11 Highlights from 11 Days at Sea

Kelley and me with our new Japanese friend Rina

Our Captain's dinner

MIX-MATCH PARTY!!

Kevin and I on Deck 7

Suzie, Emily, and I watching us leave port

1. YOGA AT SUNSET: In an effort to make the boat feel like home, SAS offers lots of exercise classes. My friends and I have come to love doing yoga on the front of the boat. The class is always right at sunset, which makes it so pretty and peaceful. Not to mention it is quite a challenge to balance and stay centered when the boat is rocking from side to side but that makes it fun. It has also been a great way to meet new friends on the boat.
2. MIS-MATCH DANCE PARTY: Mid-week everyone was getting a little boat fever so SAS threw us a dance party in the union. The theme was miss-match clothing and everybody just put on a little of everything from their closet. It was a little cheesy and middle-schoolish, but we just had fun with it and it turned out to be a great night to laugh about.
3. FORMAL DINNER IN THE CAPTAIN’S DINING ROOM. On the ship for special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries you can make reservations for a more formal dinner in the captain’s dinning room. However, we all decided we couldn’t wait for someone’s birthday to roll around, so we decided being sick of the dining hall food was reason enough. So we all got dressed up (I think this was the first time I wore something other than sweats on this boat) and enjoyed a fancy dinner. The captain’s dining room is a small little banquet room with 5-6 tables and one large one where the captain and his crew sits. At the dinner, they serve you champagne and a delicious four-course meal. It was so good, but it made returning to the cafeteria food the next day difficult.
4. RINA, OUR JAPANESE INTER-PORT STUDENT: As a way to prepare us for the countries we are visiting, SAS brings on international students from all the countries to travel to the ports with us (i.e. Rina got on in Hawaii, but gets off in Japan) and help us learn about their culture. I was lucky enough to get to know our Japanese student, Rina. She came to all of my classes and spoke on what Japan was like and answered all of our questions. She was so nice and spoke English so well. I learned so much from her, like in Japan they never tip it is seen as rude and women never tan because to have really white skin is seen as very beautiful. Most of all though, I learned we are a lot more alike than different, we are still both college girls who like fashion, music, and to have fun.
5. SOUTH AFRICA SERVICE PROJECT: My favorite professor on this ship is my sociology teacher Toni Zimmerman. She is a professor at CSU and she is such an incredible teacher, I look forward to her class everyday. So when I heard she was getting a group together for a service project in South Africa I signed up. Basically, Toni received a donation to give to the Home from Home foundation that supports orphanages in the townships of South Africa (poor area where the blacks live). She wants SAS students to decide what to spend the money on and then spend the day at the orphanages handing out the gifts and playing with the children. I am beyond excited for this project!
6. GLOBAL STUDIES TEST: now ordinarily I would never put test on my list of highlights, but under the circumstances I thought it would be appropriate. Global Studies is the class that everybody on the ship takes. It is like a college level geography class that goes over all the countries we are going to visit on our voyage. The teacher for it is great and we have done cool things like hear a debate on China vs. the US from our visiting Chinese professor and one of our American professors (p.s. China is going to take over the world). Anyways last night was our first test and all day the captain had been warning us that we were going to be hitting bad weather, AGAIN. So sure enough we go through the worst of it right when we are all taking the test. We hit one big wave that literally knocked everyone out of their chairs and tables flipped over. It was quite a sight. I can definitely say that is the most unique test I have ever taken, got to love life on a ship.
7. TALENT SHOW: to drum up some more fun, SAS put on a talent show for us. Turns out we have quite a talented boat. I was blown away by how many people packed their guitars, flutes, and violins. We had everything from stand up comedy to blue grass bands to just people singing along to their guitar. It was surprisingly entertaining and now has made a few kids on the boat mini-celebs.
8. SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT: As you might have seen on the SAS website, the theme of our voyage is sustainability. So in addition to many seminars on global warming and overpopulation, our GS professor is having us do a project on sustainability around the world. My group is making a documentary on the sustainability efforts of every country we are visiting. I’m going to be using my Flip to get some good video for it. I’ll try and post the finished version too!
9. SUPER BOWL: Finally something American! Because we are 18 hours ahead of the US we all woke up at 8:00 a.m. Monday morning and packed the union to catch the superbowl. The captain slowed the ship way down and no one was allowed to use the internet so all the bandwave could go towards the satellite. It was a little spotty but so fun. I think we all enjoyed the commercials more than the game because we have all forgotten about American restaurants or t.v. shows! Great win by the Saints!
10. INTERNATIONAL DATELINE: We crossed the international dateline on February 3^rd and lost a whole day. It was a weird feeling going to bed on February 2^nd and waking up on February 4^th. Also our route has us gaining an hour almost every night too which has been great but so hard to constantly remember to keep turning my clock back. Consistent time is going to be such a strange thing to get use to again when I get back to the U.S.
11. JAPAN: Finally tomorrow we will be reaching Yokohama, Japan. I am so excited to see this incredible country. I am traveling with friends up to Tokyo and then back down to Kyoto and Kobe. Hopefully I will be able to find someone who speaks English : )