boa vinda a salvador

i woke up bright & early this morning to watch us pull into Salvador. It was pretty hazy so my pictures didn't come out so great, but I got a nice series of photos of the ship being tied up:









and the gangway being lowered:



I took an urban architecture tour which took us out to places in the city I would have never seen on foot. Government buildings (cold war architecture, there's a bunker underneath):







a very cool church:



favelas (slums):





the city of Salvador is built as a lower city (where the ship came in) and an upper city. I took the elevator to the upper city with some professor-folks and we watched Carnaval start to gear up for the evening. I'll be at Carnaval tomorrow night and it was starting to rain hard, so we didn't stay terribly long. The elevator was fun. It's literally an elevator that prevents you from having to scale the wall ... or take the stairs ... to the upper city. There's also a funicular which I'll need to try out. We've been given strict instructions about not taking the stairs. We've also been given strict instructions to stay in groups and to go nowhere alone. I didn't feel unsafe today. There were definitely a lot of people around -- 2 million for Carnaval -- but it just feels big-city-like. I can't tell how serious they are about this. I definitely want to roam around the upper city tomorrow and I'll see if I can find other folks going in that direction, but I don't want lack-of-group to keep me from exploring. A few city & Carnaval photos (I've added more to the map):

20 mph

Dean Mike has a line about how we're going around the world ... on a ship ... at 20 miles per hour ... tomorrow we reach Brazil. It's been a VERY long intense week. The students are fried, the faculty are fried, the staff are fried, everybody is very happy to be getting off the ship for a few days. Our first Global Studies exam was this morning and students had many other papers due, the faculty were asked to give an early assignment. Everyone was overjoyed as the day moved on and classes finished up. It was like the last day of classes before a holiday break. We had a birthday party for one of our workstudy students. Sherri had her camera and I'll post some pictures of our merry band after I get them from her. The workstudy students are all great, we're enjoying them a lot. Sherri went to great lengths to get a birthday cake delivered to the library & it was a very lovely party.

Last night, we had a cultural pre-port to talk about Brazil, especially Carnaval. The pre-port was good (I hear it isn't always), the ethnomusicologist talked about Carnaval music & the Carnaval circuits and Robin talked about church architecture and Candomblé, an African religion practiced in Brazil. Candomblé came from Africa to Brazil by slaves and it mixes with Catholicism in very interesting ways. Mary, who is a religion professor, talked about the Yoruba pantheon and the Orixás that figure in Candomblé. In Brazil, we'll be able to buy beads and ribbons (fitas) that carry particular Orixá representation by their color. The ribbons are tied around your wrist with three knots and you make three wishes. You have to wear the ribbon until it wears out. You can't cut it off or it'll be bad luck. Robin says she thinks the ribbons will fall off about the time we reach San Diego. These are the Orixás that I am particularly intrigued with:

• Yemanja—the mother of creation, she resides in the ocean, her colors are blue and white. She possesses treasures from the depths of the sea. Wise and daring, she is both gentle and fierce.
• Oshala—the orixá of the wisdom of two worlds: Heaven and earth. He is the divine artist and teacher, teaching creativity in solving problems. He teaches the importance of persistence and inventiveness in achieving goals. He embodies patience and coolness in the face of all obstacles. He is associated with the color white, the symbol of peace.
• Osuh (also spelled Oxum)—the Goddess of honey. Oshun is one of the powerful female orixás. She lives in sweet water (fresh water). Gold, copper, fertility, beauty and love are all her domain. She is associated with the color yellow.
• Yansan—the queen of joy. She is the orixá of partnership, loyalty, passion and adventure. She is a warrior, sensual and clever. She is the goddess of winds and storms. She takes the dead from Earth to heaven so that they are reborn into another life. She hates injustice, prejudice and mediocrity. She is a female warrior who manifests herself in the whirlwind. She is associated with the colors red and black.
  (source: definitions and interpretations are taken primarily from “The Alter of My Soul” by Mart Moreno Vega, via Global Nomads & Mary Keller)
  

Joyce, who teaches mysticism and religion and history and grew up in Brazil, talked about traditional Carnaval. There was music & info. on food & Portuguese lessons. They all put together a great presentation.

