Bahamas round 2

Maddie and I are sitting in our hotel room at the Sheraton, packing up all of our stuff to head back. People have been leaving Nassau since 1pm yesterday, so its been kind of emotional. We just said bye to Jody Austin and Kristin and it was rough. We're not last to leave, but it sure seems like we are. Yesterday we met our replacements for Semester at Sea at Senor Frogs and the beach. The Summer students boarded this morning and they were so nervous and scared. The May students were all acting like a family and sad to be parting. It's amazing that I was exactly in their shoes 27 days ago. We were joking yesterday before we got here that theres probably never been so many people sad to go to the Bahamas. That really shouldnt happen right?
I am a little excited to get home though. It's just the all day on an airplane part that is making me feel like I'm only leaving this place. I havent really thought about the fact that I'll be going home tomorrow.
We're going to find food now somewhere around here and check out of the hotel. After that we'll be at the airport. I saw my phone today for the first time in 26 days, so its comforting to know I still have it, but I wont turn it on until baltimore.

Homeward Bound

My bags are all packed and we're docking in Nassau now. I'm a little sad to see the ship leave! It was definitely harder to pack all of my stuff up from here than it was to pack up my stuff from the dorm.

I checked on my flight and it says im confirmed, but I dont know how to check for overbooking until I get to the airport. I hope its okay. Now I'm just using up my extra internet minutes. I conserved a lot of them, so I have extras.

Today I think we're just exploring Nassau. Last time we were so excited about the ship and stressed that we would be late that we didn't do too much exploring. I think today we're going to the beach to do some swimming. It should be fun! Then tomorrow night I'll be home, or at least in America.

I saw america today

We're docked in Freeport right now to fill up with fuel. It's weird to be docked somewhere without being able to get off or anything. I saw some more cruiseliners today... The first ones I've seen since nassau. We passed Florida this morning around 7 am. It was pretty cool. I was up since I had a final and all. When I get back, I have 1124 pictures to show you. And youre going to have to look at every single one. And a good majority are going on facebook. I think I know why facebook crashes suddenly... It's becasue everyone from semester at sea gets back on the same day and posts every single picture from their voyage. We had a poll to see what food everyone was looking forward to getting at home today... top answer with 76% is pizza!!!!! They said we may have issues adjusting to American food again though. I dont think it'll be too bad. I was only gone for a month.
The flights have been pretty chaotic for everyone getting back. Airtran and AmericanAirlines have overbooked basically every flight leaving tomorrow so people on the ship are running into problems. The Sheraton and other hotels in the area are all booked because the nest voyage gets on the day after we get back, so basically every passenger from both voyages now needs to stay. The one's with rooms (me) are at least lucky for now, but we wont know our flight situation until were within 24 hours of our flight. Im a little nervous! Im sure it'll be a little better than tomorrows flights.

Because I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind

Hey guys. We're on the open ocean now. Not really, we're passing cuba right now. We left Belize last night. This morning I had my spanish final, which I think went pretty good. Belize was so much fun. The first night we went out to a calypso bar (karaoke bar for locals) and had fun. None of us sang though, there was a set order. One of the guys only sang country music and it was funny because he was carribean, but he had his cowboy hat and everything! Yesterday I went to Lamanai Ruins. My trip was supposed to leave around 830, but it left at 7:40. Thank goodness i was awake! I'm glad I didnt miss it though. It was so cool. We ran up every ruin temple there... and they were high. But Christine H and I algreed that we had to get a picture on top of everything. As you can tell.. were pretty mature. On the way there we saw tons of animals. I got a picture of a bird and a crocdile... everything else is just blurs because we were on a really fast boat. Even my sport camera couldnt keep up.
Last night we got a cookout on board. It was an amazing tease of American food. I ate a cheeseburger and it had to be the best one I've ever had! The reason they gave us a cookout was because we were the first voyage to ever finish a voyage with 0 minutes dock time. To tell you how close it was... we were the first voyage to make it 3 ports in a row without dock time, and voyages have been going since 1963. So yeh... we're pretty cool.
Our formal dinner is tonight which is where we wear our formal attire. Im excited for it. No one knows if we'll have something other than pasta and potatoes, but I sure hope so!.

