Salvador Brazil!

Feb 20th, 2007

**Beginning note, I hope you have a lot of time on your hands because this blog is about 8 pages long in Word… Sorry… I just have a lot to tell all of you! 7 days is a LONG time!***

Wow.. well hello everyone! Sorry about my 7 day hiatus ! I’ve been a VERY busy girl on the ship and then in Brazil! Things are of course AMAZING here! I am definitely feeling myself as it changes, though I don’t know how exactly I am changing, but I can feel my perspective getting altered. I don’t know if that makes sense- but I’m surprised at how different I already feel, I can’t imagine after all 11 ports! Well I guess I should go through my week since I’m sure that’s what you are DYING to hear about J

V-Day! Valentines was quite interesting on the ship. First Christina and I woke up at 6am so we could both post on our blogs without getting interrupted or slowed down by the rush of people who usually are utilizing the internet. After quickly getting online, we went back to bed and naturally woke up JUST in time for Global Studies! In global studies by professor for Energy/Technology (Rocky) started doing Magic in order to capture our attention and it definitely worked. He is an excellent teacher- definitely one of my favorites. Anyways, we were discussing the environmental issues going on in Brazil. For example it is the leader of “saving the planet” It already has switched all new vehicles to flexi gas- meaning it can take oil (like we do) or it can take alcohol (which is produced in its Sugar cane plantations or some can even take natural gas. Oh, not only is methanol (the alcohol for you non-science people) saving the planet because it doesn’t produce have the C2 that oil does, but it is also way cheaper! Imagine that? Its also cheaper in the US- but it is not widely available at the moment and so people like my professor buy straight from the manufacturers. Anyways, after Global Studies I went back to the room and showered and changed into my cute outfit for v-day (the red outfit above) and then went to lunch with Christina. After lunch I hung around the deck- reading for my classes, etc. Then I had energy, technology and society which was another amazing class. Rocky is definitely a bit dramatic but he sets the scene and tells the “story” really well. Very entertaining and eye opening. I guess this experience was one of the first. He took his blow up earth and started with “if you had just happened to pass this by on the side of the road and you stopped to take a look at it, just think- you would be amazed. Here is this round sphere that keeps spinning.” And went through this big speech about how we should treat it as such and then of course when he was done he asked who actually looked at the earth and thought that. Note: I had no idea. And of course it was pretty obvious: Every astronaut who has gone to the moon or have had the opportunity to look at earth in the big picture and especially Armstrong. Then he took the apple and his knife and started breaking down the earth for us. ¾ water, ¼ land. Of which we can only use about 1/3 of that for living on. And of that 1/3 we can only use ¼ of it to actually farm and produce goods through the land. And then started talking about how precious this land was and how all things needed one another and for example, without the rain forest, our climate will be messed up and tons of animals will go extinct. Needless to say the class was amazing and I walked away full of new perspective on our planet earth! After class I went to meet my roommate, we started to watch beat girls which was one of the girl carnival acts and fell asleep. We woke up just in time to sneak up to dinner at 7pmish. After dinner I watched the Corpse Bride and parts of City of God which attempting to write a paper. At about 9:30, we decided to head up to the party to go check it out. The back of the ship was packed with people- all drinking. The party itself was pretty disappointing. It was supposed to be an alternative activity for those who chose not to drink but there weren’t a whole lot of people there and the music was pretty lame. As I said, disappointing. So instead we got invited to go crash the Agean Sea social in the teacher’s lounge. So we went and that was a pretty good time. Hung out up there until 11:30 and headed to the back deck to see if that was still a “hopping place”. It was, but after awhile it was kind of boring watching all the people trying to hookup with each other. So the group of us: Kacy, Christina and myself decided to walk around. So we checked out all the different decks and we saw a massive amount of lights on the starboard side. We decided we must have been near Brazil’s coastline. Well the next day we found out it was just A LOT of fishing boats- how disappointing! After wandering I went to bed. Overall it was an okay Valentine’s Day- after all it could have been much worse.

