Cape Town 2

(Operation Hunger)


(Pre Sky Diving!)


(About to start the Table Mountain Hike)


(View of Table Mountain from the ship)

Hey all again. So it’s hard for me to blog about Cape Town because it was truly amazing. I’ve never done so much in one week. It may have been one of the best weeks of my life. I’ll do my best to document the rest of the week and try to explain why it was so truly amazing.

Before getting into the details let me reiterate how much Cape Town reminded me of being in San Francisco. The city, the wharf, the mountains all reflected pieces of my home. It was really wonderful being able to relate such a positive experience with such an important feeling of comfort for me.

Alright, after Operation Hunger, which again was really a great experience, I came back to the ship and met up with some friends. We ended up staying around the wharf area and found a fun jazz bar to spend the evening at.

I woke up early the next day to go…SKYDIVING! Four other girls and I hopped on a shuttle bus and drove to the only skydiving company in Cape Town. We split into two groups and boarded these tiny dinky planes with plastic peel up doors. We flew up to 7,500 feet and just jumped out! It was unreal. So beautiful to soar above the Cape Town coast and see the mountains and the ocean all around you. The free fall was something like 35 seconds and I loved every second of it. I have it all on video and will hopefully post it on YouTube for everyone to see. Soaring down was beautiful. All the girls had a blast and it was really a great trip.

After that we made it back to the ship and then decided to shop around downtown Cape Town. So we drove the Green Market/Long Street area and checked out a number of boutiques and the market. It was nice to see downtown during the day because I’d been so busy with other things that I hadn’t been able to just walk around and window shop. There were some really cool stores. I also got to meet some local Cape Towners which was cool and I struck up some interesting conversations. From most of my conversations, they all want to visit the United States and have generally positive feelings toward Americans. We made it back to the ship that night to have dinner on the boat and save some money. Then we went out to the Long Street area again at night and again saw about 300 SAS kids all over the street.

The next morning woke up early to go back to the shopping area with some other kids. We made it to Green Market and Long Street and walked around again during the morning. We also tried this nice Mexican Restaurant on a side street that made the most bizarre chips! We had planned to meet people back at the ship at 1 ish so we had to cut our shopping short. When I got back three other girls and I decided to do a tour of the Cape of Good Hope and the Western Cape coast. This was such a good idea! We loaded a private shuttle and drove to Boulder Beach where we saw a ton of Penguins! We also got to drive around the coast and see beautiful coastal houses, an ostrich farm, and baboons wandering in the street. It was so fun. The guys who drove us around were really cool as well (we’re facebook friends now, fyi) and they played the Celine Dion DVD show the whole time. It was hilarious.

We got back and ran into Marsh Allen, my RD and one of the coolest guys on the ship. He told us about this huge Gay Pride festival party that was going on in the Waterkant district (much like the Castro district). We knew we’d have to check it out. So the same girls got together and made to the VIP party where we danced side by side with lots of men in tight tank tops and jeans to blasting techno music. It was a lot of fun. We left a little earlier than I wanted and made it to Long street to end out the night with the same 300 SAS kids from the nights before.

The next morning a big group of girls all woke up super early so we could hike Table Mountain. Table Mountain is beautiful and insanely challenging to climb. It was by far the hardest and most rewarding hike of my life. My friend Mandy and I broke away from the group and made it up the mountain in about two hours. The last 45 minutes were especially challenging as we essentially were climbing rock stairs. Once we made it to the top we saw an amazing view of the city and the coastline and it was so worth it. We definitely took the cable car down though.

We then took a taxi back to the wharf area and Mandy and I met some other kids for a planned tour of Robben Island. Robben Island was great. It was about a forty-five minute ferry ride to the island where we had a bus tour and walking tour both provided by two ex-political-prisoners. It was touching and I definitely need to read more about the prison and about the famous prisoners.

After that we made it back to the ship in time to load up and check in.

We had to delay our departure from Cape Town because there was some intense fog preventing us from leaving.

