Le post duex

Hello friends and family! Sorry for the even crazier delay on updating this journal. Unfortunately I got sick as soon as I got onto the ship after Brazil so that, coupled with two exams, a presentation, and general busy-ness I’ve fallen down on the job as far as keeping this up goes. Maybe I’ll stop being so lame about it? I’d like to think yes.

Anyway! Things on the ship are still going well. Some people and I are looking at renting a villa in Mauritius (if you don’t know what/where that is, I have a link on the side-bar so you can research. Or you can just, you know, google it) so that’s exciting. The other exciting news is that WE’RE GOING TO BE OFF THE SHIP SOON! So I love everyone (or at least nearly everyone) here and the ship is great and yadda yadda yadda but seriously… being in one confined space for nine days with no TV and a progressively crappy internet connection that you have to pay for can start to make one crazy. I feel like my life has started to purely consist of eating, sleeping, reading, and going to class. I guess that just makes getting into port tomorrow all the sweeter?

But yeah, Cape Town! Tomorrow! At 6:30! Yes, it’s early but if the view is anything compared to getting into Salvador, then I think being a zombie might be worth it. Then I go shopping, go to Robben Island (woo penguins and Nelson Mandela!) and we’re probably going to a play and a bar in the evening before I venture on a safari at 4:45 in the AM. Yes, I am leaving at a weird time again and yes, I am stupid for not realizing it. Oh, me.

I guess I should actually talk about Brazil, huh? Well, I just have to say that while Salvador was nice, Rio was fantastic. But I’ll go into that later.

So the first day: I got up at 5 (ugh) to see our ship going into the port of Salvador and to see the sun rise. I got some pretty A-MAZE-ING pictures of it. The new camera is doing its job and I was thrilled by the view. The water around Salvador was very still and, as we went past the lighthouse where two of the main routes for Carnival converged, we could hear people still partying from the night before. Crazy.

Anyway, I went back to bed before we had a meeting at 8 to tell us how we should be careful because Carnival is kind of insane and people get mugged and all that noise. On that note, we left the ship and, after a few snags involving getting money exchanged, wading through the tourists from the 6 other cruise ships that had pulled in that morning as well, and finding ATMs, we were in the city.

I’m not really sure how to describe Salvador. The streets were empty and there was little noise anywhere but we figured most people were still feeling a little sore from partying all night. The main part of the city feels pretty much like any city does – cosmopolitan with lots of cars and (eventually) lots of people. We went through a fairly typical Latin American market and made our way towards the Elevator (a large set of elevators that takes you up from the new part of Salvador to the old and far more charming part of Salvador – Pelourinho).

I was beginning to feel a little off as we got off to elevators. I was understandably tired and dehydrated and the overwhelming smell of urine that seemed to pervade most of Salvador was getting to me. As we split our group up in order to wander around, I got that uh-oh feeling: the feeling that either I was going to a.) pass out or b.) throw up. Now, I pride myself on usually being able to get to a bathroom before I fall apart while sick but unfortunately now was not one of those times. Though I still feel lucky that I didn’t pass out, I’m still not entirely happy with the fact that I puked about 4 times on a street in Salvador. With tourists and a whole restaurant watching. Sad sadness.

Well, after throwing up I felt much better and we ended up getting food, which turned out to be a good call. Apparently throwing up on the street isn’t that big of a deal during Carnival (or I just looked really pathetic) because no one really seemed to care. Still, I felt like an idiot. Anyway, we wandered around for a while, shopping and seeing Pelourinho in full swing. There were some costumes but not all that much crazyness in that regard. Apparently Carnival in Salvador is directed more towards young people and is therefore more of a party scene than the Carnival in Rio which is focused on the costumes and floats and all that.

We eventually went back to the ship and got dinner before I headed out to do my “More Mellow” Carnival thing through Semester at Sea. Basically it was in Pelourinho and was more family-oriented which was fine with me, seeing as I had already gotten sick that day and had to leave early to go to Rio to boot. Pelourinho is a small part of the city, set apart and much more charming than the other parts. It has a colonial air with old architecture and nice little shops. It also has great food. So I hung out, got a churro that was probably one of the best things I have EVER TASTED, drank some Sol beer, and watched the Brazilians. It was nice and eventually I headed back. I feel kind of lame for not being crazy like most people were for Carnival but, honestly, I felt like I had a nice experience.

