Sea Olympics- Feb 3, 2011.

After 6 straight days of classes and nothing but ocean, we were finally given a day off. Again, they called it reading day. They really need to change the name, no one reads on reading day. It should be called pool day. Today was different than most reading days though, it was the Sea Olympics! The entire ship is broken up into 10 different “seas.” Each hall way is a different sea. I am in the Caribbean Sea, and our color is orange. The night before the Sea Olympics, we had the opening ceremonies. This was where we all presented our chants and banners, and wore our colors. Dr. Bill gave one of his inspiring and funny speeches, about how we would all lose, but at least we would lose together. And that the winners… well they were the loners. The Union was so loud all night, with everyone screaming their chants. Each sea went separately, but by the end of the night, everyone was screaming together.
There were a lot of really clever chants, and a few that were seriously lacking. One of the favorites was the “Sea Salt’s” chant. The Sea Salts are the life long learners, and their color is white. The joke that had been passed around the ship all day about them being called “The Dead Sea” was put to shame when they got up and danced to Thriller, the oldest man being Michael Jackson with his silver glove! They followed their chant with their banner that said “Age ain’t nothing but a number, kiddo!” After the opening ceremonies and the normal nightly festivities, Gina, Idin and I came back and watched a few episodes of Entourage before bed. (This has become a nightly habit for the three of us. Something doesn’t feel right if we miss a night! hahah)
Because there were no classes the next day, Gina and I slept in until about 11:30. When we woke up, we got some last minute homework done, put on our colors, and went up to the 7th deck to watch the first event of the day: synchronized swimming. We got up there a bit early, so we had front row seats on the pool deck. I took some awesome photographs and videos of each team. Everyone was really good and funny, but I have to say my favorite was the Baltic Sea. This is Idin’s hall, and of course he was on the swimming team! It was Idin and 5 other guys, all in extremely tight spandex or leggings. One of the guys was wearing a long black wig with cheetah print leggings, two of the guys were wearing very… interesting leggings, one guy was wearing my spandex shorts, a girls sweater, and a headband, and Idin was wearing tight denim looking leggings. They “danced” to songs such as “Baby I like it,” that Brian McKnight song that goes “one… you’re like a dream come true, two… just wanna be with you” etc. and the Lion King songs. They were absolutely hilarious, everyone’s favorite for sure. Unfortunately, they went over the allotted time so they were disqualified.
After the synchronized swimming, I walked around with some friends watching some of the other competitions going on, before I had to compete in a relay race. Sadly, my team lost the race. We were really good, but the other team was REALLY fast! Unfortunately, I had to take about an hour break from all the fun because I still had to fill out all my immigration forms. They gave us two days to do it, but of course I left it until the last minute and it took forever! As the day wound down, we had a barbeque on the 6th and 7th deck outside, and talked for a few hours until it got dark. Finally, at 9:00, we had closing ceremonies. The Red Sea ended up winning, followed by the Agean and the Baltic. The Carribbean (my sea) came in 4th my one point! The winner’s not only get to brag for the rest of the voyage, but they will be the first sea let off the ship in San Diego! The rest of us have to wait. I’m actually kind of glad we didn’t win. I mean, it would have been amazing to win! But now I get more time to spend on the ship with my friends! After a long day of sun and fun, I watched some Entourage and went to bed! Three more days at sea until Ghana!

Watching volleyball

Baltic Sea boys

Sea Salts

My roommate, Gina and I.

Last Day in Brazil

Day Five (last day in Brazil):
        Gina and I discovered that we had black out shades the night before, and we didn’t set an alarm, so we woke up to phone call from Idin at noon! The three of us got ready really fast and went out to explore the city one last time before leaving Brazil. I bought the one thing I am attempting to collect, a flag. We went grocery shopping as well, trying to stock up on snacks because  we have 9 days at sea and who knows what kind of food they will have in Ghana! On ship time was 3:00pm, so we got back to the ship at 2 and shared stories and pictures with all our friends for the rest of the day.
        Brazil is an amazing country. Completely different worlds between Manaus and Sao Paulo, and it was fun to experience a little of both! This is not the last time I will see Brazil, but maybe for a few years! It was a tearful goodbye, as I suspect it will be with every port. 