Thursday, geez. What a terrible day. I woke up and went to Elements of Directing where we were doing 3 presentations. We go to the first girl’s and she has a scrapbook and all that and so the question of who was in the pictures came up. They are pictures of her and her identical twin sister doing everything together. And my response was of course “no way, I am one too!” and then the class started asking the obvious questions- where is she, etc. After they were done with her presentation by the computer lab we were moving to the piano lounge when the teacher asked me where my twin was. Now while listening to her talk about her twin, it just reminded me of ryan and so I tried to explain that he was in training for the Army and I lost it, my eyes got all red and watery. In the middle of class I just had tears running down my face and- damn. I don’t ever think I could miss that boy so much. And so my director said anytime I wanted to talk she was there and then suggested using that emotion to look at the play and even reflect on it in my journal for her class. I managed to compose my self. The class ended and I went to the union for Global Studies. Barely paid attention because my head was just swirling! After global studies I wrote a 4 page paper on the book Child of the Dark which was interesting. I hope I did well! At noon, I met the student I will be working with in planning the auditions for all of our classes. And then went to lunch and then to study. After studying for a bit I went to Critical Issues and handed in my paper. My professor was in a mood and criticized a few of the students for their view points and opinions on the favelas and the state of the poor in both brazil and the U.S. It was really disappointing because as a historian I would think he would be able to accept that not all view points are shared among everyone. After that class I went back up the deck where I started writing in my journal for directing and again cried- this time a little harder because I just want to protect Ryan and I can’t and that makes me angry, helpless and sad. I was in the middle of writing and I just happened to look up and realized that I was late to meet my extended family. Professor Weil and his wife have adopted me for the voyage as well as 7 other students. So we will be having dinner on the 25th of Feb and then definitely celebrating everyone’s birthdays and hopefully a few other family activities. After that I went to my vicarious voyager packing party and handed in my first Vicarious Voyager packet to my pre-chosen school. I’m really disappointed in that- I have 10-12th graders at a high school in Connecticut. I really wanted the middle schoolers, but what can you do? I guess its good that I don’t have to worry about content as much- age appropriate, etc. Then I went back to the room and told Christina about my terrible day and was in the middle of lamenting about it when we got a knock on our door. A woman is standing there and introduces herself as the ship’s shrink and lets me know that my mother is trying to get a hold of me because my grandfather has taken a turn for the worse. We set up a time to meet at 7:30pm so I could talk to her. When I closed the door, I almost lost it I was just like “Can anything worse happen today” Well of course it did- later on that night I got back to the room to use the bathroom and found out that “that time of the month” had come and I had completely stained my brand new khaki pants. Anyways. I had dinner and then at 7:30 I met her at Purser’s square and I got to talk to my mom. It was really hard to communicate because the line kept going out but most of all because I was trying SO hard not to cry and make it so she couldn’t understand me. As soon as I got off that phone I lost it and then explained to the executive dean and the shrink what a terrible day I had had. They explained that with my permission they would notify my RD and my Rio trip advisors just in case they needed to get in contact with me so these individuals would understand and be at my assistance. She also let me know that she was going to continue to check up on me and my roommate since we are so close that way if my behavior patterns or habits were changing she would be able to notify her just in case it was a sign of depression or anything else. Then I went to the Culture meeting in the union. It was interesting, though again most of it is a blur. Afterwards I took a shower, the shrink came to check up on me and I went to bed!

Friday I had my first Global Studies exam which by the way I did TERRIBLE on. I was a little distracted while I studied and my nerves weren’t very good. I’ll probably find out the actual grade on Thursday. After the test that kicked my butt, I went back to my room to talk to my roommate about the test and compare answers. We both had similar answers. At 11:30am we had lunch and then went to the 7th deck so I could write my letters for home which I will hopefully be sending out tomorrow. Then to Energy- again a super class with lots of eye opening facts, and once again to the deck where Christina and I talked for a good 2 hours straight and then went to dinner. During dinner, they convinced me to join their independent trip in Japan. Basically we go to Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nara and possibly Tokyo. The cost for the rooms should be about 100 dollars and then a railroad pass is about 240 in the US but supposedly cheaper in Vietnam and China. Then it was the Logistical Pre-port was a bunch of repetitive advice- don’t go out by yourself. Its dangerous, etc. Basically scared the crap out of everyone. Then the Rio trip was meeting, at the end of that I introduced myself to the trip leaders so they would know who to find incase they got the phone call. After that I went down to Katie and Kaitlynn’s room to hang out. As soon as everyone met there we headed to the 7th deck and I splurged and got cheesecake. It was soo good! Nothing to exciting, just a lot of talking about Brazil and after leaving the deck, I packed my stuff for Rio and talked with Christina for a very long time.


