Sweet Home USA

After packing all of our clothes, souvenirs and books from the past 3.5 months, we took our suitcases to the fourth deck where the crew piled our luggage onto huge platforms where they would be taken off by crane when we reached San Diego. The excitement in the air was ridiculous and people were staying up late every night to hang out, say goodbye, and squeeze every ounce out of the last few days. We counted down the meals...last lunch, last dinner, and last breakfast.

Sunday April 24th at 5:45 AM I woke up, grabbed some warm clothes, and headed upstairs to meet my friends on the seventh deck bow to watch the sunrise. This is a tradition on SAS to watch the sunrise the morning we reach the U.S. But when I got to the staircase leading to the seventh deck, Kerry and Hannah greeted me saying that it was cold, windy, rainy and cloudy. There would be no visible sunrise. I was disappointed but the day could only get better from there. We ate breakfast that morning, all of us a little quiet, not knowing what to do with ourselves or what to say. The mood was definitely bittersweet. By 7 AM we realized that we had phone service which meant we were fairly close to land....but this time it was OUR land. AMERICA. Such a bizarre feeling to think once we get off the ship, we're not getting back on anytime soon. As we got closer to the city, we could see Mexico's mountains in the distance and San Diego's skyline peeking through the clouds. We got closer and closer and I began texting with Chris, trying to figure out where to look for him. As we began to pull into our berth, we finally spotted each other after I began waving my red Miami hat in the air. What an amazing feeling it was to see all those parents out there eagerly waiting to reunite with their children. I couldn't wait to give a huge hug to Chris and I felt so thankful to have him meet me there. I can't imagine what it would have been like to get off without someone to greet you, but many kids did.

So by the time we pulled into the berth at 8AM on the dot, we had three hours to kill until disembarking would happen. So we went to the piano lounge and conked out on the couches for a few hours. After that we hung out on the decks and looked out at the San Diego skyline. Disembarkation started at 10:30 or so. They disembark by sea (hallway). We were the sixth group to disembark. I was so anxious to get off the ship but didn't want to get off either! When my sea was finally called, I rushed to my room, grabbed my backpack and headed off the ship. I swiped my ID card and handed it to the crew member. We were then spit out into this warehouse where we had to find our luggage. Porters were there to help us but I was so ready to see Chris and didn't want to wait in line. So I juggled all of my bags by myself (quite a feat I must admit) and headed to the gate. I could see Chris standing behind the gate with camera in hand. As soon as I crossed into the gates I let go of my luggage and gave him a huge hug. Best welcome back hug ever! We then moved out of the way of everyone and waited for my friends to come out so Chris could meet them. Brittany was the only one that came out soon so we left for the hotel which was conveniently right across the street with an awesome view of the ship that I pretty much stared at the whole night. Chris met my friends later that day when we were eating lunch and happened to run into each other so that worked out well!

Being in San Diego felt like another port at first. I felt as though I'd be getting on the ship in a few days. It's so weird not being there and I really do miss it. I think I'll be homesick for the M.V. Explorer once in a while. It was my home for a quarter of a year and I'm gonna miss it. Hopefully some day I'll be back to see her again.

I'm sure I will have more thoughts to post after this one but I wanted to make sure I had some sort of conclusion before it escaped me completely. I can't really imagine not writing in this blog once a week. It's been an amazing time being able to write down my adventures and thoughts and know that others are reading what I have to say. I hope it made it easy for everyone to keep up with me and know where in the world I was....literally. A HUGE thank you to everyone who has come across my blog, followed me, read my posts, commented, contributed to my savings, and shared my adventures with others.

In the words of Mark Twain: "Explore. Dream. Discover." You'll be amazed at what the world has to offer no matter if you travel 5 minutes outside your town or on the other side of the world. Take some time for yourself and get out there!

