Red Sea @ MindSay

With only two days left in our Middle Eastern stay and with our classes having finished, my program spent today and yesterday in Aqaba, Jordan’s Red Sea resort city.  Throughout the past month Amman has been quite cold with the average temperature hovering around the low 40’s; however, right on the Red Sea, Aqaba’s average temperatures are about 30 degrees higher than Amman’s.  Luckily, the weather did not disappoint one bit.

 

I found myself comfortably wearing shorts during the afternoons of both days.  Just like the weather, the water of the Red Sea was very warm and comfortable.  The afternoon of our second day was amazing as we hung out on a boat all day and snorkeled.  While the Middle East may not be the first thing that pops into one’s mind when thinking about destinations for snorkeling, it actually has amazing coral reefs and sea life.  The views that I saw below the surface were simply breathtaking.

Another very cool part of the boat ride was the fact that from where the boat was anchored in the Red Sea you could see Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia all from the same spot.  The Four Corners of America’s Southwest had nothing on this sight and experience.

After spending a full day in the sun and water, my group and I enjoyed the night life of Aqaba.

Aqaba’s nightlife certainly caters to foreign tourists and the more liberal minded members of Jordanian society.  For example, there are many alcohol stores.  In addition, night clubs dot every corner with some being a little shadier than others.  Having not seen any belly dancers since we had been in the Middle East, my friends and I decided to go and try to find a club in Aqaba that had some; however, the place that we were told to go to was a little sketchy.  The belly dancer, a Russian, was not that good.  I wasn’t that surprised though as I was told the only good ones were in Damascus and Cairo.  Either way though, the sketchiness of the club made the story a fun one.  After this we went back to our rooms ready to return to Amman for our last day in Jordan.     

We had the sea Olympics… pretty interesting since our events included pie eating contests, mash potato sculptures, synchronized swimming, and some other wacky events.  The ship's living quarters are divided into sections, like a regular school, with Resident Directors to keep the peace and scold people when they walk around barefoot.  Each section is named after a sea or ocean and gets to select a mascot to proudly represent them during the Olympics. 

My section of the 3rd floor is the Caribbean Sea and we are none other than the Pirates of the Caribbean (Aarh!).  I have to say, when you are trying to intimidate the opposing team, its helps to be a mean pirate rather than the Red Sea's "Moses parting the Red Sea" or the "Green Boogers" who I think belonged to the Mediterranean Sea. 

The ceremonies started off with the lighting of the torch (not a real one of course), followed by the talent show, a showcase of talent and silly stupidity, all very entertaining.  We had opera singing, guitars, piano, acting, dancing, boys in drag, a stand up comedian, SNL's "the perfect cheer", and anything else you can think of, we had it all.  I'm more into comedy than anything else, so my favorite stuff was the comedic video the Vitamin Sea made, the Murphy jokes, and the "I'm in love with Tanya Storch" part of the stand up comedy.

The Vitamin Sea is the "grown up" section of the ship, the faculty and staff and their family members (who get to come for only $2000, good deal!). They made a video about all the adults on the ship being
actors who auditioned for roles and are pretending to be real professors and staff on the ship.  The video showed them auditioning which is hilarious because you see them imitating each other.  And the Captain says he got the role cause he's the only one who can do the British accent.  I think it's only funny if you are actually on the ship and know the people. One of the teachers says "well they (the producers/writers) gave me these lectures (to teach to the class) and I told them they didn't make any sense and they told me they're not suppose to make sense."  Then the people auditioning for Murphy were imitating him. 

Murphy is our global studies professor who's here with his beautiful wife and 2 of his kids.  Global Studies is the class we do everyday that teaches us about the countries we are going to, it's a huge lecture for the whole ship.  Well, he, like any other person, uses the same phrases on a regular bases.  For example the word pregnant to mean "with a lot of"… "the film is pregnant with information."  And during his lectures he repeats the important things 3 times, mind you there are a lot of important things: "security, security, security."  So a lot of people imitated him for comedy and it was quit effective.  We all love him of course but anyone who uses the word pregnant that much and isn't referring to a baby is bound to end up in a few jokes.  Well, he ended up in quite a few jokes through out the evening and being imitated at least by 5 different people- it never got old.

