things i've forgotten to write about this sailing:
*eight days, five of which are only 23 hours long. by the time we
get to south africa, we'll have gone through five time zones. my
body is definitely feeling the lack of sleep. that's almost a whole
night's worth in one crossing!!
*the archbishop and mrs. tutu and i chatted...briefly, but we
chatted. they both seem extremely down to earth, especially mrs.
tutu. i'm actually sitting in global studies early right now so i
could get a seat and listen to him answer questions from a panel.
he's also speaking again tonight at cultural pre-port (only two days
until south africa!) again, surreal.
*i have watched three presentations by the global nomads group
(www.gng.org). this is a group co-founded by a guy named chris who
sailed with semester at sea 11 years ago and since then, changed the
focus of his career. now he runs a non-profit organization that sets
up teleconferencing between high school students in the states and
high school students around the world. past projects have included
going to rwanda during the ten year anniversary of the genocide and
going to iraq two weeks before and six weeks after the start of the
war. it's really an amazing group who's doing a lot for the
world...and they're only 30ish. crazy.
*the seas are getting restless. the captain has warned over the past
few days that we are headed toward rougher waters. this is
apparently typical of getting close to the cape, where the atlantic
and the indian oceans meet. things have been slightly rockier over
the past couple of days, but this morning when i woke up, i was
literally sliding around in my bed. when i opened my window, you
could see the waves in the ocean. we'll see how high they get since
tomorrow (sunday) is supposed to be the worst day yet.
*jason, the guy who works in the bookstore, called me "your ritz bitz
blogging self." i promised i'd put that in my blog.
*there's a japanese encephilitis (sp??) outbreak in india. the
vaccination cost $400. i didn't get it since i'm only coming
slightly close to where the outbreak is. i'll be bathing in bug
spray during my entire visit. wish me luck.
*did i mention that i had fish guts poured over my head??
so, i think that is all for me right now. i know there are other
things i wanted to mention, but i seem to be drawing a blank right
now. the next two days will be full of preparations for south
africa. i can't tell you how excited i am to see this country. five
days is DEFINITELY not enough to do everything there is to do, so
i've already decided that i must go back.
oh, and reading emails is no longer a problem because i'm having my
gmail account forwarded to my mac mail program, so i can quickly
download and read offline. i can also write offline and send
online. the connection is still very slow at times (of course, we
are in the middle of the atlantic ocean), so there are times when the
downloading isn't much faster than just being online, but overall,
it's a good plan for conserving minutes.
also, for the record, i was rereading some of my previous
blogs...ones that i typed really fast so i could get some postings
up...and i found a bunch of spelling/grammar mistakes. it drove me
crazy. i apologize for those of you it may be driving crazy as well.
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