So, I’ve been busy here the past few days at sea –that’s mostly why I’m behind on my Cape Town posts. The grades for the global studies test were posted this afternoon and I got a B. Eh, it’s OK, especially since it was on a ten point curve, but I saw many a lower score on the list, so I think I did pretty well. School work has been catching up as well –I have to finish a paper on each port themed around migration (I chose the influence of migration on music around the world).
BUT, that will wait until after Mauritius tomorrow! I am really excited for this little tropical island paradise. I bet you don’t recognize the name of the small island nation, but you would recognize the dodo bird and probably know that it’s extinct. It originated on Mauritius! So, I might try and go to the museum that has the only known dodo skeleton in it. One of the professors said there are also a number of souvenirs that feature the dodo. Would anyone like a beach towel with a dodo on it? Haha. We only have a little bit of time on the island, but I hope to do some snorkeling and see some of the coral reef! I can’t wait!
Tonight, I had dinner with my “extended family.”I don’t think I’ve mentioned them before on the blog. At the beginning of the voyage, we were allowed to sign up for an extended family, then we were assigned to a “mom and dad”who we can talk to and have dinner with and stuff. My mom and dad on the ship are Lavinia and Terry Crawford-Browne and there are four other students in our family. The Crawford-Brownes are from Cape Town, South Africa. Lavinia works as an administrative assistant and Terry is a lecturer teaching a class on foreign policy. They are really, really nice people. Terry is originally from Ireland, I think, but has moved all over and met Lavinia when he got his first job in Cape Town, I think. He works as an activist now, I think working against arms trade in South Africa. And Lavinia had been Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s personal assistant. Pretty freakin’cool, huh?! She gave a presentation about him before we got to Cape Town. He is a big supporter, incidentally, of Semester At Sea and has been a passenger on a full voyage in the past. He was supposed to come visit the ship, but, regrettably, he was out of town on business while we were in Cape Town. Go figure.
After Mauritius tomorrow we’re having the opening night of the Sea Olympics. Each side of each deck is assigned a “sea.”I’m on the port side of deck three, so I’m in the Mediterranean Sea (the others are named after real seas, too –Red, Yellow, Baltic, Agean, Adriatic, etc.). Each sea has it’s own “living-learning coordinator,”which is kind of like an RA. For the Sea Olympics there are going to be all kinds of events, including a mascot, flag and chant competition. There’s crazy stuff like mashed potato sculpting and a sudoku competition as well as a volleyball tournament and workout relay. I’m doing two events in the Olympic relay –the orange pass (where you pass the orange between your team’s necks) and the fireman’s line (where you pass water in cups from one end to a bucket on the other). It should be fun –our sea color is blue, so are mascot is a smurf. Very original, I know. So, it should be fun. Each event win gets awarded some point value, then whichever team wins gets some sort of prize, but we don’t know what yet. There is a rumor that the winning sea gets to get off the ship first in Florida. So, I hope the completions are fun and that the Med. Sea kicks some butt!
Time to get some rest before my day of fun and sun! I promise the rest of Cape Town when I get back on the ship –I have tons of pictures, so I will definitely remember it all!
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