Exam Week & Alumni Ball

After Hawaii, there was one study day followed by two exam days. The last thing I had on my mind was studying though! My Global Studies class was the only one that had an exam and that was over before we even got to Hawaii. So my exam week was exam-less. So nice! I tried to get as much sun and relaxation in as I could, but it proved harder than I thought. There was so much to think about, see and do before the week ended. I spent much of the time getting pictures and videos from friends and from the public drive in the IT lab where we could post pictures for the entire community to share. Another day was called Re-entry day in which we went to a bunch of little panels and seminars on re-entry into the United States as well as reverse culture shock. I think the best advice we were given was to continue to explore. We may not be able to travel the globe now, but there are cool places and things to see right around all of our towns. America has a ton to offer us! Another great piece of advice was to jump back into school and get involved again. This will help us take our minds off traveling and being at sea. Many kids said they have started to work in their school's study abroad office in order to live vicariously through other students.

I really do think I'm going to go through an adjustment after having been at sea for so long. Even while in Hawaii and having my phone with me, I realized that I really don't like phones so much. It takes work to keep up with it! I'm so used to being cut off from the world and socializing face to face with people rather than through technology....I think I like it better that way....you get to know and understand people better when you can actually sit down and talk with them for hours on end.

The night of the last exam day was Alumni Ball. This is the dinner where everyone gets dressed up, there is a champagne toast, dinner, and dessert, dancing, etc. To begin the night there was a showing of the voyage slideshow which was incredible. Brittany App, our photographer, did an incredible job with pictures. She's awesome! The slideshow was so well done and emotional and exciting all wrapped up into one amazing memory. There was also a musical performance. After that was pictures with Captain Jeremy followed by dinner with a champagne toast. Dinner was bread, spring rolls, broccoli cheddar soup, caesar salad and filet. Desserts were AMAZING. There was cake, pastries, jello, and so much more. It all looked really cool. Dancing was on the seventh pool deck with lights and music and basically a club scene. It was a super great night to wrap up our exam week and begin to look forward to coming home.

Mahalo Hawaii!

Thanks Hawaii! What an awesome way to re-enter the United States! The night before we arrived in Hilo, we had pre-port as always. But this time it was so much different because we were actually entering back into the United States. During preport they said something along the lines of welcome back to the USA where you can eat the food, drink the water, and where the taxi drivers still don't speak English! They also said, Hawaii uses the United States dollar where the conversion rate is 1:1. We all thought it was funny considering the past three and a half months our main concerns are, can we eat the food without Pepto Bismol, drink the water, and how rich will we feel?!

 

We got into the Hilo harbor around 8AM on Sunday morning. It really reminded me of Ghana but just a little more civilized. Brittany, Stephani and I decided that we would end up spending just as much on taxi's as we would if we rented a car. We decided that would be fun and would give us more freedom. There was a shuttle to Hilo International Airport which took us to the Avis rental cars. We decided that it would be a blast if we got a Jeep Wrangler to drive around the island in. So we got hooked up with a Jeep, a Garmin GPS, three backpacks full of overnight clothes, and a set of scanned pages from The Rough Guide Hawaii travel book with the awful map that SAS provided us and instructions not to drive on Saddle Road which crosses the island. We headed out, SOuth to Puna to try and find a beach because we originally thought Kona would be too far as it's on the west coast. As we headed further and further South, the rain kept getting harder and harder. So we made an immediate decision to go to Kona. ROAD TRIP!!! We were PUMPED!

 

We backtracked through Hilo, passing good old American restaurants and of course a Wal-Mart. Ahhhh it's good to be "home." As we headed north through Hilo we started seeing signs of sun. We stoped at a scenic point to look at the view and "go topless" as Jeep fanatics say. So we found the instructions to put the top down, put on some sunscreen and continued on our trip to Kona with no real destination in mind other than a beach. The sights were beautiful and breathtaking. When I went to the Bahamas I thought the ocean was blue, but the Hawaiian water's definitely one up'ed the Bahamas. It was picture perfect. The radio was blaring, the sun was shining, our hair was crazy in the wind and we were just so excited to have so much freedom in a place where we could finally get out and about with no restrictions. As we continued northwest across the island aloing Hawaii Belt Road we went through a few small towns which were all so tropical and laid back. Everyone waved to us using the hang loose sign. It was awesome! We finally got hungry and decided to stop in a random shopping center which had a KTA grocery store where we could get some snacks. We decided to get pizza at this italian place. I got a "Big Island" pizza which was amazing! I love pineapple on ANYTHING! It was SO nice to be able to drink the water that they poured for us. The sun made us really thirsty. After chilling out there for a while we went to the grocery store. WHOA. Culture shock like non other. There's so much food and it all looks so good! I wanted to buy the whole store!!! We managed to get out of there with a bag of chips, two gatorades, and some cookies. Pretty good!