I then went back to the ship to try and pack and sleep for an hour before heading to Rio. Yeah, so we had to meet to leave at 2:30 in the morning. I really need to learn to read before I sign up to do things. So I met the rest of our group and headed out to the airport to start a journey that I don’t think any of us were quite expecting.

Basically we traveled from 2:30 in the morning until 12:30 in the afternoon the next day. It was long, painful, and full with juggling bad Portuguese as we tried to talk to airline officials into letting us just carry on our bags instead of either checking them or throwing all our liquids away. We also flew with an airline that has had some, uh… interesting history and got to see what it was like to take a local flight in a quasi-developing nation. As someone who hates flying, it was an experience.

Once we rolled into Rio, we went to the hotel and some of us went out to go get food. I also got to know some of the people in our group who would provide enough conversation topics for me to bond with others in my group. I won’t go into that though so, uh, just ask me when I get home why I was being all weirdly enigmatic.

Our group was fairly small (only 19 compared to the other group who went to Rio who had 40) and I ended up meeting some awesome people. Our group leader was Al, on of the assistant deans, and he and I basically are BFF now. For realsies.

Anyway, back to actual Rio. Most of us slept the rest of the day which made sense considering the fact that most of us had only gotten 5 hours of sleep in the past 72 hours. I then went to a supermarket to eat dinner with some of the girls and tried to mix with the locals. I, again, butchered Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese in my attempt to speak with people. At least I tried, I guess. As usual, people seemed amused by me when I tried to speak their language. I can never tell if it’s just because I’m awful at it or because I’m awkward about it or if it’s just funny hearing something that’s not English coming out of the mouth of someone who is so white.

The hotel we were in was in Copacabana, the rich beach front part of Rio. Rio has both an ocean and bay front and the city is broken up by a mountain range that cuts through it. This mountain range has a beautiful rain forest and is home to Christ the Redeemer. Basically, the city is absolutely gorgeous and is like nowhere I’ve ever been before. The stark contrast of the old colonial buildings against the mountains dotted with favelas – slums – creates this odd vast sense that you’re in somewhere that’s totally unique. Suffice to say I really loved it and was impressed by its beauty.

I hung out with some of the girls the first night but went to bed early since we had to get up the next morning in order to go into one of the favelas and see a social project there.

The next day we got up and traveled to the other side of the mountains. One of the things that struck me as we drove was the graffiti in Rio – it was insanely colorful and really beautiful though it could have all been nasty words as far as I would know. We eventually made it over to the favela and entered into the social project, a project promoting education by providing after school programming and giving kids a chance to better their lives. Unfortunately, since everyone was off because of Carnival being over, we didn’t get to meet any of the children. We then went to a Samba school but again met the same problem.

We then drove to Sugar Loaf mountain (this of course made me smile and tell everyone like a nerd that I live right near a Sugar Loaf mountain and blah blah Maryland blah blah) and went on a cable car ride up to the peak. We got a beautiful view of the whole city and got to see some interesting landing techniques used by pilots to land their plants in the mountainous terrain. I also saw a lizard. This obviously made me happy.

After that we went to a churrascaria restaurant where the serve a bunch of different kinds of meats, cutting them at your table for you. Brazil is supposed to be famous for it and, really, it was pretty awesome. There was also a band that came around and played for everyone, prompting a little girl to sneak into our outdoor tent and dance around. It was adorable.

We got back to the hotel and eventually made our way to a soccer or football game in one of the largest stadiums in the world, seating over 100,000 people. Even with it being so big and the fact that it was still pretty early in the season, the stadium was at least a third full and we were lucky enough to be in the cheering section. These guys where insane. They literally cheered the entire time, playing drums and flying huge flags attached to bamboo poles. I bought a jersey and tried to chant along, again butchering the Portuguese but at least glad to be able to groan and cheer with everyone else because soccer is something that spans the language barrier. I’m just sad no one screamed “GOOOOOOOOOAL!!” for an obscenely long time like I was expecting.

After that wild and crrrrazy time almost everyone decided to go to a bar mainly built to attract Americans so I decided to go back to the hotel, hopefully to get a late dinner and just relax. We ended up having an awesome time – sitting and chatting, eating some excellent pizza (seriously, it was some of the best I’ve ever had. Pizzerias are everywhere in Rio. It’s kind of weird) and ice cream sundaes. It was amazing. Sure, it started raining and, sure, the service took forever (things seemed to move a little slower than we’re used to in the States) but it was a great way to end the evening.