It’s been a few days since we finally left and I’ve been catching up on sleep, work, and hanging out with people who I didn’t see while I was in port. I can’t believe how amazing Cape Town was and how unreal it is that I have so many more countries to go to! Next stop is Mauritius, don’t worry no one knows where it is. It’s an island off Madagascar. It’s supposed to have beautiful beaches, great flea markets, and amazing scuba/snorkeling and hiking. I’ll be sleeping/reading on the beach a lot and Natalie and I are planning on cooking some decent meals finally! Hopefully I’ll get some good internet time and I can finally e-mail those of you who I haven’t been able to keep in touch with very well. Again, thanks to everyone who has written e-mails, it really means a lot! I feel so out of the loop sometimes and it means a great deal to hear from you guys. I’ve got such great friends! I’ll also try to upload more pictures later. Love and miss you all,

Peace,
E

Cape Town 1

Hey Everyone,

So I’m in Cape Town, South Africa and it’s really pretty amazing. It actually strikingly resembles San Francisco, which puts me automatically in a good mood. You’ll never believe what I did today. Today I jumped the tallest bungee jump in the world (off the Bloukrans River Bridge in Plett, South Africa). I’ll get to details later, but check this out!!



Ok, so like with every port Meggie and I woke up around 5 am to watch the sunrise. Coming into Cape Town was beautiful. It was dark until like 6 unfortunately, but once it got lighter out we got to see the amazing site that is Table Mountain, a massive plateau shaped mountain that seems to be plopped right in the middle of it all (isn’t really, but coming into port it looks that way).

We pulled in to a wharf not unlike any pier on the Embarcadero and saw sea lions swimming and fishermen untying their boats and everything that just screamed San Francisco. A group of us decided to head off the ship once we were cleared by customs and find a tourist agency to book some crucial stops for our time here. We walked through the wharf area and ended up booking a trip to Robben Island to see Mandela’s prison cell and a guided township visit. In doing so I managed to also book some other little adventures that I’ll get to in the next post in the near future.

After taking care of business we walked around the pier area and shopped a little and enjoyed a nice pizza lunch, we were craving anything but peanut butter sandwiches! I left lunch and rushed back to the boat with a few others who were signed up to an FDP or Faculty Directed Practicum. FDP’s count for 20% of our grades in class and are requirements in certain ports. I will be taking care of a lot of FDP’s in Cape Town since much of the culture and cities history is relevant to my studies. For this first FDP I went to the Desmond Tutu Peace Center (or what exists as of now). It’s a building in progress that hopes to promote peace to South Africa, Africa as a whole, and internationally. About 20 of us sat in a tiny room in the building which is under construction and had a private meeting with executive for the program, Nomfundo Walaza. Walaza is a member of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) for the UN and involved in many other important organizations globally. She’s had a fascinating career as a psychologist and crisis center working and spent nearly 11 years working in various countries in Africa speaking with rape victims and helping with the healing process. The meeting lasted about 3-4 hours and we were able to ask some heavy questions. I was surprised at her abilities to answer the questions in ways I never would have assumed… needless to say I took some good notes.

After that the group traveled back to the ship where I met up with my friend Matt S. Matt and I decided beforehand that we were going to try to see a play in Cape Town and I had some other friends going that night. So we bought some tickets on our own and traveled alongside the SAS scheduled group to the Baxter Theatre. We saw, “Red George” a one-man play about apartheid. It was good, only we were pretty exhausted and there wasn’t too much action throughout the play. Regardless it was great to see the Baxter theatre which is right next to Cape Town University and to at least dabble in the South African theatre life.

We somehow pulled ourselves together and went out and met about 300 of our closest SAS friends on Lang Street (pronounced Long) where there are a number of restaurants and bars.


The next morning happened in such an amazing rush.

Matt G and I were supposed to wake up at 4 am and meet four other friends in the lobby area to head to the airport to catch a flight to George, South Africa. Once arriving in George we’d have to take a taxi two hours to the Bloukrans River Bridge, home of the highest bungy jump in the world (it holds the Guinness World Record). Conveniently Meggie had to leave at 3:45 am for her Safari trip and I expected to wake up when she woke up. Of course, I woke up at 3:45 and went right back to bed without properly setting my alarm. At 6:07 am I woke up and looked at my clock and FREAKED out. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 6:50 am and I knew the airport was about 30 minutes away. I jumped out of bed and called Matt. He was also in bed. I asked him, “Should we do this,” and without hesitation he said, “Yeah, let’s go.” So I literally chucked everything on my counter into my bag, threw on shorts and a shirt and ran out the door where I saw Matt (who lives down the hall) running towards me. Right before leaving I made calls to everyone else in our group and NO ONE answered. Very reassuring.