 

We continued our way west to the coast. The roads were fairly curvy as we winded our way around the hills that were at one point probably volcanoes. We could see the coast in the distance but no beaches. There was a ton of lava rock all around us and people took shells and white sand to write on the rocks, almost like a Hawaiian form of grafitti. We saw one that said SAS. We finally made it to the coast and passed a ton of resort entrances. We decided to drive through the resort. Wow....so pretty. The golf courses looked absolutely amazing and well kept. I wanted to play SO bad. I could smell the golf course....mmm! We couldn't manage to get to the beaches from the resort area but I'm sure there was a way somehow. So we decided to put "White Sand Beach" into the GPS which was on our map. Ready....GO! This sounds like a great beach! Along the way we passed a Target! So tempting to stop! As we continued our drive through tiny little neighborhoods, and past hotels we finally came to the beach. Except there was a patch of sand about as big as a king sized bed, and the rest was lava rock. The beach was surrounded by houses and looked like just a little local's beach. But we decided to give it a shot. We staked out our spot and chilled out, enjoying our snacks. There were a ton of body boarders catching waves into the cove. I thought we were going to witness one of them hit their head on the rocks...they were so close EVERY time! We were there for a while and watched as the sun began to set. While we were there we decided we probably should say in Kona that night at a cheap hotel. It was too late to drive the two hour drive back to Hilo. So Brittany ended up somehow calling Hotels.com. They hooked us up with a $97/night hotel called Kona Seaside Hotel. We weren't expecting much but were actually pleasantly surprised!

 

We got there and found out we had breakfast at a nearby restaurant included, there was a pool, shops, and restaurants within walking distance as well as a small beach. That night after showering, the three of us went to Splasher's Grill which was nearby. Brittany got her first legal drink in the U.S, Steph got a drink and I got a virgin daquiri (The drinking age should really be 18!!). We ended up going to sleep really early that night. We woke up at 7 the next morning and got breakfast at this place which had a view of the ocean. It was an indoor/outdoor kinda place and it was so yummy! I had a half a papaya with yogurt and granola on it along with passion orange juice which was AMAZING! They also had coconut syrup for pancakes which was super good! After breakfast we looked at the little shops around. We decided to just hang out by the pool for the first half of the day and then we'd have to head back to the ship. The pool was very nice!

 

We left Kona at noon and headed back to Hilo. We took a different route which took us more through the mountains and countryside. I had no idea Hawaii had rural parts but it really does! We saw some cows, cactus, little farms and lots of rock! It was sunny the whole drive back. We were kind of worried about gas since there weren't many along the way but we made it back to Hilo with plenty. We decided to go to Ken's Diner before returning the car. It's won a bunch of Reader's Choice Awards and some other awards. It was really good anda  great local treat. I had the strangest sandwich I have EVER eaten. It had teriyaki chicken, a pineapple ring, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and mayo on it. Really weird but surprisingly good! Lot's of SAS'ers were there. After that we dropped the car off at the rental plae, so excited that we were all great drivers after 3 and a half months. We didn't have any problems at all! We took the shuttle back to the ship where we were told that it was our last time we'd be swiping into the ship and having our bags searched. WOW! Where does time go?! It was bittersweet to see "Next Port of Call - San Diego" written on our info board.

 

We had a yummy barbeque dinner and "Last port" party last night. Only 5 more days until San Diego. Hawaii was the perfect place to end this trip. The relaxing atmosphere and ability to feel so free made it awesome. I'll definitely be back to Hawaii some day. One night wasn't enough and I'd love to see more of those resorts in Kona : )

 

In the words of Jock Jams "America, are you ready??"

 

We're coming home!!!!

Land Ho!