EL SALVADOR and RIO DE JANERIO!

Day 1 in SALVADOR- Saturday- Woke up at 5:30am to get ready for the big day of Salvador. Took a shower and all that and at 6:30 I took pictures of the port. A little grungy, and much different then I imagine. Then breakfast and back to the room to hang for a little while. When they called our sea we made our way to the Faculty Lounge to meet with Immigration, they stamped my passport and instead of giving it back as I usually would, I had to hold on to it because I was going to RIO! Then I headed down to the Union and took a seat. The US Consulate came and talked to us about Brazil- the strengths and negatives about it and how exciting it was to have SAS be here during Carnival. Then we were released and our group met on the 7th deck. After a while we decided to head to the 5th deck so we could get out and explore. The line was HUGE, but we waited anyways. When we finally go out around 11am, we headed over to the big Mercado and the elevator that would bring us to the upper level. The market was pretty neat. I hope to go back tomorrow (which would be Weds. since I’m writing this in prep of the internet café) to get a few things. Christina and a few others headed back to the ship because they had field trips for 1:30, but the rest of us went up the elevator and went towards Pelourino Square. I have a ton of pictures of the decorations and all the other crazy stuff going on. I bought ryan’s St Teresinha which I’m hoping is the Portuguese version of St Teresa, I will be double checking that tomorrow when I get online! And I bought a bunch of ribbons for bracelets. Tradition says you tie 3 knots in a ribbon on your wrist while making 3 wishes. When the bracelet wears off and finally falls off in about 3 to 4 months, your three wishes will come true. Around 2pm we went on a scavenger hunt for food. We couldn’t find a restaurant in our price range at all, so we finally were forced to stop at a Pizzaria (how disappointing) to eat because one person’s blood sugar was running pretty low and everyone was starving! I had my first Brazilian Beer- I took the paper sticker from the bottle for my scrapbook- it was EXCELLENT- I’m not a big beer person but it was pretty awesome. After finishing 2 pizzas that we didn’t actually order (we don’t think they had the ingredients for the ones we asked for) we continued to walk around. I found some Brazillian coffee (though I need to go back to buy it) and my doll for Brazil- I was hoping to find better of both in Rio. At around 4:15 we headed back to the ship because I needed to eat dinner at 5:15 to meet up with my Rio group at 6pm. At 6pm we met in the union and left for the airport. On the plane ride I sat next to an old French man and we attempted to make conversation despite the language barrier (he knew a little English, I know ZERO French) and it was awkward at times, but I’m really glad I did it. He was really nice and was there visiting a Brazilian Family for Carnival. It was pretty neat. The descending though was TERRIBLE, my head was in soo much pain it was terrible and really made me sad. Once I got to the hotel and unpacked a bit, I passed out I was exhausted!