So Matt and I ran through the ship, down the gangway out to where the taxi men were standing. While running we were shouting, “TO AIRPORT. FAST!” and one guy started running and said, “Me. Follow Me!” As I’ve mentioned when discussing Puerto Rico and Brazil my experiences with taxis hasn’t been all that comforting. Let’s just say that this one tops the cake. We made it to the airport in 10 minutes and I was hyperventilating most of the time. Once we got there, we jumped out of the cab ran through the airport parking lot (convenient how they put the parking lot between the drop off drive through and the building!) and rushed to security. We got to security, ran to the front and tried to get through with just the printout confirmations. They weren’t having it, so we had to run from one end of the airport to the other (not that bad, it’s smaller than Madison’s airport, but still the clock was ticking!) and cut the line at the ticket booth.

As we got to the front we frantically explained our situation and on the loud speaker we hear, “Final boarding call for Gate 3, flight to George. Final Boarding call for Gate 3 flight to George.” Oh god, I thought. The man took our passports fumbled on the computer for longer than was what we wanted and eventually gave us our boarding passes. We then ran back to the other end of the airport where security was. Mind you Matt’s in flip flops and has nothing on him but his passport and camera (including no money) and I have a shoulder bag full of nothing important (i.e. a binder and three ring notebook, as well as an empty water bottle and power bar wrapper). We rush to security somehow make it through quickly and run to our gate where they wave us down and say “Hurry!” Oh, right, they want us to hurry!

So we get to the gate and find that we have to board a bus that will take us to the plane on the runway. We get on the bus and as we walk in I see our group all sitting in the corner talking about us! We rejoiced in meeting up with everyone and finally took a second to breath. Matt and I decided if we get desperate we’re going to apply for The Amazing Race on CBS. We’d kick butt!

So we flew from Cape Town to George where we met up with a scheduled shuttle bus (not part of the initial plan but SO essential! Thank you Kate and Rachele for organizing that). Nine of us boarded the shuttle bus that drove us through a number of towns that resembled the Midwestern countryside. Two hours later we made it to the Bloukrans River Bridge. Let me just say, it’s beautiful.



So we all walked over to the booking shack and signed up as a group to individually bungee jump! When signing up they offered us a deal where we could zipline to the middle of the bridge where we were meant to bungee. We decided to take it and all got strapped in to our harnesses and made our way to the bridge. We walked down this little side path trail and ended up at the zipline post. This is where I started to get a little nervous. Somehow I got over it and jumped up the platform to the zipline. It was surprisingly relaxing whizzing from one end of the bridge to the middle. It got us all a little pumped up too. Then they gave us the order for bungee jumping and Kate was first! She was a champ though, excited and ready.



The area where we jumped off the bridge was this little block probbaly 50 feet by 50 feet. There was a DJ booth (sooo necessary by the way) that would play a new song for everyone once it was their turn (mine was a techno/rap remix of "Dyin in Your Arms Tonight" - a classic, I know). And about 15 crew guys there to play jokes on us and laugh at us as we all got nervous and excited.

I was fourth up and after watching the three before me I knew I had to do this. I've wanted to bungee jump for a long time now and this was such an amazing place to do it. Frederick, the one making fun of me most of the time, strapped my ankles together and walked me to what I called "the plank". The music was bumping and frederick and one other guy held my hands out and made sure my shoes were hanging off the edge halfway. Then they speed counted from 5 down. 5, 4, 3, 2, Bungee! I jumped off and felt an amazing rush. The first three or so seconds of just realizing you jumped off a bridge feeling no resistance was unbelievable. I was shocked, excited, and scared all at once. After free falling I snapped back up and down for a little while, then rested staring at the Indian Ocean one way and a beautiful mountain landscape another. The hanging part was surprisingly relaxing and serene. The whole experience was so fun. Such a rush!

After everyone went we all boarded the shuttle bus and drove around various coastal cities. We stopped at this fantastic oyster place where Matt and I ate everything but the fish! We then drove back to the airport where most of us got out and boarded a plane back to Cape Town. Some people stayed to explore George a little more.