After being at sea for 11 days we FINALLY saw land yesterday! We stopped in Honolulu, Hawaii from 2 to 8PM to refuel and go through United States immigration. It was so weird to go through immigration and greet U.S. officials. As I handed over my passport, they said "Welcome Home." It was really emotional for some reason and made the end of the voyage such a reality. I think it's really neat that they say that! Honolulu was beautiful! Hot and sunny. A hotel near the port was setting up some live music for some function so we were able to eat outside for dinner with some live music and watch the sunset which was awesome! Now that we're in the U.S my phone works. It's been great getting back in touch with everyone. It's really weird to have a phone again! Overnight, we traveled up the Hawaiian islands to Hilo. This morning I woke up around 8AM just as we were pulling into the harbor. The port area reminds me a lot of the port in Ghana, just a little more civilized and less sketchy. It's fairly industrial and the airport is literally a half mile away. Today we're planning on renting a car and traveling down the coast to Puna which should be a little less rainy and cloudy than Hilo, which is known as one of the rainiest cities in the U.S. Finding a beach is top on the list. More to come later but so far Hawaii is beautiful!

The Fruit War

5:25 (5 minutes before dinner begins)

 

"There are APPLES tonight!"
"NO WAY"

"How many are there?"
"Should we go sneak some now?"

"Nah there will be enough"

"Yeah right....remember that night we had oranges...naked girl snatched them all!"

10 minutes later....

"THEY'RE GONE!....Who the hell took that many apples?!"

....and then the rumors fly..."I heard we ran out of apples until San Diego!"

 

This is the dialogue that begins almost every meal. Fruit has turned into a drug. Who can get the most, the fastest, and by talking to which waiter can they sneak us more. We literally turn into savages as soon as the trays hiding the fruit from our reach, are taken down and the fruits are subjected to the hungry hands grabbing and snatching at the fruit as if they'll never have another apple again.We glare at each other as we make eye-contact with an aquaintance who has turned into an enemy in the battle for fruit. Little kids are shoved out of the way as the college students lunge for the bowl and pile their arms high with apples, oranges, grapes, peaches and bananas. You would think they were giving away free beer. The waiters yell out to "use the tongs." But we don't care about sanitation. It's nothing but hands dodging in and out of that fruit bowl as quickly as possible.

 

Just two nights ago, it was as if I was watching an animal stalking it's prey. We were sitting at dinner having a nice conversation, when out of the corner of her eye, Kerry spotted the goods.

"They're putting out more oranges!!!!!"

And within seconds I saw her practically climb across the table and sprint across the dining hall as she met one of the waiters at the fruit bowl, who was coming from the complete opposite side of the room where the kitchen is situated. She came back smiling as though she'd won the lottery, with an orange for each of us, plus one to hoard in her room's fridge for a future snack.

 

Sometimes before dinner, when we're feeling really ballsy, we have a lookout and a snatcher. One person makes sure the waiters, students, faculty or staff aren't in sight, while the snatcher reaches around the tray blocking the fruit and grabs as much fruit as quickly as possible and then runs back to the table and puts them into backpacks to distribute to our friends during dinner.

 

It's crazy to witness but so much fun to be a part of at the same time. Everyone knows that there is a war for fruit and it's just a matter of who can move the quickest in order to get your hands on a delicious apple.

 

A little tip: forget the tongs.

Hi from the Pacific!

Chris says that I must not be a fan of blogging on the ship....I guess that's true! I just don't really think about it or feel like I have anything to report about ship life. So this one's for you Chris!

 

WOW. So we're in the PACIFIC OCEAN! I've never seen the Pacific before. That seems funny to say considering I could have said something similar during every minute of this trip! "I've never seen....the Bahamas, Dominica, Ghana, South Africa, Mauritius, India, Singapore, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, or (insert anything here!) before." It's certainly been an incredible journey....one that I would never have expected to have in a million years.

 

There have been times (especially in the past few days) when I'm wandering about the ship, and I get this thought in my head: "Is this real life? Am I really on a ship, studying, and sailing my way around the world?" And then I pause and think to myself..."This is ridiculously AWESOME!!"