Now that I’ve bored you to death, go enjoy the snow for me! It’s hot out here in the middle of the ocean!

Day three and four.

Day three/four:

        We woke up around 1:00 and got ready for the day. Caue’s mom, Solange, made us Brazil’s typical dish: Feijoada. We ate a ton of it, and relaxed for a little while. It rained for most of the afternoon, so we stayed in with Caue and his family. Luma, his sister, taught us how to make brigadeiro… the most delicious chocolate desert. Later, Luma and her boyfriend Renato took us to eat ice cream. We tried some strange flavors. Alexa had corn flavored… that was the most interesting! On our way back to Caue’s, this guy heard us speaking English and was like “Americans?!?!” His name was Brent and he was studying abroad in Sao Paulo. He happened to live right next door to Caue, so we made plans to meet up at the Pub on their street a little later. We ended up hanging out with him that night and the whole next day.
        That night, we got all dressed up and went to this amazing place called Skye Bar. It is a rooftop bar with a 360 degree view of the city. It was very “posh” as Renata says. (yes, by now you’ve realized that there are a million Renato’s and one Renata, it’s hard to keep up, I know! Hahah) So we were up there, drinking our $26R coctails, pretending to have money, when we heard and saw two American guys. One of them looked a little familiar, but I always see people that I think look like someone else so I didn’t think anything of it. I was having a conversation with someone else at the time, So Alexa went up and started talking to them.  About 10 minutes later, I went over and introduced myself. Rian and Alex were their names, and they were from Baltimore. We talked for a while when I asked what they were doing in Brazil. They said they were in a band playing a few shows in Sao Paulo. “Anyone I would know?” I asked.  “Uhm… maybe…” Rian said. “Well what’s your name?” “All Time Low.”
        Let’s just say that I kept my cool on the outside, but was FREAKING out on the inside. Caue and I had just been listening to them before going out that night! What are the chances! I have loved them for a while… and to meet them randomly on a rooftop in Brazil… CRAZY. So we hung out with them for a while, and a few more of the band members came up and introduced themselves. Later on, we went back to our group and silently freaked out. After about 5 minutes, I realized that the lead singer, Alex Gaskarth (whom I’ve been in love with for years. I’m determined to marry him… I promise haha) was sitting directly across from me. He was talking to people, so I didn’t want to bother him. Brent finally talked me into going up to him at the end of the night, and I had an awesome conversation with him! He was really interested in SAS and just really sweet overall. He kissed me on the cheek twice (we were in Brazil, that’s what you do! Haha) and we said our goodbyes!
        So overall, it was an amazing amazing night!  We headed back at around 2, and just talked for a few hours before going to sleep. The next morning, Babi (another Brazilian friend) was going to take us around the city because Caue had to work again. So we said our goodbye’s to Caue, which is always really hard for me, and then explored the city with Babi and Brent. We shopped around, got lunch at the city market, and then headed back to pack up and get to the airport.
        Interesting fun fact about Sau Paulo: Not everyone can drive every day. If your lisence plate ends with a certain number, you can’t drive past a certain time on a certain day. This day happened to be the day that Solange (Caue’s mom) couldn’t drive. So we said our goodbyes at the apartment and took a very expensive cab ride all the way to the airport. We met a few other SAS kids coming back from Rio at the airport, so one of the guys, Adam, got a cab back to the ship with us so we weren’t two girls traveling alone at night through Manaus! It helped with the cab cost too! Alexa and I scratched the idea of going out with everyone on the last night in Manaus because we were so exhausted and it was pretty late.  I went back to the cabin and waited for Gina to get back from Rio to hear all her stories, and then we went to sleep finally!

Sao Paulo and Manaus, Brazil. January 23- 27. DAY ONE and TWO.

I’ve been getting all kinds of emails from home telling me to write more on my blog. Keeping up a blog is a lot harder than I thought! I have to balance my journal, blog, and emails (all very repetitive) with school work (lots of it) and having a social life! You’d think this would be easy… I live on a ship, what else is there to do? But no, it’s a huge challenge! I’ll write all about Brazil in one huge post, so get ready to spend some time reading!

