Amazonia

Friday 21^st, 2011

So for those of you who are confused on where I am at this exact moment in time, the MV Explorer (the ship that I'm on) is currently making its way down the Amazon River.

Apparently, I either didn't pay attention in geography or my teacher didn't talk much about the Amazon River because the image I had in my head prior to this trip is nothing like what I've seen for the past 2 days! This River is HUGE!!!!! Honestly, the view from the ship looks like we're sailing on a huge lake! That's how wide the river is in some parts! Today, while trying to get some reading done, I kept getting distracted, as I wanted to take pictures of everything I saw! There were cattle and horses grazing in extremely green fields, men in fishing boats, and kids standing on the shoreline with their house in the background as they stood frozen as they watched us float by. I haven't even gotten the chance to see the rain forest up close, but it already looks incredible from the view I have from the ship!

Day 2 in Dominica

Wednesday 19^th, 2011

My second day in Dominica started bright and early Monday morning as I woke up to attend a Faculty Directed Practica (FDP) titled: Small-Scale Fish and Agriculture in Dominica. For each class a student takes there are certain FDPs that professors either recommend or require their students to attend because they are field trips that correspond with the content being taught in class. This particular FDP was for my Geography and Economic Development class. The majority of the morning was spent driving from farm to farm observing the different techniques that they use to grow all different kinds of food and other plants. Since the island of Dominica is a volcanic island, the soil is very rich and fertile, but because there are so many hills the majority of farms are located on the sides of hills. The first farm we went to was very interesting because there was a lot of strategic thought that took place in order for these crops to grow, but I sure didn’t recognize this until the group I was with received further explanation. I could see the distinct rows that had been formed and I could walk in between each row, but each row had a smattering of different plants. The man, a local, had to point to each plant and tell us what it was in order for us to know what was growing. The strategy that I mentioned before takes place in deciding what plants to plant where. Placing certain plants next to each other not only helps to prevent pests, but some plants provide nutrients for the surrounding plants and other take nutrients from the surrounding plants.  Here we saw celery, pineapples, green onions, sweet potatoes, taro, bananas, and more.

Right up the hill from this farm was a building where they make organic compost. This was a very interesting process and if you’d like to know more about just email me and I’ll explain it later. Next, we stopped and talked with a family whose main focus was to preserve natural herbs by growing them on their farm. They also grew many other plants, but what I found most fascinating was when the father of this family told us that he has never been to a doctor in his entire life! The only form of medicine that he has ever received was through the mixture of herbs that his mother made. This was a very cool experience. The last farm we visited was Mrs. Pucket’s pineapple farm. One minor detail that I forgot to add earlier was that during this field trip I realized that I had never seen a wild pineapple in my life. Apparently I had assumed that since coconuts, mangoes, and bananas (all being tropical fruits) grow on trees that pineapples do too! WRONG!!!! They grow from the ground and each plant produces only one pineapple! I’m sure many of you already knew this and are probably making fun of my ignorance, but I was shocked! Another fun fruit that I had never seen before was nutmeg. I’m pretty sure most people don’t know how nutmeg is grown! How about this, if someone can tell me off the top of their head (without using google) how the grounded up version of nutmeg that you find in the grocery store is made, you’ll receive a special gift from me once I get back! Since I get to Manaus, Brazil tomorrow and won’t be able to check my email for a few days, I’ll give you until January 26^th to give me an answer! Good luck!!!

Dominica

Tuesday January 18th, 2011

I’ve decided I’ll save you from having to read about my 2nd day of classes and just skip to telling you about the amazing tropical island of Dominica. For those of you I told I was visiting the Dominican Republic, I was wrong! The island of Dominica (Dome-ee-neeca) is only one of the many volcanic islands within the chain of islands south of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Along the route from Puerto Rico we were able to see the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, the island of Guadeloupe, and possibly the islands of Antigua and Barbuda all from the ship. If you’ve ever been on a trip with me you know that I end up taking a lot more landscape pictures compared to pictures with people in them. So basically, I have more than enough photos of the beautiful tropical landscape to show all of you. As I stood on the top deck watching these small yet mysterious islands pass by, I had fun watching the sea birds dive into the water as they attempted to catch the flying fish that were trying to swim away from the ship. Seeing a flying fish fly out of the water is incredible. They really do fly several yards above the water before they dive back down into the ocean.