 

We were told that in order to take full advantage of these last two weeks, we need to continue to live in the present. Thoughts of home, what I'm going to eat, do, and see are all trickling into my daydreams. There are times when I wish more than anything that we were skipping Hawaii and going to San Diego. Not to hate on Hawaii or sound snobbish but I mean Hawaii...really? After all these cool places we have been, do we REALLY need to stop in Hawaii for an overnight? And other times I am STOKED to be going to Hawaii because I never want to leave this ship! Some days I wish that all my friends and family could just fit in my pocket so I could just keep going 'round and 'round the world. Maybe I should consider Cruiseship Management as a career....nah just kidding...but I sure can see how some of our crew members get hooked on this kind of lifestyle. (Though I'm sure it's a little bit different for them!)

 

So the other day I decided to start writing down the foods that I would like to eat when I get home. Lately, conversations have revolved around the last day on the ship, and what food we will eat as soon as we get off the ship. Here's a little snippet of my list:

 

FOOD!!!!!

Chipotle

Lucky Charms/Reese’s

2% milk and chocolate milk

Pork chops with garlic

Flank Steak

Salad with hidden valley ranch

Burgers

Corn on the Cob

Sour cream and onion/ salt and vinegar/ original Lays

White Cheddar popcorn

Mashed potatoes AND gravy

Mexican chicken

White chicken chili

Tortilla soup

Grapes/apples (Pink Lady) /peaches/ cutie Clementine’s

Snap peas and garlic

Boneless chicken breasts with white rice or light and fluffy noodles

Chips and guac

Nachos with queso

Cream cheese & Hormel chili dip

 

As you can see the majority of it revolves around snacks....I really miss snacks. Though if they had free snacks on this ship....I'm pretty sure I would have gained even more weight than I already have. I guess that's why they sell butterless, saltless popcorn...mmm.

 

Finals week on this ship is SO much different than at any land campus. First of all, I only have one exam. Yeah....really stoked about that one! I have final projects in all my other classes. All of my work is due before Hawaii, which means after Hawaii, I am HOME FREE! Wooo hooo! But I can't get too excited....this week is going to be rough!

 

Lets see what else....I guess I should avoid the elephant in the room and talk about roommate situations. Yeah....so I have never had huge roommate problems before. I consider myself to be a fairly easy going kind of person to live with. I mean that's just my opinion anyways! So when I started on this trip, I found out I was living in a quad. This means that when you look into our room it looks like a double. There's a little secret door that opens up into another room that is the same size as the double. So it's fairly spacious compared to the other economy cabins! I definitely lucked out. For the most part, the roommate situation has been fine. We certainly aren't the best of friends but all four of us do chat once in a while and are courteous to each other. About half way through the voyage my roommate found friends who decided that their room made them homesick. So they've more or less been hanging out in our room when the seas are rough. For the past month this has become frequent and they have started hanging out in our room ALL day AND night. It's gotten a little ridiculous to the point where I can't get to my bed, closet, or go to sleep at 1AM because there's a party happening 5 feet from me. So I finally got sick of it and said something the other day. Not much progress has been made but I hope to get it resolved in the coming days. Everyone needs their personal space. I only can deal with sleeping in the same room with so many people! Plus....it IS a fire hazard and against policy to have more people living in your room than is allowed. We'll see how it turns out.

 

Not too much else is going on. I'm just trying to keep myself in the present and enjoy these last few weeks of the most incredible adventure of my life. It's hard to live in the present when you know that home is just around the corner. I can't wait to pull into port in San Diego and see Chris standing in the crowd. It's going to be bittersweet for SURE. I'm thinking that tears are definitely going to happen considering I well up even thinking about leaving all these friendships behind. I shouldn't think about it like that. The memories we have made as friends and the experiences I have pushed myself through as an individual have been exciting, heartwarming, challenging, overwhelming but most importantly have shown me that the opportunities life presents are limitless. This trip has made me hungry to explore our world even more. Somehow I think, this is only the beginning! : )

 

 

 

 

 

Keelung, Taiwan

                Taiwan was short and sweet. I still wish we had been able to go to Japan but I guess there was nothing that could have changed that. It just seemed weird to be in such a small port after China. Plus the fact that we had to backtrack to go to Taiwan didn’t seem logical. Anyways, we made the most of it! We got to Taiwan late Sunday night (April 3^rd). We actually went through immigration that night so that we could clear the ship early in the morning.  The entire ship figured out that there was free wifi from the port on Sunday so much of the night was spent connecting to the 21^st century and getting in contact with everyone!