Day 2 in RIO

Oh my God- Rio is AMAZING. Definitely an awesome place to go- It was very urban and touristy and the part that I liked best was that no one was harmed or robbed that we know of while being there in our group. So Becky (my Rio Roommate) and I woke up at 7:30 and ate breakfast at 8am with the group. Everyone’s basic feeling was to go to Ipanema Beach (as in “The girl from Ipanema”) which would have been a 15 min walk from the hotel, but because we didn’t have a lot of time- we took a cab- cost 15 reals which would be 7.50 US for all 4 of us. (actually there were 8 – but we were in 2 cabs). Ipanema was beautiful! Hilary (another new friend) and I decided we didn’t want to hang out at the beach and took off for the “ipanema fair” which is basically like a market or bazaar. We left the group around 10 and agreed to be back at quarter to 12. When we found it we went nuts! It was awesome. Of course I didn’t buy everything that I would have loved to buy- there were these gorgeous paintings of good size- I’m pretty sure that would be difficult to bring home. I ended up stopping at an atm and took out lots of money J and headed back. I bought a handmade bowl about the size of a candy dish and it has a ring of pictures- a church, a hammock all very brazillian images. I also bought 3 necklaces made of glass. They are also homemade and gorgeous. I’m very excited about getting the opportunity to wear them! And the I also found the Santa Teresinha pendant for a necklace for Ryan which I’m also VERY excited about. I just hope that it is what I’m looking for which I really don’t think it is but that would mean I have no shot of getting it. And then we quickly ran back to the beach. The beach by then was CROWDED- all we saw were the umbrellas for miles. I had no idea where we were going to find all of our friends. By pure luck we ended up finding them because they had moved to the top area. So we took taxis back to the hotel, this time it cost 10 reals. I put on more sunscreen and waited for Becky to be done showering; I readjusted my budget for Rio. The entire group met downstairs in the lobby and were bussed to this really great restaurant. I don’t have the name of it near me but it was the COOLEST place everywhere because of its eclectic decoration and the food was just awesome. The room we ate in had wooden things that looked like boots hanging everywhere from the ceiling. There was the “Last Supper” hanging on the wall and the walls were painted bright green and blue. It was just wild. The other rooms had other things hanging like lobster cages and just wild stuff. The main source of food was from a buffet which was clearly upscale, delicious and most likely expensive (we had already paid as a part of coming, the only thing we paid for was our drinks- which I had another beer which was again- excellent). So after everyone is settling in and digging away at their buffet meals, the waiters start coming around with slabs of meat to shave off and give to you. It was delicious, I don’t remember everything I ate- but it was all delicious. At the end of the meal I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and then of course germ x them and I found the coolest bathroom ever! The bathroom didn’t have tiles or wooden floors- no it had ROCKS, tiny pebbles covered the entire floor, the sinks, the top of the stalls had these candle things. I didn’t actually get to take pictures because the ladies room was soo packed, but I convinced a guy to take pictures, he included one of the men’s urinals for good measure. Regardless though- the best bathroom I think in this world. Just simply amazing. Dessert was mango pudding or something along those lines. It was pretty good but I was so stuffed I didn’t eat a whole lot of the pudding. Then back to the busses for some good ole carnival in the streets of Rio! We went to the bloco party which was pure chaos. Basically this truck with a stage on top SLOWLY makes its way down the street while thousands of people dance around it. A group of us actually made it to the front so in a strange way we were leading this crazy parade for a little while. Then since we finished early we jumped in the Ipanema water which was again- amazing. We took turns watching each other’s stuff. Becky even convinced me to go to the deep side and “ride the waves” it was crazy but good fun! We started to dry off and then we had to head back to the bus. We ran into parts of our groups, some wanted to stay at the beach and others had gotten ice cream instead of swimming. Back onto the bus and back to the hotel. Hilary and I decided we were going to find a grocery store but first I had to let Becky into our room and Hilary needed to find information out on the Samba parade. Since I was in my room I figured I would rinse my feet off so it got rid of the sand. Well I guess I was trying to get too much water out of the bottom and the shower head turned on and I was SOAKED, so I had to change and then I met her downstairs. The samba parade was 200 US dollars to get in for an okay seat. Basically it is the carnival crazy version of the ending point in the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade. They have stands that everyone sits on and the parade goes through. I passed on it because I didn’t want to ruin my budget this early in my trip- Though it would have been a cool experience, I had just as good of a time walking around Rio. The grocery store was crappy, so we decided to try again the next day and headed back. Becky and a bunch of people were going to the ATM and since I didn’t need to I stayed back. When they got back a bunch of us went to the market- I bought a bracelet and a bag to carry all of my souvenirs back to Salvador. Then we met up with more SAS people who didn’t go to the Samba and we went to some restaurant for dinner. It was terrible service, the food was okay but they gave me a plate that already had remnants of someone else’s food on it. I was disgusted. After leaving there I went to the hotel and had some milk and baileys- very disappointing but in a strange way it hit the spot. Terone, Becky and I decided to head up to our rooms and then to the pool. Becky came back to me and told me it was closed. So instead we got ready to go to bed. Terone calls and asks if we want to hang out in his room and that there were a couple people already there. I quickly took a shower, becky decided not to come and so I went down. They were drunk, maybe not wasted but definitely drunk and they were going to go out and I told them I didn’t have any money and so I couldn’t go out. They woke Becky’s butt up and told her to come down to go out too. So there was a group of 6 of us that went out. We started walking along the main street and stopped at a bar- one of the boys got me a can of beer. I think most of the rest of the night is probably another story for another day because it was just that interesting of a night. But the bottom line was that we danced a lot, drank a little (at least I only had 2 drinks! The rest of them were trashed) and 4 of them went swimming in their boxers and underwear. (I was not one of those individuals) I was watching our stuff and making sure it didn’t get wet or stolen by the half a dozen poor people laying on the beach or the prostitutes who were clearly working it. I had one of the boys walk me back to my room at 4 am. The rest stayed out until 5:30 and then crashed for 45 min before having to be up.

