watching Judge Judy, I would have been sleeping before the parties were sworn in. (o: (turn your head to the right to see the smiley) Mal only slep 3 hours that night.
The next morning, we woke up at 5 for the sunrise. It came up right behind some mountains and the ocean. It was the prettiest sunset I’ve seen the whole trip. I loved it. I took a thousand pictures eventho I know that a sunrise can never really be captured. Then a little later, we had breakfast at this little place. I got fruit, yogurt, and granola and a banana smoothie. It was the perfect meal. I guess there is hiking and some waterfalls around Montezuma but I just wanted to lay around- so that’s what we did. It was an overcast day, so I didn’t get burnt, but I still got a little sun. It was a wonderful day.
Our taxi driver from the day before picked us up and took us back to the fairy. Then we walked back to the boat and stayed on till we debarked.
I found out today that at our convocation, I get to walk with the other graduating seniors at a pseudo graduation. I guess some people have missed their graduation, so they like to hold something for them. We had a meeting for it today. The woman went over the logistics of the whole thing and said since they don’t have caps and gowns for us to wear…. we get to…. wear… our….. LIFEJACKETS!! Isn’t that the cutest thing ever? I can’t wait!
Well, I’ll end my last post with some final thoughts of my trip. First, thank you to all of my friends and family who have supported me thru my whole trip. I love you very much and am so excited to see you I almost can’t breath when I think about it. Thanks to everyone who reads my blog. I appreciate the fact that you all take a couple minutes out of your busy schedule to see what I’m up to. I love you all very much and can’t wait to let you all live through me.
FYI- I’m having a small graduation party at my house on the 10th in the afternoon/evening. Randi’s trying to let everyone know, but it’s hard because I’m not helping her much with a list of people to invite and she’s a busy woman anyways. If anyone wants to be there, please email me at Nicoledembski@gmail.com and title it *congrats on your graduation* so rannie knows you’re essentially RSVPing to a party you weren’t technically invited to but one that I absolutely want you to come to. Bye for now!! See you in 3 days!!
Ps, we’re going through the Panama Canal in 2 hours. FYI, 25,000 people died during its construction. Dr. Kruse (my structures teacher at cal) would be so proud that I remembered that. (o:
Now, onto my adventure. Like all of the other ports since South Africa, I had no idea what I was going to do until last minute. I had made plans with Mal to hang out with her in Costa Rica, but we had no idea what to do at all. Semester At Sea did a really shitty job at preparing us for our last port. Our finals week was the days leading up to Costa Rica so we obviously didn’t have any classes that week. That would have been fine, but we didn’t talk about Costa Rica in our last days of class either. Needless to say, we had no idea what to do at all. Whatever tho. So mal and I went to the library to look at the lonely planet for Middle America. As we sat there, we realized it was closed and wasn’t gonna open. We just decided to go to Montezuma with my roommate and two of our other friends because they had actually made plans while we were just being lazy. When I went back to my room, Tea said they had decided not to go there because it was 3 hours away and we only had two days there so they didn’t want to spend a majority of their time traveling. So we were basically screwed because there were no books available, our school didn’t give us any information and Montezuma was out. So when we woke up the next day (when we arrived in port) we just decided to go to the bus station and just pick somewhere to go when we got there. To make an already long story short, I talked to tea and the other three girls decided to just go to Montezuma and not worry about the traveling. Best decision ever. We ended up going there and it was beautiful. I’m not sure if everyone knows this or not but Jurassic Park was filmed in Costa Rica. That pretty much means that the roads we were driving through to get to Montezuma were lush, and full of plants I had never even seen before.
So to get there, we walked to the fairy terminal, took the one hour fairy, then took a taxi to the little city. Let me back up for a second. Mal and I really wanted to go to a little authentic place for our last port. we didn’t want to do anything crazy, we just wanted to hang out and have a good time with some locals. When we got off the fairy we had a good feeling about where we were. We found a taxi very easily and on the way, our taxi driver had on some American music that we were singing to. He was laughing at our terrible singing voices, and we were laughing at the fact that he was playing American music.