Unbelizeable

Hi everyone. I am in Belize currently for the second day. We arent at a port really in Belize. We're parked off the shore and taking tenders to the shore. I am really glad I got to tender because it is a neat experience. I just wished they ran canstantly instead of at certain times. Yesterday I went and did a service visit to the Belize Zoo. It was destroyed by Hurricane Richard when it came through last year, so we were fixing a lot of it. My crew was shoveling gravel... so we got the short end of the stick compared to the paint tables crew and the plant flowers crew. It was fun though. I was the wheelbarrow to maddies shovel. The gravel pile was at least half a mile from the site on a patchy path. Every time my wheelbarrow was full I thought I wasnt going to make it over there. haha. The animals at the Belize zoo arent quite like the animals in American zoos. Only the "problem" animals are contained. The other animals like the crocodiles and howler monkeys were completely free. They stayed in their area though since thats where they were fed. The animals were really people friendly though. The place where we were putting down gravel was next to a giant bird cage. Im not sure what kind of birds they were, but they would follow us around and watch us like we were the attraction... oh and they kept trying to eat the rocks.. dumb birds. When we got back we were planning on exploring the city, but everything shuts down for the weekend, so nothing is open or anything. It's a little like a ghost town. We did find a good restaurant though. We went to a restaurant called Bird's Isle which is across the bay. Not many Semester at Sea students went there so we were a little worried at first. It was really good though! and cheap! Tomorrow is when finals start so I've got a lot of work to catch up on when we pull up anchor.

Less Guns this time

Hello from guatemala everyone! We are not in Puerto Barrios like originally planned. We are in Santo Tomas de castilla. Its a much smaller port. When I asked the man outside if they get ships often he told me excitedly "yes we got one 2 years ago!!!" It's tiny. Its been such a fun two days! Yesterday I went to see a mayan village called queheche. I felt like they didnt want us there and were only doing what the tour people told them too. I just felt really awkward being there and taking photots so i spent a lot of time getting to know some of the people. Spanish was theyre second language just like it was mine so it was rough. Our transportation there was a skiff for 30 minutes and then when we got to the dock... a pickup truck with a roll cage had all of us stand up in the back. The village was another hour from there. They fed us really good food though. I loved it. I really love plantains. They are in every dish down here. I dont know if youve ever had one, but they taste just like potatoes when you cook them right. So after the whole village thing, my gang of i think 11 people talked some people into staying at this beach hotel (it was called a hotel... but it had 4 rooms) to spend the night. We danced and played in the water. It was so much fun!!! A little scary at first just since i didnt have the safety blanket of sleeping on the ship, but i am so glad I did it. Unlike american hotels though, check out time is 7 am for everyone! We were up so early. When i got back i just layed face down on my pillow for 2 hours until my trip. Today I did kayaking. It was fun! It was a tandem kayak so that was a little weird. There were jellyfish in the river so i did NOT want to fall in! We spent most of the day at amitique bay resort at the pool! Pool is an understatement because it was the size of our yard. No lie. Now me moe and christina are going to the market. Hope to find something cool.

Rock Me Mama Like A Wagon Wheel

Honduras was so much fun! Yesterday I went with my class to see the dam in honduras. They kept saying that it's the biggest in the western hemispere, but im not sure that's true. Honduras is rough to say the least! Oh my goodness. I saw so many guns yesterday. Like more than I have ever seen in one day. Civilians here walk around with pistol gripped shotguns and a lot of bigger guns... no AKs though. I was looking. We stayed in last night on the ship out of shear terror. The part of honduras I was in for my trip though was beautiful! There were just lakes and a dam and mountains. The military was there a lot since there was a bomb threat to the dam recently. We got within 2 feet of the shaft for the turbine, which has to be illegal. It was definitely dangerous! Cool though. Our lunch was amazing, I can tell we're getting closer to mexico. The food is cooling down a little. haha. But for real. It was the best so far. Everyone in the restaurant except us had visible guns though. I was a little uncomfortable. I asked if they took american dollars, and teh lady said yes so i got some grape ice cream... then she told me by ten was too large of a bill! Someone spotted me though, but what the heck. If you take american you take american. I didnt ask if she took ones and fives! Grape ice cream was amazing though. On the way back I heard "Wagon Wheel" on the radio between all of the songs of Spanish. I missed home a little in that moment.
That part was written yesterday. Today I went to a part of honduras that looked more like florida. It was like I was in a completely different country. We painted a fence today at the youth center. I have to say we did a pretty good job! It was fun! I have paint still on my skin. The only thing that gets it off is time and turpentine they said... so im choosing time. They made us wash our hands in turpentine and paint thinner before we ate.. but they were just saying "te lave" so basically just "wash" It burned a little. Weird things in different countries. I wenrt to an artisan market as well today and bought a picture from a man who was painting them. He was so good and just doing them on the spot. Oh and remember bagged milk? the water down here is in bags. Its weird. Tomorrow I will wake up in Guatemala! yeh!