Day 3 in RIO
Woke up, went to breakfast for 8am and had to meet the group downstairs at 8:20. We got into our jeeps to head up to the Christ Redeemer statue. It was pretty amazing. The ride itself was a neat experience and then to see this massive statue was really awesome too. The statue is the equivalent to our Statue of Liberty and it was pretty neat. Other then seeing it, I can’t remember anything anyone else would care to know. That and I’m getting rushed on time. Anyways, back to the jeeps and back to the hotel to check out and then a big group of us headed to some restaurant. Lunch was alright. Not exactly great- another buffet- pay according to weight. After that I headed to the grocery store with Hilary and another Jennifer. I bought a lot of stuff, oh and Bob- if you are reading this- I found you your first Pez- written in Portuguese! It has the coolest pez candy wrappings ever! Hilary and I decided to stop at the bazaar outside the hotel to pick up some Rio postcards. As a group we went to Sugar Loaf mountain which was pretty neat. We had to take cable cars up the mountain which was scary! But the mountain itself was neat. For all of you Football lovers Tony Gonzalez (I have no idea who this is but all the guys knew) and his girl were there, about to take a helicopter ride. After this exciting adventure the bus voted to go to the local mall- which turned out to be a bad idea because its Carnival and everything was closed but the food court. After sitting around for an hour and a half we headed to the airport. I tried to sleep on the ride back but I just couldn’t do it. When I got back to the ship- I had another disaster to deal with. My light was leaking in my cabin. I let purser’s desk know and they sent someone to fix it. It took 2 hours. After it was finally fixed around 1:30am I had to unpack and shower and get to bed which took another hour and a half. I was EXHAUSTED- happy and thankful, but very tired. J

Day 4 in SALVADOR/ITAPARICA ISLAND.

