The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land, it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land - G.K. Chesterton

One of the first things someone said about Brazil occurred when we were crossing the street; “When was the last time a car stopped for us?” Ghana definitely didn’t.  In Cape Town it depended where you were.  Only if you were on a resort area in Mauritius.  No go in India. Not a chance in hell in Ho Chi Minh. China didn’t slow down. Japan did. Japan about 11 or so weeks ago seems to be the answer. So going to a place where people stop at traffic lights? Going to be weird. I’m not even sure which side of the road is the right side to drive on anymore.

Bargaining too. When’s the last time I accepted something at the price it was first offered? From taxi’s to clothing prices, if you didn’t get the price at least a third of the way down you were being cheated, except in Japan those 11 plus weeks ago. I’m not sure I can walk into a store and except something at full price anymore. To actually know the real cost of stuff too; for it not to be in terms of ren, doug, real, rand, rupees, cds, yuan? I’m not sure I want to pay the real price if I actually know what something costs and I don’t even have to option to bargain. And wow that’s a lot of denominations that start with r.   And really now, the US has the most boring looking money.

And the internet. Throughout this voyage, 109 days, I have been on the internet for 21 hours and 50 minutes. Not even a full day. That’s No YouTube. Barely any Facebook. It’s mostly from figuring stuff out for the ports ahead. Making sure everything is good for registering for classes in the real world. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with free accessible internet. Or phones. I haven’t heard it ring in months, nor could I tell you what the ringtone is. Texting is going to be completely foreign.

It’s all so weird. It was weird to swipe onto the ship for the last time. It’s going to be weird to go to sleep at night and not have rocking. It’s weird to think that there are people here that I might not see again. Weirdness all around. Weirdness that I don’t want to think about.

There are about 580 students on this ship and there are still people I’m meeting after almost four months. It’s great. The overall student population is beyond words to describe. It has been a blast to travel with them all. I made sure that every port I traveled with someone I had never traveled with and I think it was one of the best decisions I could have ever made. It leads to so many different experiences and you connect places and people. I’m not going to be able to separate the two. And I wouldn’t want to.  I wandered through foreign cities with all of them; some things planned others not so much. And it was magnificent. I’m so glad I got the chance to know them.

Far beyond that are the people you connect to in places. Connect in spite of boundaries and barriers, whether lingual, socio-economic, racial or imaginary. Toothbrush people, who you’re never going to meet again, I wonder if I made as big an impression of them as they did on me. Some of them I still keep in contact with, and others I couldn’t tell you their name. But I can picture their faces and the conversation. You take in so much and there’s so little time. You’re always moving. There’s not enough time.

In a day I get to step onto US soil. I haven’t been in New York since the 13^th of January. I get to see everyone and see what I’ve missed.  To be in one place for more than a week. I don’t know what that is going to be like. I don’t know if any of us want to reintegrate back into the US. It’s the end of something that I’m not sure I want to end. I’m going to miss this. But our stories aren’t over yet.

 

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed my rambles and photos. I’ll see you all soon.

Brazil Photo's

Travel is more than seeing the sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living - Miriam Beard

Brazil:

Brazil was the final stop, it seemed so far away in the beginning yet here it was in a blink of an eye.  No one ever expected that we’d make it here.

Day 1:

          I decided to head to a park with a group to hang out and play Frisbee.  We headed to the upper city by way off the elevator that connects the port lower city area with the upper. From there we explored the upper city for a bit; we saw the filming of a music video for the world cup! (later we found out SASer ended up being part to the video. They spent the whole day dancing) From there we left and went past the elevators again to find an actually park – on the way we stopped for lunch in one of the small local places. I have to say, Brazil has been one of the hardest places to communicate. People can use Spanish if it’s broken slowly but overall it’s hard. And it’s weird that after going around the world I expect communication to come easily, that English should be the linga franca of the world. I guess even after four months of travel I still got some arrogance to shed. From lunch it started to pour so we decided to head out anyway. It’s so much fun to walk in a new city in the rain. Just makes it that much more of an adventure. It cleared up; we found a park and got to play our Frisbee. From there we grabbed some food at a local grocery store while it started to rain again. We started to walk back to the historical section and tried to go a different way than we had before but at one point we were told to turn back, that it wasn’t safe. It was done using hang gestures which made it seem more sincere. So went journeyed on the way we came as the rain came down for a fourth time. When we reached to upper city the rain had stopped, and we started to see the SASers that we had avoided all day.  And we started to hear about the muggings that had happened. Apparently in that first day 20 mugging had happened to people on the ship. Some stories got around fast; the fact that a necklace that had been in someone’s family for generations was gone, down to the usually cameras and watches. Later people who used a certain ATM found that their information stolen. After hearing the warnings for every country no one was expecting Brazil to be different, we handed it like we always did. After surviving a South African night we thought we could handle Brazil during daylight.