Two days at sea later...

Hi everybody. Due to really screwy internet connections, my posts havent appeared up here for the past two days. Sad. Lucky for you guys... nothing really happened. There was a talent show and a sea chant competition. My sea got second place with our rendition of I'm on a boat. That means we get off the ship second in nassau. We docked in honduras this morning. It is pooring down rain. In costa rica we were greeted by a rainbow.... im hoping it's not an omen. Im going to go to my trip now! Ill update later.

On the Sea Again

Today was the last day in costa rica and I am actually sad to leave! It was so pretty here! Today I went to a cacao plantation and saw how chocolate was made. I had no idea it was a fruit! The seeds are the only part of the fruit that goes into making the chocolate! The fruit tastes nothing like chocolate and the seeds taste even less like it! After lunch at the cacao trails, we went to some sort of animal rescue. The animals were kind of just out and running around. They said the ones ho still needed help would stay while the ones who were okay would escape. Not much of an escape if they only have to walk out! I touched a monkey today who liked the bow on my shirt and I got followed around a bit by a baby nose bear. He was so cute. He was pawing at my legs and trying to eat my shoe laces. I feel like he almost wouldve gotten on the bus! I have some (close) pictures of him! I held a red eyed tree frog too! One on purpose and one just because he jumped on me! I heard howler monkeys! They are so loud and scary They sound like lions. its wild! I tried so hard to get pictures of dart frogs, but theyre too fast. :( Oh well now I am on my way around Nicaragua to honduras! with a paper to write. And I'll have everyone know. It did not rain today! yeh!!!

Pura Vida!

Hello all! I'm writing from Costa Rica tonight. I had decided that this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen!!! It's just like mountains coming out of the ocean and everything is a rainforest! Yesterday morning I went to Chiquita! I didnt find out until I got there that we couldnt take pictures of patent pending things (which was everything) so most of my pictures are of flowers from there. They fed us so well! When we got there, they had Pineapples for us with straws in them to drink out of! And we ate so much fruit. We had a complementary 3 course meal of casado. (meat rice beans and potatoes... same as everything down here) We found out when we left that we were the first ever group to tour chiquita! How cool is that! Dear maddy... I did not see a banana spider and I am disappointed! Be safe in Italy! I don't want thomas to have to save you. After that we (about 200 people from the ship) went downtown to the clubs... and they were not ready for all of those people. We were helping to run the bar! Haha. The deans are calling it the Salamander Bar & Club Service Visit. It was fun. The US Coast Guard is here too so at least theres a lot of Americans in port. This morning I was very adventurous. We did the canopy tour this morning at 7. That is where you zipline over the rainforest. The sun was rising so it was awesome. I wish I could do that for an entire day! It was not scary at all like i thought it would be.. we started on the groud so that was good. The poison dart frogs that are so pretty (and dangerous) are everywhere here. Its crazy.. I dont think i realized that they actually existed. After that I went white water rafting. Our guide was so cool. We sat at the front of the raft, went backwards, and stood up. It was only a class 3... so it wasn't even like the rivers in the Appalachian. Today we went in search of coffee after our trip to bring home, but coffee shops close at like 3. I guess that should be a duh thing since coffee is a morning drink. Tomorrow Im going to see sloths... even though you can see sloths from any rode that you go on. And I'll be at the chocolate farm. Costa Rica is so awesome. I dont want to leave to go to honduras. We asked today if we could skip it. Haha. I want to come back here and take everyone from home with me! Everyone here always says Pura Vida, which is kind of like the "super" or "awesome" down here but it's also a greating. Some people used it as a hello and goodbye. I love it. Im going to keep saying it. Pura Vida everyone!