The last and possibly the funniest thing I've heard in months was the Tanya skit. One of the guys on the ship is a total stand up comedian.  So he did his bit joking about different things and people on the ship.  In the middle he starts talking about some girl he likes who won't pay him any attention and he talks about how he keeps trying unsuccessfully to talk to her.  Then he says it's Tanya Storch
he's in love with, my religion teacher. You remember her right? The crazy hippy genius. She's beyond eccentric and she's kinda clairvoyant (I of course completely adore her) but it's histerical to think some 20
year old dude has a crush on her. 

Anyway, maybe you have to know Tanya to understand how funny it was… but then, what made it better was that I found out that it was TRUE!  He really does have a crush on her! I think a lot of things are hard to explain to people at home because our experiences are so specific. We are living in such a tight space,
sailing for days on end. No one knows the date or what day of the week it is or what time it is at home or anything.  When we are in port we make so many jokes that no one at home can understand because they
haven't been exposed to the locals and the beggars and the sights that we have.  This is why they say that kids on Semester at Sea tend to bond and they remain friends for a long time. No one at home can ever fully appreciate the vast joy that comes from the words "It's Taco
Day!"

There is so much going on I don't know where to start. The Internet has been having problems lately so it is going to be completely shut down and revamped while we are in South Africa. So I apologize if I have to keep you waiting for updates on the seriously exciting stuff I'm about to tell you.
 
1st off we are no longer going to Kenya. There is a civil war going on which has gotten mighty dangerous for traveling. There is especially a lot of piracy happening on the east coast of Africa right now so we were ordered not to land on that coast at all. So where are we going? No idea. Rumors are flying of course but the truth is no one knows. There's a lot to work out when you have to plan a new port. We have 5 days in South Africa, then whatever country we go to, and then India. We may know by tomorrow morning where we are going. People are taking up bets for Australia, which I doubt we'd go, but it's doable. I would prefer Sri Lanka and having been there I can assure it would be amazing. I also suggested Egypt to Dean John… "All you have to do is sail up the Red Sea."  He didn't buy it, not that it's his decision unfortunately. All I know for sure is that we can't land in Iran, (funny in a twisted, twisted way, I'm sorry). Maybe Indonesia? Once before when the ship got redirected from Kenya they went to some islands and I'm guessing that's the most probable bet at the moment. Worse case scenario, we end up at sea for a loooong time because South Africa and India are fixed. It would be difficult to extend our stays there. Whatever happens, I'm sure it'll be amazing.
 
In other news, I've been selected as the Photo Editor for our picture book "Gangway."  Gangway is the word for the entrance to the boat were you get on and off. Oophs, "ship."  So we thought it was a fitting name since this book is the entrance into our voyage and the ship's gangway is our entrance into every por we are experiencing. Brilliant, isn't it? I'm also doing the Fall '05 website. We have to mail it as a CD to the office to upload so it'll be some time before it'll be up, but we've got a basic running site so far. The website team is only like 5 kids so we each have a lot of work to do. I'm really excited about these two projects. They are going to be really time consuming but what a great way of preserving the memories, experiences and learnings of our voyage around the world.
 
Ok, and maybe one of the most amazing things that as ever happened to me in my entire life… I am having dinner at Archbishop Desmond Tutu's house tomorrow night! YES, YES, YES! What a lucky girl I am. I was so bummed because I was suppose to be on the last student panel to ask him questions, but we didn't do it. Which is best because we've had the poor man on the hot seat for days and he must be exhausted. And this is way better than getting to ask him one or two questions. I'm not sure exactly how this all happened but it seems the Archbishop invited the Deans and the four of us who were suppose to be on the last panel to dinner. Sounds good to me. It hasn't hit me yet, but this is great. But you may have to wait five days to find out what happens. Let's hope I get a big kiss and a blessing! Is it wrong to say "Holy Cow?"