Day one/two (they blend… no sleep):

After 1000 miles and three days on the Amazon River, we finally reached Manaus, Brazil! Once again, I was woken up by an earthquake in my cabin. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the feeling and sound of the engine turning on and off. Good thing it only happens when we pull into or away from port! The talk around the ship is that SAS has us port on Sunday’s for a reason. So far, the first day in every port (all two… hahah) is a Sunday, so nothing is ever open when we arrive! People say that it’s because they don’t want us going wild the first night, which makes sense… but so far the club owners have opened up especially for us.
I was only in Manaus for that first day, so I didn’t do much research on it. For all I knew it could have been a little grass hut village in the middle of the rainforest. To my surprise, it was a pretty decent city. Like I said before, everything was closed, so there wasn’t much to do. A group of about 15 of us planned to just explore for the day. The one thing we all really wanted to see was the meeting of the waters. We found a man that would take us there, so we piled into three cabs and headed out to the waterfront. Manaus was a bit difficult to get around because very few people speak English. We managed though, it’s amazing how much you can accomplish even with the language barrier. We got to the waterfront and paid 40 real to take a boat out to the meeting of the waters. It was interesting, but I’m not sure I would go see it again. We made our way back to land and found three cabs to bring us back to the center of the city. Rolando, Jojo, Idin and I decided to break away from the group because it was getting too complicated to make sure all 15 of us were still there. Everyone started splitting off after that too. We found a street that had been turned into a giant market. Finally, something that wasn’t shut down! We walked around looking at everything and finally came across a stand that had food. We were so hungry, and ate so much. It was 8 real for all the food you could fit on your plate. It was probably the best lunch I have ever had. Rice, black beans, beef, sausage, and fresh fruit juice.
After lunch and walking around a bit more, we ran into a few Brazilian guys on the side of the street making hand made crafts. One of them made me a beautiful blue wire ring. He put it on my finger and said “Aceito” (marry me) I laughed and kindly declined (but kept the ring! Haha). We stayed and talked to a few of them for a little while, and they were happy to practice their English! After a while, we headed back towards the ship. On the way back, we saw the most beautiful little girl waving to us. We went to say hi to her and her mother, and her mother saw that we had cameras and told us it was ok to take her picture. The little girl posed with her hands on her hips and smiled for us all. She wanted to take a picture with Idin, so I got one of the two of them, and she smiled so big when she saw it. When I showed pictures of her to friends on the ship, they fell in love immediately!
That night, Alexa and I made our way to the airport… we had a flight to Sao Paulo! Our plane was delayed and didn’t take off until around 12:30 or 1:00, and we were so exhausted. Thankfully, the plane was not full so we could have whole rows to ourselves to lie down and sleep. We made a friend on the plane, Renam. He was so cute, giggling every time he spoke English because he wasn’t sure if he was right. He was going to Rio to study for his master’s degree.  When we got off the plane at about 6 am, we said goodbye to Renam and wished him luck, and then met Caue and his mom! Caue is one of my best friends, and is from Sau Paulo, so we were going to stay with him for a few days.
When we got to Caue’s house, we took a nap while he went to work. We slept for a few hours, and then Renato and Lilian came to pick us up! I met them the last time I was in Brazil, they are two of Caue’s good friends that I have since become friends with. They took us around the city, first to buy Havaianas! We walked around for a while and then went to Renato’s place, so we could see the view from his 19th floor balcony. I had only seen it at night time, so this was a cool new view for me as well as Alexa! We then went to a really nice outdoor restaurant to eat Acai! This stuff is sooooo delicious.  We then went to Ibirapuera Park, the cities biggest and nicest park. We walked around and took some pictures there before heading back to Caue’s apartment. Caue got home soon after and we had dinner and drank Caue’s dad’s caipirinhas. He makes the best. Caue had a bunch of friends come over to hang out, and we eventually made our way to a club called Clash and danced the night away. We came back at about 5 in the morning and slept well into the next day!

January 21, 2011. Amazon, Birthday, Brazil!