We came back to our ship from the Cape Town airport and decided to shop around the wharf area for a little and eat dinner at this semi-fancy restaurant near the ship. The dinner was incredible, great food! Then I called it a night having barely slept in the last two days and headed back to the ship with another girl who had to get up early for a safari.

Today I went to a township called Phillipi about 30 minutes outside Cape Town. I went on an SAS organized program with the NPO "Operation Hunger". "Operation Hunger" does a number of things for those living in township areas and today we helped weigh children to check their nutritional vitals. Malnutrition is a big problem in the townships, so we were able to speed up the process for Operation Hunger by speeding through an entire school of children. I spent most of the time playing with the kids, juggling for them, running around with them and picking them up and spinning them. It was tiring and fun and such a great interaction. We also met some High School kids and snacked on Wimpy's (a fast food chain much like in-n-out only not nearly as tasty). Since then I came back to the port and jumped on the internet to post this and some more photos (see other posts).

That's all for now, but much more lies ahead in Cape Town. I have three more days and plan to fill them up with as much activity as possible! I'll post again soon! Miss you all,

E

Ship Life 2-16-08

Hey all, it’s been a little while since I posted, and that’s been because of a few reasons. First off, the internet on the ship is agonizingly slow. So I try to spend as little time as possible on it, just out of sheer frustration. Also, I try to spend as much time as I can outside since it’s so beautiful. I haven’t spent as much time as I want, since I’ve been indoors completing school work or sleeping a lot, but I try to be outside as much as I can.


(Krystle, Ben, Blake, Me)

As for life on the ship it’s pretty simple. I wake up, go to class, eat, hang out with people, do work, workout (sometimes), sleep (most of the time), lie out, do some more work, eat, then hang out with people and then sleep. It’s a nice routine. I can’t complain. There are times when everyone gets ansy to get on land and explore and move around off the ship. But most of the time we keep ourselves occupied with each other. I’ve played more board games in the past month than in my entire life! But, everyone does it, so it’s not that lame…right? My favorites as of late are Balderdash and Apples to Apples. Mostly we play cards… get ready J… we constantly play Egyptian Rat Screw, which I always dominate (I kid you not Jeff, I have not lost a SINGLE game since being on the ship). I’m not bragging or joking. I’m dead serious. I think I’m cursed. In a good way though!)


(Group Dinner)

School is actually really good. It’s challenging for two reasons. First, it’s really hard to read when the waves are smashing against the windows of our library or Piano Lounge (where most kids do work). I have fortunately found a hidden spot on the second floor that remains pretty calm. It’s a big spot so I can spread everything out and get my work done down there. It’s also hidden from everyone, so it’s a nice little homework escape (much like the cages at Memorial, which I find myself missing in some weird way). The other reason they are challenging is because the content is new to me. Two of the courses are legal oriented. One is concerned with women’s issues from a UN perspective and revolves around the UN’s actions in the past few decades towards equality of genders. The other is an international law course on war crimes and crimes against humanity. While it’s my favorite course, and I’ve by far learned the most, it’s terribly hard. I have to read A LOT and understand a lot that I’m not usually challenged to understand. I like that though. The teacher is amazing and I hope to talk to her about connecting my interest in social justice and filmmaking, she has some contacts who produce documentaries on injustice in Africa and other areas of the world. I’m also in a fiction short-writing course, which is great because I get to practice story-telling from a new angle.


(Me and Erin)

As for other things on the ship, we just had Neptune Day, which we celebrated a little later than we were supposed to. Neptune Day is essentially the same as Navy hazing day, where when ships cross the equator they wake the g-d of the sea, Neptune. There are a number of rituals like pouring fish guts on each other and shaving heads that go on. I think 100 out of 700 people shaved their heads, 30-40 of which were girls! Crazy I know. I woke up for about 20 minutes of the festivities and then slept for the rest of the day. It was a really, really rocky day at sea and I took some pills and was knocked out all day.

We are just starting up the Sea Olympics. I should preface with the fact that my floor will undoubtedly win the Sea Olympics. I live in the “Red Sea” which is a section of the fourth floor. We have the best RD, the best kids, and are the most active on the ship. There is a noticeable difference from my sea to other seas. More on the Sea Olympics in future posts. I think I’m signed up to compete in the Flip Cup challenge (I’ll do my best to represent Wisconsin)!


