61. Send a “Sorry I’m a loser.” email to a professor

Ok so I forgot to mention that in Shanghai It didn't really bother me
that much. I had my license and one credit card but the biggest thing
was my Aquaphor. (and another lip gloss). We called the club and
they said they had my stuff, but due to a series of unfortunate events
I didn't get to pick my stuff up before the ship left. I was
devastated about my Aquaphor. I mean I can easily cancel my AMEX
(they overnight a new card) and get a new license (I have my passport
for identification purposes). But my Aquaphor. I'd have to wait
until the United States to get it. I was C-R-U-S-H-E-D, crushed.



But anyways, here's the good news. The guy we went to the club with
decided to fly to Japan to meet us in Tokyo so he went to the club and
picked up my stuff and brought it to Japan with him!



The only thing is that I didn't end up meeting up with him.
Thankfully he gave it to two girls who gave it to two other girls who
gave it to me. The club had my $29.95 Old Navy coat dry-cleaned.
That was nifty. Back to the bad news. My Aquaphor wasn't in my bag.
At first I thought, "oh, well, maybe I didn't have it that night and
it's lost in my room somewhere." But then I realized that my other
lip-gloss was gone too. That's creepy. Who takes just the lip-gloss
from a purse? Then it all fell together when I realized that my
liquid cover-up was missing as well. He went through the airport,
which means no liquids. SOOO I got my stupid bag back without what I
truly wanted. Oh well it was still very nice of him to fly it to Japan.



I have finished half of my finals. I have two more tomorrow but I
don't think I will have to study for them. (So I'm not going to).
The Alumni Ball is also tomorrow. They are allowing us two drinks.
WTheck. It's so lame. We never get to have fun on this stupid ship
(I think the 14 days at sea is starting to get to me).

60. Live the same day twice

Our second set of parents (the Senator and LBJ's daughter) emailed the
family! It was so cute. Now we have his email too. I think we're
going to have our family reunion at the white house. No bigs.

"I have social disease. I have to go out every night." -This was a
quote from Andy Warhol. When we went to the Titanic exhibit in
Singapore, there was also an exhibit on Andy Warhol. It was very
cool. I wish cameras were allowed.

So we are docked in Honolulu. We can't get off the ship. This only a
refueling stop. Since we are back in the US everyone can use his or
her cell phones. Not me though… It is BRUTAL. Honestly one out of
every 3 people is on the phone. Not cool. I'm jealous. Stupid South
Africa. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

59. Hold a million dollars (or dong)

Everyday at sea we receive a "Dean's Memo" which contains all of the important information we need for the next two days.  It also has a quote.  Today's quote was:

 

"There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates."

 

This couldn't be truer.  Every time I see a bird I say a little prayer because I know we have to be semi-close to land.  Speaking of birds…one landed on the fifth deck port side and didn't leave.  They think it was either exhausted or slightly hurt.  Either way it wasn't there this morning so it either slid off when the ship rocked or it had rested enough and decided to fly away.  It was a big seagull looking thing.  Not super cute.

 

So the first night in Vietnam, Jess, Brandie, and I decided to get cute and go out to this club/bar called Shots.  We knew all of the other SASers were going to a place called Apocalypse Now.  Yeah….well we went to get a cab with ZERO success.  No one knew where either was.  So they "suggested" a place called Cat Bar.  We decided, "fine, we'll go there."  So we get into the cab.  He said it was 15 minutes away.  I sat in the front and watch as the meter slowly increased.   Three minutes after we got into the cab and the fare was around 30 USD.  We told him to pull over immediately so we could get out.  The other "fun" thing about this taxi was that the doors remained locked until you paid.  We paid the excessive amount, he turned the meter off, and the doors unlocked.  As we were getting out of the taxi he attempted to stop us to tell us that we hadn't paid enough.  For a split second I was like, "oh shit we counted wrong (it's way easy to miscount in other currency)" and then realized he had pocketed some and was attempting to rip us off even more!  At that point, I said "no we didn't" slammed the door and stomped off.  It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds since we were all in HIGH heels stuck in the middle of this street that had crazy traffic but it was very frustrating.  NO other cabs/taxis understood anything we said so we walked around the area and stopped at this small restaurant.

 

PS about today:  So before every country we have a preport to tell us a little about the culture and logistics of the port.  I'm sorry.  For Hawaii we had preport for 1.75 hours.  This is totally unnecessary.  I realize that Hawaii is completely different from the rest of the United States and if you ask any "local" they will claim Hawaii isn't part of the USA but really.  Really?  I wanted to shoot myself (in the foot with a potato gun) multiple times.  I mean yes I am aware that one US dollar is equivalent to one Hawaiian dollar.  We have all been teasing about that for the last three days.  Not funny or clever any more.  

58. Get a Mani/Pedi

No okkkk….back in Nam I wanted to leave Nam.