Tonight was the logistical pre-port where they talk about safety & alcohol & medical info. and other such details. Last night, Mike made the comment that this was a good cop/bad cop routine. Culture the first night, safety lecture the second night. The folks tonight took exception to that statement and the doctor composed a song that they all sang (with guitar accompaniment) addressing malaria & deet & lettuce & ice cubes (don't drink the water!) & diarrhea & alcohol & STDs & condoms. It was pretty funny. They got a standing ovation.

The pilot will come on board at 0600 tomorrow and we should be at port by 0700. I plan to get up this time to watch us come in.

it's rainy in the rainforest

it's been raining, raining, raining today again. Which of course is easily explained by the fact that we are in the tropics & if we could see land (we can't), we'd see rainforests. Since I'm surrounded by academics, including scientists, I asked them my question of the week: at the Jersey shore, when you drive into any of the shore towns you can immediately smell and taste the salt air. How come, when we're in the middle of the Atlantic ocean down here too, you don't have that same smell? There's definitely salt on my skin after I sit outside for a while and there is definitely salt on the handrails outside, but you can't smell that Jersey shore smell. They said it's because it's not the ocean that we were ever smelling. It's the chemical reaction between the ocean and the marsh and the salt deposits on land. The tell-tale smell is actually land decomposition, not the ocean itself. Since there is no land currently anywhere in sight and no marsh, the wind isn't carrying any scent.

All day today, we've been watching masked boobies dive into the ocean to eat the flying fish that are jumping out of our wake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masked_booby). Our amphibian-professor says that they all eventually go blind hitting the water with such force over and over.

Here are a few ship photos. This is one of the longest hallways. It's Deck 4. My deck has more "jags" along the way, this is a student hall (a "sea", as they call it, Arabian Sea, Yellow Sea, etc.). This one is on the way to my favorite outside deck hangout, back by the wake:



Outside, by the wake:



sun & clouds & raininess all at once:



my toes, as I sit by the wake:



Purser's Square, where folks hang out to read email & people-watch:



This photo is of some folks at the library. We're getting an interesting & different clientele at the library than usual. It's not at all quiet. It's a big open space with lots of traffic moving back and forth. People who are looking for quiet spaces to study on the ship (other than their rooms) are a little grumbly. The folks who are hanging out in the library are all people-watcher types. They like being in the hubbub:



This photo is one set of the reserve shelves:



Take note of the metal blinds that are at the top of the photo. They come down over the shelves at night with a not-very-fun-to-use hand crank. They broke today and we couldn't get them up this morning. 4 crew spent nearly all day trying to fix the blinds. Success, finally, around 3:30. Those shelves hold books for professors whose names begin with A-L. Interestingly, we got not a single request for a book from those shelves today. Everyone doing reserve reading had a professor whose name started with M-Z. Odd.

This is Sherri:



computer lab:



faculty/staff lounge:



there's is a Dean's party tonight. Karaoke & everything.

Some folks work in the faculty/staff lounge (Julie) and some folks hang and chat (Mary):



And, finally, here's Dean Mike preparing for the cultural pre-port lecture tonight on Carnival in Brazil:



Mike is the Academic Dean. In his real life, he teaches political & environmental science at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

Tonight we are "retarding" our clocks an hour. There was much joy amongst the shipboard masses at this announcement.

poetry on deck 6

David organized a poetry reading event tonight for Valentine's Day ("poetry, beauty, and love"). David is an English professor and he started the evening off by reading a sonnet he wrote to his wife Phoebe. David & Phoebe got married after only knowing each other 2 months -- 43 years ago! David teaches one of the travel writing classes that I wish I could take. He is recently retired from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. David's sonnet was very sweet and was followed by others reading poems they wrote -- some good, some less good, but we all yelled and clapped for everyone. Not a bad way to spend Valentine's day ... on deck 6 of the MV explorer crossing the equator ...