Enough of life on the ship! Walking outside after breakfast to find an island sitting before me, waiting to be explored was a feeling I’ve never had before in my entire life! I probably felt this way because of how badly I wanted to walk on dry land after living on a ship for 3 ½ days. After running into some of my friends at breakfast we decided to pay a taxi to drive us up to Trafalgar Falls. The pictures of these twin waterfalls looked promising, but we didn’t expect to discover absolute paradise. The hike to the lookout point took about 10 minutes, but we wanted to get as close to the water fall as we could so we continued to hike. As we came upon the first pool of water and stuck our toes in we were delighted to find that the water was warm! We had just discovered a chain of natural hot springs! In other words we stumbled upon three of nature’s natural hot tubs! Since the island of Dominica has 9 active volcanoes, there are fissures in the ground that cause the water to reach temperatures around 90° F; therefore, creating these fabulous hot springs. I found it very interesting that a chain of hot springs could be located only yards away from a cold rushing waterfall. We proceeded to climb through these pools of hot water until we came upon an obstacle course full of boulders. The only way to get to the base of the waterfall was to climb over these boulders. Thankfully no one got hurt in the process of climbing these massive rocks; and within minutes we reached the base of the waterfall where we enjoyed a nice cool swim. Even though the water was cold, it felt amazing after hiking in the rainforest. Before our group headed back down the trail we ran into another group who had a local man as their guide. Experiencing the powerful gust of wind and water blowing in my face was an incredible feeling. However, while I was rubbing my eyes due to the mass amounts of mist blowing on my face, the local guide that was once with the other group suddenly disappeared before our eyes. Within the next few seconds his head popped out of the water, but some how he managed to get from one side of the waterfall to the other. (Let me first say that in all my life I never imagined swimming at the base of a waterfall, but what I decided to do next was something that I thought was on the brink of being impossible.) The guide proceeded to show us a hole that was located underneath the water. The next thing I knew, I was taking a big deep breath and entering the water in order to swim through the hole that honestly didn’t look big enough for any of the people I was with to fit through. The only instructions were to keep my eyes open under water and to keep left. Within just a few moments, my head was back above water as the currents pushed me out and I came up from swimming through the hole that went underneath the waterfall!!! This was an incredible experience, but my day wasn’t over. For this was only Tuesday’s morning activity and much awaited me as the day went on.

We arrived back at the dock just in time to grab a quick bite to eat before I left for the snorkeling excursion at Champagne Reef. Fun fact: This reef is called, “Champagne Reef” because the air bubbles that are constantly being released from the air vents in the ocean floor resemble the bubbles in a glass of Champagne. I love snorkeling so this was a treat for me! I saw all kinds of fish and sea creatures including: Parrot fish, Trumpet fish, a Barracuda, brain coral, a specific kind of eel that was black and white spotted, the black needle like sea urchins that are poisonous, a sea cucumber, the blue type of fish in finding Nemo that is portrayed as Dory, and many more. Another fun fact that our guide told us is that several scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 were filmed in Dominica near Champagne Reef. Overall this day felt like a dream as the beauty of Dominica continued to blow my mind!

First Day of Classes!….. Finally!

Friday January 14, 2011

I woke up today and attended my first official class of the 2011 spring semester! My first class of the day is Global Studies, which starts at 9:20am every A day. This is the one class that all the students on board have to attend. Since I go to Asbury, I’ve never had a class with more than about 35 people. My Global Studies class however, has around 250 students! The teacher seems very on top of things considering we have already separated into our groups for our group projects. My second A day class takes place at 4:15. This class is a Philosophy class focusing on Global Ethics. I know this will be one of my favorite classes because the content and the discussions we’ll be covering throughout the semester sound very interesting and the professor hates lecture style teaching so we’ll be talking a lot (which I’m good at!) Ha ha.

After taking a nap and eating dinner, the ship began to slow down as we stopped to refuel in Puerto Rico. Even though it was dark, it was fun to think that I was in Puerto Rico for about 7 hours. Only one more day left until we reach Roseau, Dominica! Everyone is getting super antsy and we’re more than ready to get off of the ship and explore this small island in the Caribbean.

Day #3

Thursday January 13, 2011

Today was the day orientation had the chance to fully consume my day along with everyone else’s! As most of you are either in college now or have graduated from college, you might remember that orientation is not the most amazing thing in the world! Ha ha! Lets just say, I was thankful when it finally ended! One more surprise that I wasn’t expecting was the mandatory writing assignment that all the students on board were required to complete. Never in my life did I think I would have to complete what looked like a small section of the reading comprehension and writing prompt from an SAT test. I was also extremely excited when that was over! I mean as much as I love writing! :)

The later it got the better the night became because we got to meet with our common reading discussion groups, which I hadn’t been able to attend yet because I was sick the first time they met. The funny story behind these groups is that some people received an email suggesting to read Three Cups of Tea before our voyage began in order to attend an optional discussion group while at sea. However, some people never received this email and the people who did get the email saw that it wasn’t required, therefore they decided not to read it. Even though the majority of the people in my group haven’t read the book, we still had a great discussion that somewhat involved talking about Three Cups of Tea.