I woke up at 7:34 and had to be upstairs in the union for ten of 8. I RUSHED through getting dressed, grabbed a breakfast bar and headed up. We had to walk along the pier to get to our boat that was going to take us to 2 islands. I don’t actually know the first island’s name, but it was a secluded beach, the only people there had private boats, lived on the island or were selling stuff- bracelets, etc. Leslie and I set up our towels and sat down and this native guy comes up and starts telling me about how I’m beautiful and that he loves my green eyes and so he loves me. He spoke very little English, but we managed to communicate through English, Spanish and a little bit of Portuguese. He gave Leslie and I bracelets and rings because he liked us. The gist of the conversation was that he wanted to come home with me and I laughed and said no and he wanted to know why and I started listing the reasons and he didn’t understand me so I had to simplify it. I drew a ship in the sand and a world and tried to say I wasn’t going home that I was going around the world and he wasn’t allowed to come. Then he asked if I was married and had a ring and I tried to explain although I wasn’t married I had a boy I was interested in back home and he didn’t understand that, and so I told him it was complicated and he didn’t understand that so I gave up. And he kept letting me know that he could carry me into the water and I was like.. uh no thanks! It was…well... interesting to say the least. Leslie was laughing the entire time. And she took pictures so she could show our friends back on the ship what a catch he was. lol and so then I could show all my Mohegan Sun friends so then they can make fun of me some more J its alright, I love you guys anyways! He finally went away and so I moved to sit in a chair while Emily and Leslie went into the water. The Capoeria dancers came to perform for us, and of course asked for money. I went into the water and then we packed up and left. Another 2 hour ride and we were at the Itaparica Island where we had a buffet lunch that was surprisingly good. I tried the coconut dessert and the banana dessert. Neither looked appetizing and after eating it I decided they were definitely acquired tastes and that I would need to be force fed it for awhile before I would willing eat a bunch of it. Then Leslie, Emily and I walked around the historical area- I have pictures of the “fountain of youth” and some really cool buildings and fences and then we completed our walk with some “agua de coco” or coconut water. That was again an acquired taste, and definitely worth the 50 cents (US) that I paid for it because I can at least say I drank some of it and took pictures with it. Then we headed for the boat to take us back. Another 2 hour boat ride to get back but this time the water was gorgeous it was this turquoise color. It was in that moment that I realized that designing for the stage completely changed how I look at things. Not only do I appreciate things for their beauty but I’ve been taking a lot of architecture and detailed photos of things I like- the fish gate or the star window cutouts as well as interesting layouts and now I had the opportunity to take a picture of a beautiful color. And so that is included in this blog as well. So Bob- as if my email didn’t say it enough, here is proof that the theatre classes have changed my life J Another fact I probably wouldn’t have known if I didn’t go on this trip. Towards the end of the boat ride I took some pictures of our ship, as you can see since they are included in this as well. The night was pretty boring- just dinner, cleaned up my room and started writing this and finally went to bed around 10:15pm. I decided against going out because I was already exhausted from the past few days and judging from what last week of classes was like, I probably won’t have time to catch up and so I chose sleep over one last night in Carnival. I got sunburned really bad on my left shoulder/back area despite putting on sunscreen several time- I must have missed that area at some point? I just don’t understand how it managed to get as bad as it did. But I didn’t feel it until after I had showered which was really weird. So I put on a pound of aloe last night and kept reapplying while writing this.

Day 5 in SALVADOR

So let me just say this, last night was the worst night ever. I woke up several times in the night- 11:30, 1:30, and at around 2:30/3am the drunk people that had gone out for Carnival came back and were running and banging on EVERY door in my hall and scared the shit out of me. They continued for a good 15 min before my exhaustion took over and I fell back asleep. At 4 am I woke up and I couldn’t move. Not like I was paralyzed, like I must have gotten really hot while sleeping and my aloe fused my skin to the sheets. I was hysterical- Christina is in Rio so I have no one in my room with me, I couldn’t move and peeling my skin off hurt so much. I finally (somehow) managed to get myself free and went into the bathroom. It looked terrible. I sobbed (because of course I’m exhausted beyond belief and add on the pain- it just wasn’t a good combination). I put more aloe on because I thought more moisture might be what my skin needed. And then I went to bed on my stomach and then I had a fitful sleep because I constantly woke up in fear that I was fused to my bed again (only slightly once) but I had to keep making sure I was on my stomach. When I woke up this morning it looked like my burn had gone away I was shocked. But then I rinsed off because it was all peely looking and the red instantly came back. So I’ve already put aloe on twice this morning and I’m about to do it a third time, exciting right? I already had breakfast and now I’m about to save this to my flash drive and Leslie, Emily and I are heading into town to do some last minute shopping, go to an internet café and pick up a few phone cards because I’m dying to talk to Ryan and let him know that I love him and miss him dearly. And since I doubt he reads this- please let him know that I dedicated almost this entire entry to him and I don’t like this not being able to hear from him or know what he is doing. And last but not least I hate the fact that I am extremely helpless in the middle of the ocean and not being able to help him. And then hopefully come back for lunch and pick up Christina (I’m dying to tell her about my amazing few days! And tell her about how she isn’t allowed to leave me again because when she is gone I have the wackiest experiences!) And heading back out for a few more hours until we get back onto the ship and we leave for Cape Town South Africa!! Very exciting J

I hope life back home is pretty interesting and exciting and I hope it is going well. I love and miss each one of you! But as you can tell I’m having quite the experience! I hope you enjoyed the blog and it wasn’t too detailed or planned out, I wish I could make it more story-like or thought provoking but I’m usually rushed when I’m doing this and I can’t make them eloquent!

I’ll save all of the bad stories for my next blog that way you don’t worry about me for the rest of the day! Enjoy!!

~Jennifer