(Zach, Me, Matt G, Ryan)

Lastly, I just wanted to let you know that Meggie and I want to try to make a video tour of the ship for everyone. We’re going to try to get that done before South Africa, but frankly we don’t rush things here on the MV Explorer. So keep posted for that.


(Me and Meggie)

Also, I wanted to wish a quick HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Tommy T (Feb 14th) and Jocie (Feb 16th). I wish I could be around to celebrate or at least talk to you both! Be safe and hope you have a great one!

Also, my condolences to those involved in the shooting at NIU. I wish a healthy recovery to those injured and a safe healing process for victim’s families.

Peace, E

BRAZIL

Brazil was incredible. We pulled into port to yet another beautiful sunrise. Kate, Natalie, Meggie and I went up to the seventh dock to watch the sunrise over the city of Salvador. We came in on the last day of Carnaval, which I hope most of you are familiar with.
Carnaval is a weeklong festival hosted in all the major cities of Brazil. It’s essentially a huge party where major streets are blocked off and bands play atop trucks that blast music and hundreds of thousands of people dance in the street. We came in to Salvador on the last day, which is known as the craziest and most eventful.


(Brazil Sunrise)

Right after breakfast a big group of us left the ship after a mandatory diplomatic meeting that was really useful in terms of orienting ourselves and where to be at Carnaval. Salvador has a bunch of major sections of the city that were blocked off for different types of parties. There was the Old Section that hosted kid-friendly music and was more traditional. There were a few other sections and then there was the Lighthouse area where I spent most of the night. More later.

For the daytime a bunch of us all got together and went up to the Old area. We had to take an elevator up this huge hill which was just slightly claustrophobic. Then we walked around the area and ate lunch at this great side alleyway at a little restaurant. The twelve of us took it over! It was a lot of fun and the food was awesome, but expensive unfortunately. Then we walked around the area some more and met up with other SAS kids in this major courtyard area. We basically shopped and hung out all day in that square. Then we all snacked for dinner and headed off to the Lighthouse area for Carnaval.

The lighthouse area was a long strip with loud music and millions of people. I have never been on a more crowded street with more people dancing and singing all at once in my life! It was complete insanity. Crowds of people had overtaken every possible balcony in every home and hotel on the street, hired military were in packs on every block, the sidewalks and street were completely packed wall to wall and every double-decker bus that had a band playing on top of it was packed to the brim with people. There was a group of five of us that ended up dancing down the street together. The music was mostly Brazilian and was surprisingly really good. There was also Fatboy Slim a band from the States that are alright. A lot of SAS kids paid $200 for t-shirts called known as an “abada.” They were let into roped off sections behind certain trucks, including the FatBoy Slim one. Others, including my roommate paid for a “camarote” which was the blocked off area on balconies overlooking the street. The last option was what I did, didn’t pay for anything and just walked in the streets around the roped off people and past them. All three options were worth it in some way or other. It was an insane amount of fun and I can only hope that I get a chance to go back for Carnaval again sometime in my life.

The next morning was rough since I had to meet in the Union at 6 am for my scheduled “Best of Rio” trip. We left the ship around 6:30 am and headed to the airport in Salvador. Forty of us flew to Rio and drove to hotel where we checked in and then were let free for the rest of the day. Marsh Allen (my RD) is one of the coolest people on this ship and he just happened to be the Trip Leader for my group in Rio. He was awesome and the first cool thing he did was let us room with whoever we wanted. So Kate from WASB and I picked a room which was great because the girl I was meant to room with was not on the same routine as I was. After checking in Kate and I and a few other kids on the trip decided to walk around our area. We grabbed some lunch at an all you can eat Brazilian restaurant and explored the city. We ended up finding an Irish Pub called Shenanigans, by reference of an American who’d been living in Rio de Janeiro for almost two years.

We ended up hanging out at Shenanigans for a couple hours meeting other travelers, mostly Irish and British. We also got to watch some Brazilian soccer games on TV, which was cool. We left to take naps at the hotel but never made it back to the but never made it to our room because we saw a big group in the lobby and decided to get dinner all together. We got dinner at a place near our hotel and tried some great Brazilian food. Then we got into a cab and headed to a bar we’d heard about from people on the ship. This was one of the most ridiculous cab rides of my life. We must have been in the cab for at least an hour as we got completely lost looking for the bar. We had hilarious conversations with each other and Kate attempted to speak Spanish to our driver who only knew Portuguese. So funny.

