I Kissed a Fish and I Liked it...

4 more days until Cape Town! I am so STOKED for South Africa!  I’ve heard it’s many voyager’s favorite port.  On the first day I am hoping to hike Table Mountain with a bunch of my friends and hopefully go to a winery in the afternoon.  The second day I have an extremely early FDP (faculty directed practica- sort of a field trip for class).  I’m going to Robben Island (jail where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 of his 27 years in prison).  We’re actually taking out the first ferry of the day, which is at 6:45AM, and we get to ride out with all of the staff of the island.  I watched Invictus again yesterday and they visit Robben Island as well and it got me really excited for tat trip.  I should be back around 2:30PM that day and then I’m hoping to explore Cape Town a bit before I leave the next day. 

The 5th of October thru the 8th I am doing an SAS trip called “Pilannesburg Game Reserve and Johannesburg”  It’s a 2 hour flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg and on the first two days we’re going to see Nelson Mandela Square and Museum, the Apartheid Museum, and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The other two days were going on game drives through the reserve and we’re staying at The Bukubung Bush Lodge.  Sounds fun!

The day after Ghana we started class yet again…

On Sunday we got out of class for a while so we could go outside to celebrate the crossing of the Equator.  We actually passed over the equator and the prime meridian at the same time! It was pretty cool! So we were at 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude at the same time! Woo!  I’m officially in the Southern Hemisphere!

Today we had the formal celebration of the crossing of the equator.  We call it Neptune Day.

We were all awoken at 7:30AM with cymbals clashing, people cheering down the hallway, and nocks on our doors.  I drug myself out of bed and went up for some breakfast before the festivities.  Then, everyone headed up to the pool deck, deck 7.  When I got there it was already really busy and the whole ship was crowded around the pool.  A long line of people dressed up in face paint and nautical attire marched up from the 6th deck and stood in front of the pool.  We all took an oath and cheered. Part of the Neptune Day festivities is to have “fish guts” (a green, slimy concoction of who-knows-what) poured over your head before you jump into the poor (the water in the pool was replaced with saltwater).  The line was huge so I opted to wait and wander over to the area where everyone was getting heads shaved.  SO many girls did it!  I was not about to do that, but I really applauded the girls that did.  People will hair down past their waist were suddenly bald and it was just bizarre.  I’d say that the amount of guys and girls shaving their heads was pretty even.  I knew a couple of people that did it. 

I changed into a swimsuit and shorts and had the fish guts poured over me.  I proceeded to jump into the pool (so gross) and when I got out I had to kiss a fish (yes, a REAL fish) and kiss the rings of the Neptune king (dean of the ship) and queen (assistant dean).  [Don’t worry- I have a video of the whole thing… embarrassing, haha]

Before these events we were all called “Pollywogs” and now that we have gone through the ceremony we are all official “Emerald Shellbacks”! Yay!

Oh, but the dumb thing is, they scheduled the midterm for Global Studies (the class that everyone on the ship takes) for tonight… So I’m going to continue studying now. Ugh.

Just a side note:  It’s getting harder to write detailed blogs.  I find myself not being able to describe my experiences all that well and saying to myself “you just had to be there, I can’t put it into words”.  As time passes, everyone on the ship becomes a community and I think that I would be completely confused if I were reading this at home.  When I come home, I’ll do my best to articulate the events and feelings I’ve ad here, but I don’t think anyone could truly understand it all unless they were here with me.

Love,

Newly appointed “Emerald Shellback” Michaella  ☺

(Oh and in my first post about Ghana, I made SO many mistakes.  Haha I was really tired.  I can’t really fix them though because I update this blog via email.)  :P