Even though we crossed the equator today and so it's officially Neptune Day, we're not actually celebrating for awhile yet. We'll celebrate it as a day off to break up the days at sea between Salvador and Cape Town. According to wikipedia:

Sailors who have already crossed the equator are nicknamed (Trusty) Shellbacks, often referred to as Sons of Neptune; those who have not are nicknamed (Slimy) Pollywogs. "King Neptune and his court" (usually including his first assistant Davy Jones and her Highness Amphitrite and often various dignitaries, who are all represented by the highest ranking seamen) officiate at the ceremony, during which the Pollywogs undergo a number of increasingly disgusting ordeals (wearing clothing inside out and backwards; crawling on hands and knees on nonskid-coated decks; being swatted with short lengths of firehose; being locked in stocks and pillories and pelted with mushy fruit; crawling through chutes and large tubs of rotting garbage; kissing the Royal Baby's belly coated with axle grease, hair chopping, etc), largely for the entertainment of the Shellbacks. Once the ceremony is complete, a Pollywog receives a certificate declaring his new status. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony

I'll let you know what they do to us Pollwogs when the time comes ...

I realized today that my blog is still on eastern standard time. I had intended to change it as we moved around the world, but I have neglected to do so. Currently we are 3 hours ahead, or GMT-2.

Happy Valentine's-Neptune Day.

journey into the southern hemisphere

we just crossed the equator! We are just past 0 degrees & 0 minutes latitude. Happy Neptune Day ...

and yet another time change

A few updates on yesterday's post:

Garth emailed me to say the metal piece I mentioned tripping over is called a "coming". Thanks, Garth!

Here's a picture of Dean Larry. Larry is our executive dean and he helped out yesterday when the crew told us our reserve cart was a fire hazard. As mentioned previously, the library was once the bar and you must crawl under the bar to get behind the circulation desk. Dean Larry acknowledges this is not so fun:



(photo courtesy of Sherri)

Today, Robin helped me create a curtain in my cabin that allows in the light but prevents you from seeing inside the window. I have a lovely window, which I very much enjoy, except that it goes out to the deck and people can walk along the deck. The cabins have darkening shades that make the room nearly pitch black, but it's a bit of a problem during the day if you want to be in your cabin and still have light coming in. I don't spend as many daytime hours in my cabin as some of the faculty who use theirs for workspace also, since I'm mostly in the library during the day, but I have also experienced this problem. Robin teaches Art History and Art & Religion. She lives in Carlisle. Pa. Her Ph.D. is from UVA and she once worked in the Provost's office. Robin knows much! Robin's artsiness reminds me a lot of Ann. Ann's trying to make friends with catalogers up at MIT, I'm trying to make friends with artsy people ... Robin bought sheer fabric in San Juan and magnetic tape in the SAS bookstore (everything here is magnetic) and she made a perfect curtain that lets in the light but is not see-through from the outside. I was very impressed!

We had sale 1 yesterday for the trips. I got the trip to Beijing that I wanted. The same one that Barbie did last summer: the Great Wall and Xi'an, for the Terra Cotta Warriors. I signed up for a few other day things as well and I also have overnight trips in Vietnam & India, but the Safari and the Great Wall are definitely the big ones.

The Archbishop was walking around today with a UVA baseball cap. The one with the orange V and the swords underneath. He told me Dr. Leigh gave it to him and he smiled broadly and seemed very pleased.

I hear there is snow and ice in both Virginia and Pennsylvania tonight. Be warm & safe.

rainy & rocky

it's raining tonight & quite rocky. I've been wearing sea-bands all day today. I'm pretty sure it's the combination of the motion & the time change that gets to me. We moved today into Greenwich Mean Time -3:00 or two hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. I need to learn to get used to this because it's going to happen many many more times this trip! Like 22 more times ...

It's been raining on and off all today. I was sitting on the deck with the water spraying in my face lightly from the ocean until I realized it was getting harder & it was actually rain. We're rocking a bit right now. I'm sitting in the faculty/staff lounge, which is a lovely space, except that the motion bothers me here more than in other areas.

The crew security officer today told us the cart of books behind the desk was a fire hazard. We're scrambling a little bit to rearrange the reserves. It's incredibly tight behind the deck, so it's not at all easy to do this. Sherri's working with the workstudy students tonight and I'm sure they'll come up with something.