We eventually got to the bar and it was closed! Probably because it was Ash Wednesday, which somehow didn’t cross our minds till we got there. So by default we went back to Shenanigans and had a good night. We met more international people and it was a lot of fun. I bought a shirt that I thought was just a normal small t-shirt, but no, it’s a tank top barely big enough for Chelsea! It’s hilarious. Oh well.

The next morning we got up early and loaded on a big bus for a driving tour of different places in Rio. Everyone was exhausted from the past few days so we spent a lot of time laughing at how tired we were and sleeping. We saw a school community and a samba school dance area. Then we went to Sugar Loaf Mountain, which is a huge mountain on the beach in Rio shaped like a big cylinder, kind of. It was a beautiful scenic spot of Rio and was fun because we rode a couple gondolas from mountain to mountain. It was also really beautiful. After Sugar Loaf we went to this massive restaurant for another all you can eat style Brazilian meal. It was crazy because in the middle of the meal a band and woman dressed in some bizarre outfit came out and danced all around us. Very fun.


(Whitney and I at SugarLoaf)

After that we went back to hotel and had an hour before heading to a soccer game between Flamengo and Redondo. Our tour guide was a huge Flamengo fan so he pumped us up for the game. We all bought jerseys beforehand and looked pretty cool as a huge group. The game was awesome. The soccer was really good, the fans were crazy, and we all got really into it. I met a lot more cool kids on our trip at the game which was an added bonus. After the game we ended up trying to go to this Brazilian bar that was pretty low key and not really right for our big group, so we resorted once again to Shenanigans! This time decked out in our jerseys we took over a section of the bar and had a blast.



(Soccer Game)

The next morning Kate, Liza, Jen, Whitney and I woke up super early to go hanggliding! Our tour guide set up a hanggliding trip for us where we got picked up in these cool four by four Jeeps that had open backs so we could see all around us. We drove to through this really cool rainforest national park up to a hanggliding spot and all strapped in and ran off the mountain. It was amazing. Since I went paragliding with Matt once in Switzerland I didn’t get too nervous and I made sure that I got to do some tricks while in the air, so we did a bunch of spirals and went pretty fast. It was a definite rush. We all landed on the beach and hung out for a little while before heading back to check out at the hotel and jump on different four by fours to head to the huge statue of Christ.



(Hangglidding)

We took these open backed jeeps through another section of Rio that was really cool, a colorful district on the way to Christ’s statue that had a ton of open air restaurants and parks. Then we drove through the rainforest, which was beautiful and refreshing and swirly. We made it to the statue and took some great photos. Then we drove back to the hotel had an hour to hang out and left for Salvador.


(Greg, Me, Chris, Kate, Mara)

We came back to Salvador pretty late and stayed in. I got a phone call at 4 am from Matt and Ryan and ended up hanging out with them and Natalie for a little while that next day, which was a great welcome home.



Matt, Ryan, Natalie, Kate, Krystle, and Zach and I spent the next day walking around Salvador shopping and exploring. We also went to the Afro-Brazilian museum which was a surprisingly good experience. Turns out I can use the trip for one of my classes as long as I write up a summary, so that’s good. Natalie, Krystle and I left for an internet café and then headed back to the ship in time for BBQ night. BBQ night was awesome because everyone who made back to the ship in time got to enjoy a great BBQ meal on the 7th deck, which is something we never get to do.

Now I’m back on the ship which just pulled out of port and is off to South Africa. I’ll be busy the next few days with some important class work. I have my first exam in three days and a huge hour long presentation for my International Law class on the same day. Woo hoo. So I likely won’t be on the internet again for a while. But I’ve loved getting e-mails and I’m sorry if I haven’t found time to respond to them yet. Hang in there, I’ll get to them! Again, it’s great to hear from you all. Big Ups to WISCONSIN basketball ranked 8 in the country! Keep it up badgers. For the rest of you in Madison, stay warm and safe throughout the blizzard! I miss you all!

Peace, E