                Monday morning the ship cleared around 9:30 AM. It was pouring outside and really cold. We were expecting sub-tropical weather! Kerry, Brittany and I had a trip that left at 1:30. It was a city orientation of Taipei and then Mongolian barbeque for dinner. There were only five students on the trip and about 15 life long learners. It ended up being a really great trip and we had fun hanging out with the adults. The first stop was the 101 building. This is the tallest building in Asia and the second tallest in the world. The bottom floors are a shopping mall and the rest of the floors are for businesses. The elevator in the building is the fastest one in the world. It takes 37 seconds to go up to the 89^th floor. The elevator is really cool because it shows you what floor you are passing and how fast it’s going. When you get to the top, you can see a really neat view of Taipei. When we were there though, it was super cloudy so we couldn’t see anything. Our next stop was this building that their old president built for himself when he died. There we were able to see the changing of the guards which is very similar to the one at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The guards stand so still that they look like statues. Our next stop was the Museum of National History. By that time it was dinner time. We drove to the Mongolian Barbeque restaurant which was AWESOME! It was really cool because it reminded me a lot of stir fry at my school. You got a bowl, vegetables, meat, and then could put on sauces. They cooked it in front of you and then gave it to you. I had two of them and they were so good. We were having a great time talking to the life long learners and staff about SAS. Al who is in charge of discipline was at our table and talking to us about discipline. We also talked about our experiences in Vietnam and how we all (students) didn’t know much about the Vietnam war. The life long learners were telling us all about lotto numbers and draft dodgers. At the end of our dinner as we were getting ready to leave, we saw this rat climb down from the ceiling and scurry across the floor. It was a HUGE rat and not a restaurant you would expect to have rodents running around. I guess it just adds to the experience! After dinner we went to the Taipei night market. This market was known for their snake wine, snake blood, and dishes. They had these huge snakes in tanks that were dead and people would eat them. It was disgusting. We saw some cute little puppies for sale that we all fell in love with and wanted to take home. After that we wanted something sweet to eat so we found a little stand that was selling homemade donuts. They weren’t as sweet as American donuts so I really liked them! We also got some caramelized sugared strawberries on a stick that were the juiciest yummiest strawberries I’ve ever had! SO GOOD. We got back to the ship around 11 that night.

                Tuesday we got up early and took the subway to the National Palace Museum which is supposedly one of the best museums in the world. It had many different exhibits of Chinese calligraphy. It was interesting but probably would have been better if I knew Chinese! There were some outdoor gardens there too which were beautiful. Next we took a taxi to the Museum of Fine Art. Kerry has a family friend who paints and he supposedly had artwork there. We tried to find it but no one could speak English. At one point some random British lady came up to me and asked if I was interested in religion or art. Considering we were at the art museum….I said art. It was a very random occurrence! After, we went back to the 101 building to check out the mall which ended up being way too expensive for any of us. So we checked out the food court which was AMAZING. They had Coldstone, McDonalds, Burger King, Auntie Annes, and sooo many other things. It was delicious.

                Monday, Brittany and I explored Keelung. We found this temple which we thought was going to be very cool but ended up being touristy and really weird. It was like a combination tourist attraction, kiddie-park, and temple all combined. It was fun to explore the city though. We also did some shopping and got a few snacks as well as tried to find a Taiwanese flag for me, with no luck. We ran into this French bakery which had delicious samples of their bread. It was so good. We got back to the ship a little early in time for a nap before dinner. The ship left for Hawaii at 8:30.

                It’s really weird to think that Taiwan was our last international port. It’s weird to look back at the first day I boarded the ship when I didn’t know a single person and now I am literally with my friends all day whether we are on ship or in port. It’s crazy how fast friendships formed on this trip and how awesome they have become.  I know it’s not the end but it feels like it’s coming up so fast. I’ve enjoyed myself so much on this trip and have not only learned about the world but about what I can handle myself as well. It’s really been eye-opening! Arriving in San Diego is definitely going to be bittersweet.