On other SAS passenger introductions: I had dinner the other night with a woman named Ruby who has been on Semester at Sea five times. Yes, FIVE. Her first voyage was in 1992 and she has been around the world five times since then. She is a "life-long-learner" -- adult passenger, continuing ed., use your term of choice. It seems that ISE changes the name of this program regularly. Let's just say she's older than most of the rest of us. You can be a life-long learner at any age -- the predominant characteristic is that they can all afford to do this -- but most of them are older. Ruby is 85. She worked in a school cafeteria without a college degree when she decided to go back to school for business administration. One of her professors asked her to join his real estate firm and she got her license. A couple of years ago, she sold a golf course. And she's sailed around the world 5 times since 1992. She says this time she's taking it easier and not doing too much off the ship because, she says, she's already been to the Amazon, she's already been to the Taj Mahal ... Been there done that. The rest of us at dinner just sat with our jaws wide open.

There are actually many people on this voyage who have done this before. Both the academic dean (Mike) and the executive dean (Larry) have sailed repeatedly with SAS, as have a couple of the faculty. It definitely seems that people get sucked into this life. I've also learned that in order to get a room on the fancy deck -- deck 7 -- you need to be important (Desmond Tutu) or part of the Administrative Team or you have to have sailed repeatably. Hmmm ...

shipboard life

Just for the record on yesterday’s "no commute" comment, I left work last night at 11:02 and was in bed by 11:17. Works for me. Now, of course in bed is different than asleep, because one of the challenges of not-commuting is that I have no detox time for my brain to quiet down after work. I don’t know what time I actually fell asleep, but it was much after 11:17. Still, it’s kinda fun to think that I could be in bed 15 minutes after leaving work. Of course, no dog to walk either ... I miss my animals … Ashley reports that all is going well though Elsa is itchy, as always.

We sailed past St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Barbados today. Fun to see island land as we go by.

I thought while we were at sea I’d take the opportunity to fill you in on ship-board routines:

They take security very seriously. In Puerto Rico, we had 2 separate ID checks even before we got to the ship and had to swipe our cards. They went through our bags with some interest and I imagine that will get more serious as we move on. They make us dump out all half-full liquids to make sure students aren’t bringing back alcohol in less descript beverage containers. Packaged food/drink can come aboard, but nothing opened. They wouldn’t let Sherri bring back a dinner doggie-bag when we were in Nassau. I’ve had to trash several not-fully-empty water bottles. When you swipe in & out, your picture appears on the screen next to the photo that was taken at the beginning of the voyage and that is pictured on our ID. You all know how much I love that.

Many people (including Barbie) had said the ship was cold, cold, cold. It’s definitely over-air conditioned. I’m hardly ever cold so I wasn’t sure what to believe. I’m wearing fall-ish/spring-ish clothes, like for the mid-60s. Long sleeves, but not heavy. And a lot of my Chicos stretchy clothes of the long sleeve variety. I’m not wearing sweaters/sweatshirts around the ship, but others definitely are. The bookstore is doing a brisk business in SAS sweatshirts. Annette & Janis would both be freezing. On deck, it’s windy but not cold, even in the shade. I’ve been wearing jeans nearly everyday, which I have to say I have totally gotten used to. First with my sore toes the last weeks at UVA and now on the ship. I fear I might not want to get dressed up for work ever again!

The hot water on the ship is not very hot and the cold water is not very cold. I definitely prefer my liquids in extreme. I want the shower to be very hot & I want the sink to give me cold cold tap water. No luck there, but the cabin steward does bring me ice twice a day for which I’m grateful. One can easily get used to having a cabin steward!

The food schedule is 0700-0900 for breakfast, 1130-1300 for lunch, and 1730-1930 for dinner. The lines are crazy long at the beginning of each meal (except for breakfast), so I try to aim for the later side. I’m having a hard time with the food schedule & my blood sugar is definitely jumpy, but I’m sure that will settle out. Food is good and there are lovely desserts for every meal. Today was ice cream which made us all very excited! There is also a snack bar on the pool desk and alcohol is served in the faculty/staff lounge from 1700-1800 and 2100-2300 every night. Tonight, there are drinks on the dean for a discussion of Global Studies. Free drinks obviously make many people happy, but meetings that start at 2100 don’t so much please me.