The next day we got into open air four-by-four jungle jeeps in order to travel up one of the mountains to see the Tijuca rainforest and the Christ the Redeemer statue. The rainforest was really cool and very, uh, rainforesty (sorry, it’s getting late and my vocabulary is going down the draaain). There were waterfalls and butterflies and gorgeous views. I got some pretty sweet pictures, I must say. Again, I wish I could post them.

So after that we traveled to Christ the Redeemer. It is a crazy statue. It was also super-crowded and, like most of the mountain tops in Rio, it gave an awesome view of the city. Just a whole panorama of clouds blanketing mountains and beaches and buildings. Amazing. The statue itself is very tall and imposing, its modern art feel blending with its religious… ness. We then traveled back down the mountains and, after a snag that I won’t go into except to say that sometimes I hate Americans, we got back into the city and our hotel. We then went to the same supermarket as before (a lot of other places to eat near us were too expensive) and got some more awesome pizza. Mmm. I also bought a buttload of candy for the ship, something which I could now kiss my past self for. Seriously, that made this trek so much more bearable.

We then went to the airport and, with our direct flight, got into Salvador significantly faster than we had left it. After getting dinner I crashed and slept, trying to get my energy up for the next morning.

The next day we went into Pelourinho to eat and shop as well as use an internet café before heading out to the market to shop some more. It was really nice and I bought some good things, luckily not buying too much more than I had budgeted for. During lunch a guy came up to our table begging for food. It was a weird experience, seeing how people reacted to it. They looked perplexed or annoyed, their unease at the situation obvious and some people complained about how they would be glad to be out of places where people beg for stuff all the time. Other people were just quiet. I feel almost lucky in a way, having had this happen to me before, having had the conflicting feelings before. I can’t help but feel for the people who are obviously disturbed by it, seeing that painful process of growing, of cracking out of that shell that left them safe from the realities that a lot of people have to deal with and feeling myself becoming re-exposed to it all over again. It’s hard and it’s sad and I think we’re all going to be reevaluating our lives after all of this.

That evening we got back to the ship to eat at the barbecue the staff threw for us and hear a local band play for us. It was really nice and we watched the sun set over the water, the city lighting up as night fell. We set off that night and soon Salvador was hundreds of miles behind us.

Since then, we’ve fallen into a sort of monotony of being on the ship. Most people will be glad to get off of here, I think. We broke it up a little with a wild animal party where we all dressed as animals the best we could and danced around as the ship tried to knock us over with its rocking. The next day was Neptune day. Basically, they wake you up at around 7 by banging cymbals together and blowing horns and banging on your doors before you go out to the pool, have what they call “fish guts” dumped on you (it was really some weird green liquid that smelled heinous) before they started shaving people’s heads. It’s all some sort of ritual to ask Poseidon to give you safe travels (or something like that) and three of my friends who are girls actually shaved their heads. No, I didn’t do it, because I’m a wimp like that. But I did get the stuff poured on my head. And I kissed a fish. A dead one. Be jealous.

So that’s about it. I’m excited for Africa tomorrow though the literature we’ve been reading and the movies we’ve been watching as a warm-up haven’t been exactly uplifting. Most people have gotten kind of depressed given a lot of the subject-matter that we’ve been going over but I think actually being in Africa will make that depression hopefully turn into an urge to act. That’s what I’m hoping for me anyway. I’ve joined the group Students of Service and am working to get charities for the ship to donate to, including working with Invisible Children and doing some micro-lending. It’s pretty cooool.

Anyway, I’ll be glad to not move for the next week. Rocking on the ship was really bad for about two days, knocking all our stuff on the floor and causing me to actually slide around in my bed. And food to slide off the tables into our laps. While I still love the ocean, I’ve had enough of it for the time being. A whole Atlantic-sized portion of it, actually.

I don’t know if this is making any sense anymore due to tiredness so I’m taking that as my cue to go to bed. I hope everyone is well. Also, if anything important happens in the news, please let me know? All I have is cnn.com and that only works a fraction of the time. Also, Heath Ledger died?!?! What? Geez.

Alright, bedtime now because of early times tomorrow. I am again not proofreading this so, uh, sorry. I love and miss you all. Really. Oh, and I hope Australia is proving to be AWESOME Anna and Melissa! I miss you both terribly and I hope the Aussies are living up to your expectations. Oh, and I hope to call you soon Ma and Pa. Love you.

-Krista

PS. You again rock if you read this whole thing. Really.