I'll tell you how I (didn't) become the queen of the MV Explorer

I guess it's time for rapid fire… here comes 3 countries worth of blog posts and then some! I guess I'll start way back when…

After Ghana and before South Africa, I was CRAZY busy. We started our competitions for the sea Olympics with a pageant! It was the King and Queen of the Seas competition. Honestly, I've always wanted to do one of these and I always admire my other sisters when they do them and I finally had the stage! It had three separate parts: a kid friendly joke, a talent, and an ABC costume contest. I loved the joke portion. Until I was one of the last ones and had most of them taken. Here's a list of my amusing jokes:

            Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Britney Spears.

Britney Spears who?

Knock knock.

Who's there….?

OOPS! I did it again!

How do you get a Pikachu onto a bus?

You poke-em-on! (Pokemon!)

Why don't you ever take a shower with a pokemon?

Because you're afraid he might peek-at-chu! (Pikachu!)

What is a ­­­­­­­­­_____'s favorite song?

Dun dun dun DUN!

­­­­­­­A long joke where I have to draw a picture

another joke

 

Well, people had took my jokes and I got upset. I could only do two of them and I needed a lovely assistant so I chose one of the elder blond children, and they're honestly a great family. I like them so much! But any way…. The jokes were pretty good. I got laughs from the audience. Therefore I was happy.

So… obviously, I don't take myself all too seriously so I didn't do any of the talents that I wonderfully possess (quoting entire movies line by line, playing piano, yelling, speed reading, dancing, singing, running, cooking, sleeping, being sassy) and reworded a rap song to perform. My fellow queens did the Mathlete Rap from Mean Girls, one whipped her hair back and forth, one did a Man-di-cure (her name is A too!), and some of the kings did a ribbon dance, one played the piano, one recited poetry from the great Kanye West, and my pardner swing danced. The respective winners did improv jokes and the queen did a dance to "It's raining men!" and had shirtless guys run down the aisles. 

(Me and my homegirl DJTurnDizz Mathlete rappin)

But my rap was great. I used Garageband and edited out EVERY curse word from the beginning of I'm on a Boat (that should have been my talent…) you couldn't hear a thing! And put some different verses of The Fresh Prince theme song together.  Somehow, my music got messed up and I had to rap a capella. Glad I had practiced it with the music 26 times on iTunes in one night. So I dropped it, I kicked butt, I only messed up once at the end because I had to remember the dance move at the end. But for your reading entertainment:

            To I'm on a Boat:

Oh ship! Get your green sheets ready, we're about to make port! everybody in the place hit the deck but  stay on your toes, Med Sea runnin' this let's go!

 

               To The Fresh Prince:

Now this is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside down

and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the Queen of the MV Explorer

 

In Nassau, Bahamas we left port

With a ship full of kids, the craziest sort

Chillin out, tannin', relaxin all cool

And all spendin our days outside by the pool

 

With pasta and potatoes, the food is no good

Showerin with 2 as shellback should

The ship started to rock and we all got scared

And we were countin' down the days til the ship would be there

 

We pulled up to a dock about 7 or 8

and I yelled to the captain "Yo homes smell ya lata!"

Walk through the port, I was finally there

Sit on my throne as the Queen Extraordinaire

Well, I guess I'm pretty good. But I liked it. For the ABC portion, I was under the impression that we were a green ship and I shouldn't waste ship resources and that it was a costume contest, not an outfit. Because we were in Africa, I thought that I would go back to my roots and be a Disney character. I wrapped myself in my blanket, threw on some ears,  painted m face with lines on my forehead, and walked down the aisle to "the Circle of Life". Yes, I dressed up as Simba. I don't think anyone really appreciated it.  Some people used like 500 sheets of paper and garbage bags, I was the only one not to use that or a flag. Whatever. We then had a question and answer session where I was asked what my ideal port was. I didn't think that I could just say "Capetown" or "Beijing" so I described it and I don't think they liked my answer. Whatever, I didn't place. But it was fun and I didn't get to donate as many points as I wanted to for my sea but I met a lot of awesome people who I'm still good friends with (SUP JDAWG!) So it was great! Then CAPETOWN HAPPENED! :) yayayayayay stay tuned!

  

my king and I in our ABC costumes 

Sea Olympics!