The entrances to the outside all have metal pieces that you have to step over. I’m sure they have a name but I don’t know what they are called. The idea is to keep water out, if comes over the deck. The first week, I was tripping every time I went outside, but I’m getting used to it now and I remember to step up and over. The tripping was not helping the healing of my toes, but they are definitely better now. A little sore on occasion, but I walked all over Old San Juan without much pain. Which is a very very good thing.

What else do you all want to know? I'll take some more ship photos in the coming days.

We lose another hour of sleep tonight. yikes.

late night in the library

Today was a very busy & productive day in the library. Our workstudy students are getting trained & they worked their asses off today! As did Sherri & I, off course ... Sherry worked the early shift & I’m here until 11:00. We had an exciting start to our morning when Sherri restarted the circulation desk computer for the first time and then we had no idea what the password was to log it back on. Thanks much to Matt, the IT-guy, we got past that. All the reserves are processed and shelved. Most of the rest of the cataloging is done (minus some original cataloging, which I’ll get to eventually). We have an actual schedule for the workstudy students finally. We have a film schedule for the closed-circuit TVs, working with Dia the Registrar, and have located all the films she needs (or declared them lost). All the scanning is finished that we are doing on the ship. The ILS software problem finally has a solution. Not a long-term solution, exactly, but it’s working for now. We’re probably going to wait to do the migration until after Brazil. There was the huge hurry a couple of weeks ago to get the new software up and running before the students boarded, but now that we’re delayed, Sherri & I thought it best to just wait until things level out a bit before more technology-tumult. Kenny, the crew IT-guy (as opposed to Matt, the voyage IT-guy), also made a lovely alias for the catalog. Users just have to type "library" into the URL bar in any Internet browser and the new library catalog will come up.

One of the faculty asked me today if this job was harder than my real job. I said this job feels more like manual labor. I work 24 hours a day at my real job too, but that work is more mind-games … This is heavy lifting …

Students are checking out reserve materials like crazy. They are definitely reading. I sat outside for a little while this morning and there were students on the chaise lounges in bathing suits reading the Global Studies books. There are 9 people sitting in the library reading right now. That may not sound like a lot, but it actually accounts for nearly every seat we have. We’re doing big business in travel guides also.

Global Studies was really good this morning. We learned about the tectonic plates and geology & vegetation of Latin America. Having never really enjoyed science all that much, having that pretty high-level overview was very interesting and useful. Our group also had a really good discussion reflecting on experiences in Puerto Rico. Especially surrounding the issue of statehood. Students asked everyone they met whether they thought Puerto Rico should become a state. They had really interesting conversations with really interesting people and learned effectively that there isn’t a whole lot of consensus around that question.

A good full day all in all. 22 minutes and I get to go “home”. Here’s another thing I like about living on a ship: no commute.

playas y cavernas

Here are a few photos of yesterday’s beach. No matter how many other beaches I go to, having grown up at the Jersey shore I am always amazed to see both blue water and green vegetation all in the same landscape. Not just sand, but plants & grass.

This is the fort in the background:

Today, I went on a trip to Rio Camuy Caves. We stood in line for a very long time but once we got in there, the caves were pretty amazing. The took us down in a tram & they have 5 trams total. 3 are currently being repaired. One more broke this morning, it needed new breaks. As soon as we started down, it became clear why breaks were important! We went down a very steep windy road to the bottom of a 400 feet sinkhole. Inside the caves were stalactites & stalagmites in all their glory. The Rio Camuy is the 3^rd longest underground river behind one in Yugoslavia and another in New Guinea. We took a bus about an hour and a half out of San Juan so it was nice to get to see other parts of the island. There are two sinkholes and the caves were discovered in 1958. A traffic-y road runs above. They originally thought the sinkholes went straight down when they built the road, but that turns out not to be true. They balloon out to the sides. So, the cars above are driving on land that is actually hollow underneath. The scenery was quite spectacular. Very lush & green, it’s part of the rainforest.

There are also thousands of bats in the cave, but we didn’t see any. We did see some lizards & some Puerto Rican tree frogs called coquis.

Tonight we have a faculty meeting at 9:00 (yes, that would be 9:00 pm on a Friday night) where, amongst other things, we’re going to try talk about scanning requests. Wish me luck! Mitch asks me to thank all the UVA scanning folks by name: June Trainum and Betty Mickens, as well as Donna Barbour who did the material retrieval for us. thank you all!