The next and final event of the night was fun as we walked around the ship signing up for different groups/clubs we want to participate in. The first room I went to was the religious & spirituality group. This was really great because I was able to meet several people who follow Christ and many of them are interested in starting a Bible study/worship service/church service. Hopefully in the next few days we’ll start to meet regardless if the Hindu leader of the religious/spirituality group or myself organizes it. I am so grateful that God has already allowed me to meet other fellow believers, considering I haven’t even been gone for a week yet. Please keep me and the people in this religious group in your prayers as many of these students also vocalized their desire to stay firm in their walk with Christ while traveling this semester.

I also signed up to be placed in a family group. There are several families on board whether they are the families of some of the professors, older couples, or parents traveling with their children. These specific individuals are called lifelong learners and are traveling on the ship with us just for fun. So within the next week I will find out which family or couple on the ship I will be paired up with, which I’m really excited about. So after a long day that came with all sorts of surprises and involved a lot of sitting and listening, I have to admit that I was once again ready to hit my pillow. Hopefully with classes starting tomorrow I’ll have more interesting things to share with y’all!

Day #2

Wednesday January 12, 2011

The next morning was a great change as I was on time to the ship and the line of students waiting to go through security to board the ship went fairly quickly! Starting all the way back in Dallas up until now, I have continued to meet so many nice people from all over the U.S. as well as several international students. After boarding the ship and checking in, I went straight to check out my room. I am on Deck 2, which is the lowest passenger level of the ship. I have an outside room so I have a small window looking out at the ocean and it reminds me of a submarine window. Only after being in my room for about 5 minutes my roommate walked in. I am so happy to say that she and I are getting along great! Her name is Emily and she is from Minnesota and goes to school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. After roaming the ship and meeting tons of new people all day long we finally left the port in Nassau at 8:30 pm Wednesday night! Not only was it a relief to finally be here, but everyone was full of excitement as we waved goodbye to the parents (who looked like ants by the way) as we slowly pulled away from the dock and started our adventure around the world! Of course, only a few hours after leaving the dock, orientation began! I am sorry to say that I do have motion sickness and so getting sick the first night was not the most enjoyable experience, but ever since then I’ve been totally fine! No worries! After a good nights rest, as the ship rocked me to sleep, I was more than ready to wake up in the morning and begin my first official day at sea!

Catching Up!

 Hey everyone! Today is my second full day at sea! I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything until now, but I’ll try my best to catch everyone up on my adventure to the Bahamas, the excitement of leaving the Bahamas, and my experiences while being at sea for 2 nights and 2 days.

Well, my last blog was written as I was sitting on the plane at DFW waiting to take off and I was rushing to post something as I assumed the plane would leave on time and all electronics needed to be turned off! However, making assumptions that your plane will leave on time is never a good idea because you can bet that 50% of the time you will be delayed. So after the plane barely pulled away from its gate the pilot made an announcement saying that the left engine needed fixing. As you could imagine that didn’t help the level of stress that most people experience while traveling! The plane proceeded to taxi back to the gate so mechanics could look at the engine. So after sitting on the plane for 45 minutes the pilot comes back on the intercom announcing, “Well after a quick pound of a hammer we’re all set and ready to go, but as we were back at the gate we allowed for one more passenger to board the plane so we are going to run the safety video one more time.” After a long wait and a safe flight, the other girls on my flight and I decided once we landed in Miami that the person they let on must have been famous because we saw their body guard on the plane. In conclusion, there wasn’t anything wrong with our plane; it was just a cover to allow the famous person to board our plane. Luckily our flight leaving Miami to take us to the Bahamas was also delayed due to heavy fog earlier Tuesday morning or we would’ve missed that flight completely. Once again, never make assumptions when it comes to traveling by plane because we didn’t end up leaving Miami until 5:30 or so! Our original flight was scheduled to leave by 1:25 earlier that afternoon. About one third of the passengers on the plane going to the Bahamas were semester at sea students so it was fun getting to talk with them before we even left Miami. After a long drawn out process that involved waiting in a bus for almost 2 hours as the plane had to cool off and discovering that the plane weighed to much; therefore, having to take out fuel to lighten the load, we finally took off!!! We watched the sunset from the airplane window as we flew over the ocean and eventually arrived in Nassau, Bahamas. The adventure of making my way to the Bahamas didn’t end there! Sure enough all of the semester at sea students’ luggage traveling on the plane from Dallas got left in Miami! After an extremely long day of traveling we received our bags at our hotel around midnight. Just in time to get ready for bed and go to sleep!

P.S.- Cato, I met your friend Daniel as we were getting off the same plane after landing in Nassau!!! I was not expecting to meet him the first day of traveling, but God had different plans!

Taking Off!!!

I'm currently sitting on the plane on my way to Miami and then to Nassau! Thank you all for your prayers and I'll hope to update you once I get to Nassau!!! Oh one way God has already blessed me is by allowing one of the girls that I met this summer to sit 2 seats behind me on the plane!!! Not only is she and her mom sitting close to me but another girl who's traveled with semester at sea once before is sitting behind the girl I met this summer! I will miss everyone so much!

Until next time,

Allison