Today is THE day! Can't wait to start my pseudo-color war! We are Mediterranean Sea! The scavenger hunt starts in exactly 3 minutes- we're going to rock this! #purplepride

More Good Times

I know I said that the 48 hours including Mauritius was the best time ever but yesterday might have topped it. I finally took my International Law and Conflict final, which has been postponed from March 8^th, and saying that, it doesn't seem like the one day mattered but it did. We were going to utilize "Mauritius Day" to study except I was too busy working on getting the sunburn of my life. Then after Mauritius for 4 hours, I decided I'd study. However, Harry Potter was more important. So I spent all day cramming on the A day before, on the 8^th (I guess. Days don't matter on here really…) and took the exam on the 9^th. I thought I did SO well on it. So hopefully when I get the grade back tomorrow it won't make me too upset. Then for lunch… TACO DAY!!!!! Although it wasn't nearly as good as the first time, it was still better than the normal mystery meat we have with meals. Somehow they still managed to input some sort of pasta into Taco Day. Only SAS… but we didn't get rice? Which would have made sense. And no Doritos either. Midterms were officially over, I watched HPCOS and went to dinner for my friend J's birthday. I really like hanging out with her and her friends! She had vanilla ice cream cake and it was like 11x9. HUGE. It ALMOST rivaled a Publix cake but not quite… Afterwards I sat with the Executive Dean, his wife, and the Assistant Dean's wife for a bit and I really enjoyed speaking with them. Even better, I was adopted into a different extended family! (both deans families offered to adopt me as well so I'm at a whopping 3 families on the ship now!) They're amazing; they have two kids: a girl, L, who is 11 and a boy, J, who is 8 or 9. Perfect ages, my favorite to work with. The parents are great and we had a movie night last night! I got to watch Rat Race again and before that, I was invited to the movie screening with the dependent children. It wasn't a good movie or anything, just Beauty and the Beast! J My FAVORITE. So that was AMAZING. And the family gave us cookies. Just all around a GREAT day. Today was pretty good too. Life is just generally good on the ship J

Mauritius or bust

4 hours in heaven, 4 hours well spent. This was the fastest port I think this program has ever done. Last night was fun, I played a little big of Egyptian Rat Race with N, S, and K and was the champion :) Glad all my years of summer camp paid off. I watched us pull in and it was interesting to see how industrial of a city Port Louis was; there were multiple skyscrapers and superstructures. Pulling in was cool, I had only seen it in the morning but night time was pretty awesome as we saw the city lit up at night. I couldn't fall asleep last night, probably because I ate so much at the BBQ I had to be rolled back here, so I think I finally fell asleep around 0200. My alarm this morning went off at 0602. I haven't been up that early since flying to the Bahamas to get down here. That was super rough. I woke up and was processed through face to face immigration by 6:45 after the line snaking from the 7th deck Glazer lounge down to our rooms on deck 3. Breakfast was good but weird because there were soooo many people up for it, I was overwhelmed at how many people wanted to steal my french toast. Speaking of, we waited in line a good 15 minutes for french toast because as every past SAS kid knows, breakfast is the tastiest meal of the day. I got off the ship with A and C and the rest of the girls werent to be found so we took a water taxi to Port Louis where NOTHING WAS OPEN. Instead of walking around the markets like we had planned, we made our way to "the closest beach", which I'm sure was farther away than the one we wanted to go to. It was fun and I went swimming in the Indian Ocean! Although I did lose my BCBG (free) sunglasses :( (But I snagged another pair on the pool deck after someone had left them behind). We barely made it back on time, getting in line at 1140 am. I, of course, was an extreme worry-wart and spoke to every dean and RD I knew asking if we'd get there in time so I wouldn't have docktime in India; we swiped in about 1154 and onship time was 1200. So happy, so amazing. I ate so much stuff on the pool deck and came back and napped because the day was more than action packed enough for me! Now we're at sea with about 5 days to go til we reach India, can't wait! Also can't believe I just "conquered" Mauritius in about 4 hours. Snaps to me.

Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Looking forward to Mauritius!