And then off to Brazil … Tomorrow I work the night shift (til 11:00).

so much for museums

I wandered around Old San Juan again this morning taking photos and strolling along el Paseo de la Princesa, along the outer wall of the city.

And then I went to the beach in the afternoon. The sand was pretty course and darker than it is at the Jersey shore, but the water was as warm in February as it is there in August. It was beautiful just hanging out in the ocean listening to the waves crash along the shoreline. From the beach, you can see the forts where I was yesterday and the capitol building.

I’m a bit sunburnt despite having slathered in sunscreen so I have to figure out what to do about that. It’s going to be very hot & very sunny everywhere we’ll be.

I was going to go back into town tonight, but two of us are now thinking about trying to crash a field trip. We’ll see if it works. A group is going kayaking at Bioluminescent Bay (http://www.biobay.com) and they just added another bus. We won’t be able to go kayaking, but we’re going to try to get on the bus and wander around ourselves. Tomorrow, I’ve got a trip to Rio Camuy Caves (http://welcome.topuertorico.org/city/camuy.shtml) & then we leave for Brazil.

A view from a fort

forts might not have offered the best living conditions, but they do have very awesome views.

Today, we docked in Puerto Rico. I missed the pulling into port because (as mentioned yesterday) I wasn’t feeling so hot and thought it best to get a little sleep. I woke up feeling much better. We got off the ship about 9:45 this morning after clearing immigration & hearing the Governor of Puerto Rico speak. I took a walking tour of Old San Juan which took us to two different forts (San Cristobal & El Morro) and a very cool cemetery with -- as already mentioned -- amazingly awesome views.

Everyone who has ever been on Semester at Sea says that their current port is their favorite port. Of course, we haven’t even technically left the United States yet, but let me tell you I could totally live in Puerto Rico. Except for the part where it’s a million degrees in February. I heard it snowed in C-Ville today, Deej emailed me snowy library photos:

I love the mountains in Virginia, but I do confess to very much missing water. Puerto Rico has a lot of water. Walking along many streets you can see water both to your right & to your left, the Atlantic Ocean and the San Juan Bay. The streets are made of blue cobblestone:

Therre’s both Spanish influence:

& French influence, in many ways Old San Juan looks very much like New Orleans:

Then Peter & I had lunch & went to Casa Blanca, the home of Ponce de Leon. Peter is a life-long learner from Colorado. He’s taking classes & traveling around the world. They asked us if we wanted the tour in English or in Spanish and we opted for Spanish for the challenge. I got about 90% of it which I figured to be pretty good since it’s been awhile. The house was nice (though much of it was added on to much later) and the gardens were beautiful, although they also were later add-ons.

And then we walked a million miles back to the ship. I’ve added more photos to the map above. I was thinking of taking a shower & going back out, but I’m fried and we’re pretty far. Tomorrow, I have an entirely free day to wander around more. I hope to hit a few museums. The relationship to the U.S. is definitely interesting. You see the U.S. Post Office and the Fuertes (forts) are U.S. National Historic Sites with familiar signage. Road signs are all U.S.-style except they are in Spanish. And gas is sold in liters rather than gallons.

On a few other notes:

Be sure to check out Sherri's blog for other perspectives of shipboard life: http://sojournerlibrarian.blogspot.com

I've added another blog to the links section. Mary Keller teaches world religions and spirit possession traditions and she is blogging for her kid's class. She has a 5 year old and a 7 year old who are following along from home. Find Mary's blog at: http://kellersas.blogspot.com/

The book for the Archbishop arrived today. Thanks much to Jean & to Acquisitions & to Cataloging for being so incredibly speedy. I brought it up to the faculty/staff lounge this evening in search of the Archbishop (the shipboard equivalent of LEO), but he doesn't seem to be around. I'll catch him tomorrow.

Finally, I had dinner this evening with Leigh Grossman & her son, who flew up from Granada for a visit. She flies back tomorrow to Charlottesville. I have really enjoyed getting to know her & will be sad to see her leave. Leigh has definitely been added to my list of very-cool-women-to-admire.