So the first day we left the boat purely to get a feel for the city
and go shopping. We were also in search of a tailor so we could get
dresses made. Taxis as usual were a pain in the ass to communicate
with. Even though they know more English than China, it's not like
that helped. Even if they understood what we were saying, 90% of the
time they didn't know where it was. How can you be a taxi driver and
not know where something is. That's your job. All you have to do is
know the stinking city.



In order to become a taxi driver in Singapore you have to pass a
difficult test in which they give you a random address and you have to
tell the fastest way to get there. Why were we only in Singapore for
a day??



Eventually we made our way to the market. It is pretty big. Shopping
is so much different in Vietnam. You learn very fast that bartering
is a game to them. They enjoy it. It's hard to actually experience
bartering at it's finest because it is clear we are tourists and they
have the upper hand. It is a perfect market transaction because
clearly we do not have equal knowledge about the prices. "Insider"
information is obviously at play here.





PS. I forgot to mention, the club we destroyed in South Africa,
Caprise, was mentioned in Cosmo as a hot place to see celebs (like Zac
Efron)…I'm not sure if it's been as hot since we left.



PPS. I'm definitely going to have to amputate my left foot when I get
home. Also I think my toenail is dying. That is not an
understatement. I can stick a needle under half of it. Cute right?



PPSS. I was looking at some of my first posts. It's interesting to
note the things I noticed at the first ports. For example, I
dedicated a lot of thought to the traffic. After going to all of the
countries, I realize that the US is one of the few countries that
actually have ANY rules when it comes to driving. Vietnam is no
exception. But there are A LOT of motorbikes. It's actually the cool
thing to have. One type is called the chick magnet because if you
have it all of the chicks love you. (Be happy I didn't take a
mototaxi…I was so close to doing it….a couple of people from SAS got
hurt on them). 30 people die in traffic related accidents EVERYDAY is
Ho Chi Minh. Maybe that's a number similar to NYC but for some reason
I think it's an extreme amount.



There are no crosswalks so when you want to cross you slowly walk out
into the traffic and keep walking. You really don't have to look
either way. It's purely a slow walk.

57. Get Married in Vietnam

You guys are pretty lucky that I have papers because I probably
wouldn't be writing these blogs except I'm trying to avoid writing the
essays.

Vietnam. Vietnam. Vietnam. I'm probably going to start all of my
Vietnam posts with "back in Nam." So…

Marriages in Vietnam aren't recognized in the US.

Yeah you know I don't even really want to write about Vietnam. Maybe
I'll just leave it a mystery for everyone…

56. Bottle Service to the extreme

My parents won't like this post but I don't care. It was part of my
experience and I want to remember it so I'm going to write it down.

So that night I went out with a couple of girls to meet up with this
guy who had done Semester at Sea in the past. We ended up going to
this club on top of the hotel (I guess it's the third tallest in the
world [or something…not quite sure]). The guy was pretty wealthy so
sort of paid for everything. He put me in charge of the decisions
(not a fan of that) and told the guy who was helping us to listen to
whatever I said. It was interesting though.

He kept asking me what I wanted which was nice but I finally told him
that if I wanted something I would order it (expecting to pay for it)
and if he paid for it that's fine but that I wasn't just going to buy
drinks because he was paying for them. Which I guess is contrary to
what most girls do? It was a lot of fun.

I got the bartender to take a shot with us even though he said he'd
get fired if he did (there were cameras). I hope he didn't get fired.

The next day we went shopping all day. But as I mentioned in emails
to some people I didn't buy a single thing. Slightly depressing.

And that is CHINA!

55. Practically fly a plane

Ok so the flight from Beijing to Shanghai was interesting. 1. It had
two seats then three then two again so it was very large (similar to
our one to Hawaii). 2. Everyone boards the plane at the same time.
They don't do it by seats. It was weird because you would think that
you would have to wait for a lot of people to sit down but we didn't.
(We decided it is just Americans that make boarding a plane such a
struggle). 3. (This is the important part). YOU WATCH THE PLANE
LEAVE. They have screens that show the view from the cockpit.
Yeah….I'll give you a few seconds to process this……………………..So yes,
when you leave, the camera is pointed straight ahead (like you're the
pilot) and then when we lift off the view changes to a straight down
view (like bird's eye). It is somewhat nauseating. 4. They make you
open the window shades for take off and landing (plus the video) so no
matter where you look you are looking outside. 5. They announce
turbulence ALL of the time. They take it very seriously.

Anyways, Shanghai….I think Shanghai was my favorite city skyline. We
disembarked the plane and the rest is history. No it's a pain in the
arse to find a ship when you've never been to the dock before. We
didn't know if it was 20 minutes or 2 hours so we weren't inclined to
take a taxi (we couldn't really ask because of the language barrier
thing). We decided to take the subway. Bahahah. Funny joke. When
we got off we had no idea so we started walking towards holes in the
skyline (we thought this was a good idea because our ship is on the
water and you can't have buildings on water). A good six or seven
kilometers (that's right. I've started thinking in terms of
kilometers and Celsius) later we found the harbor!!! Go us.

Jen's backpack broke the second we boarded the ship. It ended our
adventure SOO perfectly.

That night…