Well, angry blog posts aside, I think this might have to be the best 48 hours ever. We had finally resolved ourselves to the fact that we were not going to Mauritius and I had received a refund for my catamaran. They hosted pub night for us on the ship last night with a dance party, so obviously I had to make it my first pub night after the sorry excuse for a midterm I took yesterday (I'm sure I'm overexaggerating how bad it was but at the time, it was ROUGH.) But the dance party was SO much fun. My friend, a football player from CU, actually lifted me up as we were joke dancing to *NSYNC. Hysterical. Then I, obviously, got too hot to function so my friend S and I started dancing on the back deck with a bunch of other people. Everyone went back in to the dance floor but S and I didn't... when it started to rain! We started a rain dance party to Waka Waka (which will inevitably be the song of the voyage, reminds me of CC'10, oh shwell.) It was amazing. There was a good 1/3 of my classmates out there dancing with us. I had to hold on to the railing so I didn't fall off. After the dance party was done, I sat and spoke with M & J for a bit and came and KO'd cause I was so tired. We had a reading day to day, a Maurit-ish day (thanks Dean's Memo), and I sat out by the pool almost all day. We got brunch this morning and N and I tanned all day (I'm now a lovely bronze shade, darker than I think I've ever been in Miami...). We were getting smoothies for lunch when we heard the announcement "We are still on time to dock in Mauritius tonight at 10 pm. However, we will have a customs official come on board tomorrow morning at 6 am to do face-to-face immigration and you are all allowed off the ship for a shortened period of time tomorrow, just to touch dry land. On-ship time is 12. Do not be late." AHHHHHH WE'RE GOING TO MAURITUS! I COULDN'T BE MORE EXCITED! We passed by Reunion as we were sailing and we all went crazy. I've never seen a group of kids more excited to get news. Yayayayayyayayayay! We still have preport. Boooooooooo. BUT WE HAVE BARBEQUE FOR DINNER TOO. Once we get back on the ship at noon, we still have the full day open. Best. 48. Hours. Ever. Until it's done and I have to study for my law midterm. Great....

An extremely condensed version of Ghana days 2-5

Day two was by far my favorite day in Ghana. I had heard amazing things about Cape Coast but was unsure of how I'd be affected by it. It was well worth the 0700 leaving time. We spent three hours on a bus to Elmina, where our tour guide jabbered away the whole time. I tried to take good notes as it was an FDP but after awhile I gave up and succumbed to sleep. 

Elmina Castle was extraordinary. The architecture is outstanding and its position is gorgeous. It was hard to accept the fact that something so terrible could happen in such a place like this. Elmina Castle served as a base for West African slaves to be shipped off to the Americas and the Caribbean (as did Cape Coast). We went into the female dungeons first and we stood in the court yard where the slaves were once lined up and picked for the pleasure of the Governor. Some of my classmates were not acting to their best behavior and I was appalled. It baffled me how people could act silly and not care about the historic place they were in astounded me. We visited the "Door of No Return", where the slaves were taken to the ships to take them to the New World. We had the opportunity to enter the "Cell of No Return" and it was so eerie. Men were thrown in here who were unruly or had tried to start their own revolution and were not fed, given anything to drink, and were not allowed to have light inside, so the doors were completely lightproof. 

Thinking that these people, whom I have never met, went through such torture left an extremely solemn feeling. We stopped for lunch at the Coconut Grove Beach Resort and I almost felt like I was back in the 305! J Then we went to Cape Coast Castle, which was a much larger version of the first castle. The male dungeons had the capacity to hold 1,000 men at a time, an astounding figure. What I enjoyed about this castle was that they had the "Door of No Return", which we all went out, and as we looked back from where we came there was a sign called the "Door of Return". This castle's preservation board put this sign up to beckon to all who have descended from West Africans who were taken to return and embrace their culture. They were greeted with a sign that read "Akwaaba", the Ghanaian word for "welcome". I think that is what stuck with me the most, that there was something nice and welcoming coming out of this, to assure that the descendents can benefit from returning to the site of a tragedy and learning from it.

The next couple of days flew by, it's hard to put into words how much I loved this place. The third day we had a bit of a lazy start and made our way to Labadi/La Pleasure beach. We crammed 6 of us in a taxi and went for it. As we made our way to the beach, our cab driver warned us that it was a little unsafe and he did not feel comfortable with us leaving our belongings alone on the beach if we were to go into the water; he then offered to stay with us for the day. He sat with us at a table as we sat and watched the beach and helped us with the buyers that came around so they did not take advantage of us "Obrunis". He was an interesting fellow and after watching all the people on the beach, I'm extremely happy he stayed with us. There was a couple behind us with the most adorable child ever and after luring us in with her baby, asked us if we would like to see her gold. 1) it was fake. 2) if it WAS real, it was more than likely mined under dire circumstances. So we politely obliged. It's remarkable how each vendor can sell such similar things, just like in the Arts Centre. I know that it's like that in every port and touristy country but the amount of name bracelets, "travelers paintings", wooden bracelets, African garb, etc, that is exactly the same from person to person was astounding. It's hard  to say yes to one person and then no to the rest of the following because you've already bought it, and normally for a more expensive price.

Normal conversation

Me: No, I'm sorry, it's all beautiful but I cannot buy anything right now, I've already purchased something.

Vendor: No, no. Mine is different. I give it to you for good price. $75 cedi.

Me: Thank you, it's beautiful but no.

Vendor: Okay, $65 cedi.

Me: Thank you, it's beautiful.

Vendor: Okay how much you pay?

Me: Nothing, I'm sorry, I can't buy anything now.