We crossed the equator today while traveling down the Amazon River. I’m sitting in the Garden lounge on the 6^th deck looking out the window and I can see the shore and villages or farms or something along the shore line. The water is very muddy but the shore is very green. I had no idea what to expect when sailing down the Amazon river, so this neither met my expectations, or failed to meet them.

In other news, today is my 20^th birthday! Last night, at midnight, Idin and Francisco busted into my room singing happy birthday making a huge scene. I’m pretty sure my entire sea (hall) knows it’s my birthday now! There isn’t a whole lot you can do on a ship when it comes to celebrating birthdays, but I’m more excited for this one than any previous birthdays. I get to be trapped on a ship with my amazing friends all day every day. Tonight, I am having dinner downstairs with about 20 of my favorite people on the ship so far. My mom and dad ordered me a birthday cake, and emailed me this morning saying “I’m so sorry I got the smallest size, how was I supposed to know that you’d have so many friends by now?!” hahah I’m still making new friends every single day on this ship, and I absolutely love it. It’s strange being away from Bri on our birthday though! Bri is one of my best friends from home, and it’s her 20^th birthday today too! For the past 5 years, we have celebrated together with all our friends. It’s weird that the only thing I can do is email a big “Happy Birthday” to her. I think I’m going to go make

a sign and take a pic on the Amazon. Bri- if you are reading this, I’m about to wish you a happy birthday from the Amazon river… but you wont see it until I’m at Cauê’s.

Tonight is the first open mic night on the ship, and I could not be any more excited! Open mic’s are my favorite thing to go to. I don’t perform anything, but I have such a huge appreciation for talent and the confidence to show it off. I can’t wait to see who will do what tonight!

Alright, I’m off to read some more before class… did I mention that there is A LOT of reading to be done on this ship? I’m not to thrilled so far. I love to read, but not when someone else tells me what to read. We’ll be in Brazil the day after tomorrow… well I guess we already are in Brazil, but we’ll be in port the day after tomorrow! Off to see Cauê when I get there! It is almost exactly a year since I was there with him last! I can’t wait! I’ll keep you updated on Brazil when the time comes!

When we entered the Amazon River

My birthday dinner! (missing a few)

Mardy! My favorite 5th deck busboy.

Ship Life So far

Life on this ship is actually way cooler than I thought it would be. I thought it would be boring, with not much to do, but that is not the case. Because we don’t have internet or tv or phone or anything, we are forced to make our own fun. I love this. Some times I’ll just hang out and talk at the piano bar, or I love spending time out on the 7th deck by the pool. I meet the coolest people by just walking around talking to people. I have class every day until 13:30, and then I have the rest of the day I have free to do whatever. I have homework, but not a ton yet. A lot of reading to do though! The water has been pretty rough today and last night, and a lot of people are pretty sea sick. I am one of the few lucky ones who don’t get sea sick one bit. Things were flying across rooms last night it was so crazy, and I was just fine. It rocked me to sleep like a little baby. I love it! It’s funny to watch people walk though, everyone looks extremely drunk.
        Yesterday when people were starting to get back onto the ship, a lot of people were pretty intoxicated, so I couldn’t tell if they were walking like that because of the ship rocking or because of the rum. Hahaha So I was sitting in the piano bar with Kayla and this guy walked up and asked if we minded if he played the piano for a little while. I couldn’t tell if he was serious, or if he was just going to go bang on some keys.  We told him that of course we didn’t mind. He went over to the piano and Kayla and I continued our conversation. To our surpise, this kid is like freaking MOZART. Most incredible piano playing I have ever heard. I turned around and just stared for like ten minutes. I was legit melting.  When he was done playing, he came over and sat down with us. He introduced himself and asked where we were from. CRAZY STORY: we go to school like 5 mins away from each other. His name is Hasan and he is the most amazing piano player I have ever heard.
        I love moments like these,  meeting such interesting people just because no one knows anyone so everyone is so open. Ok, dinner time! Email me to keep in touch: lcsutherland@semesteratsea.net

Dominica January 16 and 17, 2011.