Day 2:

          I did my first service trip this morning; we went to a school in the Calabar community, where we went to a community run school.  We got to see how the school survives and got to see the kids learn caporia. I even got to try and do some with them which was fun. Caporia is this martial art that is associated with the African slaves. It was their was of learning to fight, when unwanted people would walk by the music would change and it would become a dance until that person left. We spent a lot of time playing; I was involved in a card game that involved matching suits. I was told when to put my card down and when I had to take something. The card game deteriorated when the kids discovered cameras and it was just as well.   The school went up to 5 grade and from there the kids would be sent to one of the public schools. They also don’t have that many kids; there isn’t enough teachers to enroll them all. That afternoon I spent at a market in the lower city. It was fun to bargain, especial now that bargaining days are numbered.

Day 3:

          The other service trip was to a kindergarten in another low-income community. Here the grades ranged from 1 up to 3^rd graders. Here we did a lot of exchanging songs. They’d do the alphabet in Portuguese and we’d respond in English.  It was a game to see if you could recognize the tune rather than the words. Then I found bubble solution and become a pretty popular person. The bubbles were a big hit form the older ones to the babies. It was great. That afternoon I headed to the beach about 15 minutes away. It was a really nice beach with restaurants across the way and great water temperature. The beach is divided into sections with each section having a guy where you can get drinks, he even comes around and will wet your feet, it is really fun. The water was amazing, and there was a group of three guys doing insane flips. It the end I think we decided they were Brazil’s men’s gymnastics team – because if I was them I would totally go a practice on the beach.  We also ran into a student from the university there, one who had been to the US and was pretty fluent.  He talked to us for awhile and told us about this jazz concert the next day that was two real to get into. After a few hours we headed back to the ship where we ended up crashing for the night.

Day 4:

          Today we made our way to a sea turtle reserve about and hour and a half outside the city. We got on this bus – it was like a couch bus that stops along the main highway until it reached our destination. We got there and discovered a beachy resort place that was just beautiful.  We grabbed some food and made our way to the turtles which was pretty awesome. After a few hours we headed back. This time in a van – very reminiscing of a tro-tro who said he would take us directly back to the ship for a little less than the bus ticket and the taxi from the station would coast. So we went and got there in quite the time. We got dinner and then made out way to the Modern Art Museum where the jazz concert was. The music was great, it was outside so you could see the stars and hear the ocean. We ran into our Brazilian friends. It is definitely how I’m going to remember Brazil, and I could think of no better way to spend my last night in port.

Day 5:

          Not only the last day in Brazil, but the last day of the last port. 4 of us decided to just enjoy it, and to do so we ended up at a Brazilian meat restaurant – the specific name for it is escaping me at the moment. We got there a few hours before it was open and just wandered around the beach area until we were good to go. Its one of those places with the cards, where green means you are ready for more and red means you need a break. I can’t say that it beat Kobe beef, but it was a pretty close thing. We stayed at the place for 3 hours, enjoying our final meal before our last stretch of ship food. It’s weird how content I was for that to be my final day – but I didn’t need to do much. We went back to one of the markets before going back to the ship – where we swiped in for one last time.  

I still haven't been everywhere but it's on my list - Susan Sontag

Gogniat Travel Tips:

 

1. Never let you age get larger than the number of countries you have explored.

 

2. Keep your feet on the ground.

 

3. It's all about the people.

 

4. The more you know, the more interesting it is.

 

5. Sit on a park bench for an hour.

 

6. Take time to smell the roses.

 

7. Meet people with a simile.

 

8. "Dip a postcard in the country" and mail it home.