Vendor: Okay, I give you 2 for $70 cedi

And it goes on until you either ignore or they get the hint

It was all kind of the same old, same old. I met a cool artist though who was a Rastafari and we bonded over travel, the beach, and Bob Marley. He took the last cedis I had for a tshirt as long as I promised to wear it around the world, which I will. Will post a picture of me in it soon!

 

Day 4 saw a bit more shopping, a bit more of the Arts Centre. We went to Global Mamas, an NGO that empowers women and gives them the tools necessary to promote economic well-being for their families. I bought quite a few headbands, aprons, etc, just because it was for a good cause. And they took American money J After Global Mamas, some man tried to trade me an "Amanda" bracelet for my black Toms I was wearing. Not the best of offers so I had to turn it down. The arts centre was just as hectic as the last time and I only went to pick up a few things. My friend, M, got ill and one of the vendors kept everyone away from us and took us around to some of the stalls where he knew we could find what we liked. That was all fine and good until he took us to his shop, where he tried to charge me $40 cedis for a postcard, a magnet the size of my thumb, and a shot glass that had a STICKER on it for the Ghanaian flag. That was out of control. I bartered it down to $30 cedi just because I felt obliged to help him out after him helping us for part of the day. Whatever. D, C, and I then tried Fufu and Banku. We were unsure of how to eat it (with our hands but HOW?!) and some Ghanaian man came over and showed us how to do it by literally shoving his hands into the fufu, and slurping it in his mouth. Three times. We all stared at each other, unsure of how to deal with this man eating our food, until we finally piped up saying we understood, thank you for showing us. He was offended that we did not want him to continue eating our fufu but he ate a good quarter of the fufu ball before we even could dig in. 

 

But geez, when we started at that, it expanded. The whole art to this is sticking your hand into this doughy substance, using your pointer and middle finger to cut a portion off and then act as a spoon to ladle into your mouth. And it was spicy. C and I were positive our lips were going to fall off and we were upset about it. We couldn't finish either dish and gave it to an adorable little boy and girl and their family just so we didn't waste it. 

 

The fifth day brought me to an FDP about Queen Mothers. This could have been extraordinarily interesting but we couldn't help but notice how extremely touristy it actually was. The queen mothers are the people who make decisions in the tribe, I think. The whole deal was that the Queen Mothers had an advocate and we did too and the advocates did the speaking, we were just there to observe. Kinda. It was cool and we got to speak to some of them after and took pictures with the younger ones. They used my big cam and took pictures and they loved seeing themselves after. The FDP ended early and we went out to find internet (hence the pictures that have been uploaded) where I got left behind by darling K. It's okay as I found D, C, J, K, and C and we all hung out before on-ship time. The security guards at the port asked if K and I were married and if D and C were married. Amuuuuusing. We walked through the port, as I had the night before, and it was interesting. However, at this point I had spent all my money and was unable to buy the bracelets I had ordered from the vendors at the dock. I felt bad about it but I had attempted to meet up with them at other points and they were never there. So I can't feel too bad about it but whatever, I'm sure they'll meet more people with the same names. 

 

So there it is: Ghana packed into a 4 page word document. I loved it. It sure was an experience and I feel as though I could happily go back. But not until I go to a few more places first! 

Mauritius? What's that?

Attention all you land-lubbers: this sailor will NOT be making port in Mauritius. I repeat. We will NOT be stopping in Mauritius. Apparently we've hit some crazy weather (as we could tell from all the rocking of the ship and me being catapulted into the air holding my dinner) but there is a cyclone or some other crazy thing going on between South Africa and Antarctica or something. I'm livid. I had a catamaran booked for literally 2 hours before getting the email that it was cancelled. My life sucks. Ghana and South Africa posts to come when I'm not freaking out about being at sea for 11 days straight.

Hit & Park

Where to even begin today AND tonight. We didn't go to the restaurant we wanted (but we went to another part of the chain). We didn't get back on the ship until 12:30am. I think I got poisoned by some noxious gases coming out of the taxi. I witnessed a drunken brawl between multiple men and got extremely nervous that i'd be roped in. I had forgotten how nice it was to have callused feet from heels/wedges. I discovered I loved South African food, or what I had eaten. I waited for a taxi for over an hour. I had to ask six times to get my face painted. I went to a township. I saw the smallest hotel (and coolest B&B ever). I saw the sassiest little girl and the cutest little boy. I witnessed kids playing with absolutely nothing and things that had been discarded by others and made them into the best toys ever. I learned that HIV and TB are not debilitating disorders. I saw Table Mountain. I saw a sea lion. I FINALLY made it to South Africa!

More to come. I promise, something you won't want to miss.