At 7:00 on the first morning that we were in Dominica, my room started rumbling like it always does when the engine turns on or off. I’m in the back of the ship, so I’m pretty close to the engine. I jumped out of bed (well, ok I stumbled) to look out the window. Outside, there was the most beautiful, lush, green mountainous island. It was raining when I looked out, but I didn’t even care. Once I got up to the garden lounge to have breakfast, it had stopped raining. I was meeting with a group of 30 other students who all singed up for this tour (Bumpiing tour) that Tram set up for us, and handed off to Jojo when she left. When we walked off the ship and down the stairs to the dock, it really hit me. This is happening. This is my life right now. Most of the time, I feel like I am in one big dream… but it’s really happening. So when we get down to the dock, I stopped and stared for a few minutes. This island is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I couldn’t have even imagined something so amazing. The way the sun makes all the green shine with the water from the rain or waterfalls is incredible. It’s almost magical how beautiful this island looks. We met our tour guides right at the port, Levi and Gary. Right away, they were so friendly and I could tell it was going to be a fun day. Kayla and I sat in the front of the van with our driver, Gary, and the whole van was singing along to Bob Marley. Driving through the mountains to Titou Gorge was so amazing. I took video for a little while of driving and singing, but my camera died. I’m going to steal Francisco’s photos of the whole trip because he had an underwater camera and he got some incredible photos when we were swimming through the gorge. Titou Gorge is where parts of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed, and it was the most spectacular place. We all swam through it and got to the end where there was a waterfall that you could climb up (with someone pulling you up because the current was pretty strong) and then once you got above it, you were in another pool of water above your head. We hung out up there and took some pictures, and then one by one jumped off the waterfall back down into the gorge. Someone actually took a picture of my tattoo that says “Jump first, fear later.” How fitting! So after Titou Gorge, Gary and Levi took us to Trafalgar falls. They are twin waterfalls up in the mountains with hot springs around the base. We were all making our way through the string of hot springs, when Gary asked for the adventurous people to follow him. He told us we were going to make our way up to the actual base of the larger waterfall to swim in it’s pool. To get up there, you have to scramble over boulders, rocks, and streams, and it’s all really steep and slippery. In between all the larger rocks were those smaller rocks that hurt your feet. We were all barefoot and in our bathing suits, so needless to say I have some battle wounds. I felt like a monkey trying to get up and over all those rocks. Once we got up though, it was the most breath taking view and feeling. I felt like I was inside a movie. The only way I can think to describe it so you can picture it is like Pandora (from Avatar). It was so lush and green and tropical… with the sun catching the mist from the waterfall just right and everything was glistening. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life.  Coming down from those rocks… that is a whole different story.
        We explored the island some more with Gary and Levi, and then before they took us back to the ship, they made a detour and took us to this place where you could look out over the entire city and ocean. It was sunset, and so amazing. We all took a bunch of pictures, and at that moment I was almost glad I didn’t have my camera. When I have my camera, sometimes I forget to see things with my own eyes. It was refreshing to really take in the beauty of this whole day. Gary dropped us off at the ship and gave us his number in case we wanted him to take us out that night. We all ended up going to this bar called JR’s or JD’s or something like that, and it was SO crowded and you had to wait in line for like an hour just to get one tiny drink, so all the taxi drivers told us that Crazy Coconuts (or Club 91) opened up just for us. There was a mad dash to get there. Idin and I lost part of our group in the rush, so we ended up taking a cab by ourselves and then met up with everyone at the club. We all had an awesome night, I met so many new people and got to hang out with people I had talked to previously.  We ended up seeing Gary there, and he offered to take us back to the ship when ever we were ready. He stayed sober all night so that he could drive us back. It never ceases to amaze me how friendly all the people that I have met so far can be. We danced the night away and then ended up going back to the ship.
        The next day, we went to find an internet café to try and upload some pictures. Then for the rest of the day, we just wandered around the island shopping around in some little markets and got lunch at this place called “The Garage.” We waited about an hour or more for our food, so by the time it came we all devoured it! On ship time was 6pm, so we all went back at around 3 or 4 and then relaxed and watched the sunset from the ship. I got some amazing pictures of the island at sunset, and looking through them I am constantly asking: “is this really my life?”