 

9. Listen with you ears and your heart.

 

10. From travel, learn and practice humility.

The use of travel is to regulate imagination by reality and instead of thinking about how things may be, to see them as they are - Samuel Johnson

Ghana!

          By far the most hot and humid place we’ve been on this voyage. You would step outside and then 5 minutes later be sweaty. Other than the heat Ghana was pretty cool, lots of cool people and a very different atmosphere.

Day 1:

          The one problem about Ghana is that we dock in Tema, which is about a 45 minute drive away from Accra, the main city. The ship provided shuttles, but they weren’t very timely and could only fit so many people. But once you got where you were going it was great. One of my friends knew people who were study abroad at the University of Ghana, so we met up with her and she showed us around. Well first we ate at a Portuguese fast food place near the bus that had air conditioning and then we were off. (Side note: A chicken sandwich with pineapple has become one of my favorite sandwiches. I had one in South Africa too) She took us by trotro to the university where we got to see her room and walk around. (The van thing that I ended up in in South Africa was a trotro, or the South African version of it. Except in South Africa the van only seated 14. Here it’s 20 or more). After we headed back to Oxford Street, probably one of the main touristy places in Accra. Though it really wasn’t that touristy. We grabbed milkshakes at this place called Frankies and then wandered the vendors. When we were by one of the music places we started to talked to some of the vendors, mainly a young guy named Joseph and before we knew it they were putting on an impromptu concert for us. It was great. The group of us then headed off to find food, which we found at this place right near the bus stop where a man name Lawrence was serving us burgers without the burger, which was pretty good. So ends day one.

 

Day 2:

          So it took two hours for the shuttle to show up. But it was ok, because I made friends with 2 police officers and 1 security officer at the port waiting for it. Ghanains are pretty cool people to talk to, and here I definitely knew it wasn’t because they wanted me to buy anything. There were a few cultural miscommunications which was weird- for once we were both speaking the same language and there are still some confusion. Or maybe I attribute more errors to language barriers in other places than I should have.  Anyway today after trekking it into Ghana we met up with the Brooke again, the study abroad student, and she took us this huge market where there were a huge amount of locals. Again we went by trotro, which makes any experience much more fun. We also got to try this frozen yogurt thing in a bag. You just rip off one end and you’re good to go. They do the same with the water here, they’re sold in bags. They do also sell coconuts fresh, like they did in Vietnam. We spent most of the morning in the market before heading back to the university again where we go to eat for 50 cents in the cafeteria.  From there we headed back to Oxford Street where we wandered through the vendors till we decided to start the journey back to the ship.

 

Day 3:

          Today I went on a trip to a village about an hour and a half outside of Accra.  When we got to the village we participated in a naming ceremony where we were given African names. They would call you up tell you two names, one is based on the day you were born on and I have no idea how they decided on the second. You would be give a bracelet and a pot with your new name on it and could shake the hands of the village elders. Of course this whole ceremony was distracted from when kids started to play with all of us. We got to walk around the village and see how people make the pots and cloths with traditional methods. We learned that the village was mainly a fishing village and if you want to make money you have to go to the city which is where you see people from the villages selling things on the highway and the streets. After we left we headed to these hills where we hiked up into a cave where people used to live before colonialism and it was beautiful. That is if you ignored the bats and bees. It was great to get out of Accra for a bit.

Day 4:

          We went into Tema, the port city for a bit before heading into Accra again. Today was really about getting last minutes things done, buying gift if you hadn’t already at the markets and getting in real food before making your way back to the ship. One of the coolest things we saw in the markets was this table decorated with all these beads for the world cup. It had all of the flags of the participating countries and was just beyond epic.  The highlight was running into James again. He was this vendor who made bracelets; he came in to the city when he had time off from his other job. I met him the first day when one of my other friends started to talk to him. He made me a bracelet the first day and I ended up giving it away to one of the kids in the village so I asked him when I was waiting for a ride back to make me another. I think he has been one of the coolest people I’ve met.  His whole theory was about how you have to humble yourself before others, that’s how you learn.

 

And that was my Ghana. Sorry it took so long to get up. Things are going by so quickly it’s hard to keep track. On that note it is the 101^st day of the 101^st voyage of semester at sea with a week to follow. Things are coming to an end really fast. Next port is America, that in itself feels weird.

Ghana Photo's

Ship Rooms Photo's