So about 40 minutes into our taxi drive, we turned off the paved road onto some skinny dirt road and we all got kinda confused, but it felt right. So we were on this twisty road for a while- but it was beautiful. Some of the places were very steep and sometimes it was really bumpy because the dirt had been eroded away after hard rains. When we pulled into the city, I was sooo excited. The town looked exactly like I had imagined and wanted it to look. It was small, there were artists selling jewelry and drug paraphernalia. I decided that’s how you know when you’re in a chill town. So the taxi driver knew a friend that had a room for us to rent that would hold 5 people so we said we’d take a look. It was exactly like a little that you would rent at wildwood NJ. It had two rooms, a table and a kitchen. Very cute. It was only $50 for a night. Between the five of us, that was a steal and the location was directly in the center of town with the beach about 50 yards away.
So we had dinner, walked along the beautiful beach and looked around at the shops. The beach was super pretty. It was a black sand beach. I’ve never been to one before (unless you count the jersey shore- but I would call that dirty, not black) so that was a first for me. I love beaches when there are huge rocks right off shore, and this was a prime example. By like 8:00 I was tired. I had only slept 1.5 hours the night before so I was ready to hit the sack. Right now, my sleeping schedule is super messed up. My friends stay up late so it’s kinda silly for me to sleep at night and then be up during the day when they’re all sleeping. I blame it on all of them. I may not have had awesome friends before I met them, but at least I slept normally. So after dinner, I basically went to go to sleep. When we got back to our room, we found a crab in the bedroom. Just one lonely crab. So I scooped him up in a pan and we let him back onto the beach.
When we were getting ready for bed, we realized why our hotel was so inexpensive considering its location. The club that was two doors down from us was playing loud music alllll night. Luckily, I had only slept a few hours the night before. Poppa bear, I would have made you proud, if I were watching Judge Judy, I would have been sleeping before the parties were sworn in. (o: (turn your head to the right to see the smiley) Mal only slep 3 hours that night.
The next morning, we woke up at 5 for the sunrise. It came up right behind some mountains and the ocean. It was the prettiest sunset I’ve seen the whole trip. I loved it. I took a thousand pictures eventho I know that a sunrise can never really be captured. Then a little later, we had breakfast at this little place. I got fruit, yogurt, and granola and a banana smoothie. It was the perfect meal. I guess there is hiking and some waterfalls around Montezuma but I just wanted to lay around- so that’s what we did. It was an overcast day, so I didn’t get burnt, but I still got a little sun. It was a wonderful day.
Our taxi driver from the day before picked us up and took us back to the fairy. Then we walked back to the boat and stayed on till we debarked.
I found out today that at our convocation, I get to walk with the other graduating seniors at a pseudo graduation. I guess some people have missed their graduation, so they like to hold something for them. We had a meeting for it today. The woman went over the logistics of the whole thing and said since they don’t have caps and gowns for us to wear…. we get to…. wear… our….. LIFEJACKETS!! Isn’t that the cutest thing ever? I can’t wait!
Well, I’ll end my last post with some final thoughts of my trip. First, thank you to all of my friends and family who have supported me thru my whole trip. I love you very much and am so excited to see you I almost can’t breath when I think about it. Thanks to everyone who reads my blog. I appreciate the fact that you all take a couple minutes out of your busy schedule to see what I’m up to. I love you all very much and can’t wait to let you all live through me.
FYI- I’m having a small graduation party at my house on the 10th in the afternoon/evening. Randi’s trying to let everyone know, but it’s hard because I’m not helping her much with a list of people to invite and she’s a busy woman anyways. If anyone wants to be there, please email me at Nicoledembski@gmail.com and title it *congrats on your graduation* so rannie knows you’re essentially RSVPing to a party you weren’t technically invited to but one that I absolutely want you to come to. Bye for now!! See you in 3 days!!
Ps, we’re going through the Panama Canal in 2 hours. FYI, 25,000 people died during its construction. Dr. Kruse (my structures teacher at cal) would be so proud that I remembered that. (o:
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