Back home in America

Hi friends - I wrote this last blog entry a little bit at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale while waiting for my flight home, and finished it a few days later, back home in Hermosa Beach, CA. I am still adjusting, maybe even struggling a little with being back home. I have to admit I am a little sad that it is over. I miss my students. I miss the crew on the ship. I miss the people who became my friends over the past four months. It is Christmastime and the lure of the holiday season with family and good friends is beckoning... It has taken me several days, but I am slowly finding my holiday spirit. I am happy to be home but sad for what has been left behind...

Dec. 8-11
Being back in America is weird. I’ve been away for less than four months and yet I feel like a foreigner, here. Maybe it’s because I’m in Florida. Florida is a little bit weird. And yet, it’s America, and I’ve lived in this country my whole life. They said there would be culture shock, that there would be an adjustment period upon re-entering American society. I remember feeling this way last year when I returned from only two months in Spain. It felt so strange to be back in my car driving, when I’d spent the entire summer taking public transportation or walking. Driving alone in your car is something very common in American society, but not so in the rest of the world. We are an individualistic society, where everyone has his or her own car, and prefers to drive alone. Remember that scene in Swingers when Vince Vaughn and all his buddies each drive their own car to the bar? There was a time when even my family had no less than four cars registered to our address! And we are a fairly average American family. People in most other countries have maybe one car per family, and they rarely drive alone. They take buses, subways, trains, or they walk. When I was in India, we crammed five, and sometimes six people in a four door sedan. I really had to try and get over my personal space issues, there. In Spain, Japan, Turkey, nearly everywhere we went, we took trains, buses or subways where you literally had no personal space and were forced to interact with people. I remember turning my head to the side on a subway in Istanbul because I was so close to this man standing in front of me, I was afraid I’d end up kissing him if the train suddenly came to a stop! In America, we value our possessions and lots of personal space. I haven’t had that in some time, so it does feel different. It is also really strange to hear everyone speaking English. Yes, we spoke English on the ship, but in every country, every port we entered, a different language was spoken, and we could scarcely communicate with the people. We had to try to learn hello and goodbye, please and thank you, and surprisingly it wasn’t that hard. Smiles go a long way, and people were really so helpful. We stood out in each of the places and if and when we got lost or really needed help, we could always spot other Americans (usually students or staff from the ship). I look around for my fellow Americans – people from my ship. But, no, these people are not from my ship. They live here. They are bigger than the people I’ve seen in every country so far. They are louder. I realize that I am the one staring now. They aren’t staring at me. I look just like them. I am American. I see shopping malls and gigantic stores advertising Christmas sales, large bright colored signs begging shoppers to enter. I think about consumerism, capitalism, of how abundant our society is. I think of Burma where I rode to an outdoor market on a horse cart, and watched women cleaning and separating crabs and shrimp into buckets, and children selling postcards on the street. I turn on the television and I am bombarded with commercials advertising the newest luxury vehicles, high priced cellular phones and vacation packages for holiday travel. I flip through the channels and see overpaid, fame and money obsessed professional athletes arguing with referees. I can’t believe I missed television. I am lucky – I live in a country where I can walk into any 24 hour convenience store and choose from among the shelves nearly anything my heart desires. This was not so, in several of the places I’ve been. But, I really don’t care about things. I live my life for experiences, not for personal possessions or material goods. I return to America with much less money than I had when I left, and no promise of a paycheck until February. But at least I have a job, and for that I am thankful. I know that for me the next couple of months will be a struggle, as I try to fit back into American society, and at the same time try not to forget the faces of people I’ve met, places I’ve been, and friends I’ve made. I am so afraid of forgetting. I have to find a place to live, a side job to help me get back on my feet, and start to pay off the bills I’ve accumulated while away. But I knew I was taking a risk when I signed up for this experience. And I think about how fortunate I am. There is so much yet to process from this journey. What will I change about my life? How are my views different? What have I learned that I may be able to share with others? I don’t know what the future has in store for me, or what I will choose to do next. And even though I may feel as if I’m struggling right now, I can’t forget how fortunate I am to have had this opportunity. Be patient with me if at times I am sad – I am going to miss my cabin steward, Allan, my friends from the ship, and the feeling of being at sea. I am now back in California, and as I look around, I swear I see Professor Snyder walking on the treadmill next to mine, or students from the ship passing by. The people on the ship were my family for the past few months, and though I will likely never see many of them again, I will not forget them or the experiences we shared together, traveling around the world.

Almost home...

Well, the voyage has come full circle. We are about three days away from Florida, the sun is shining, the weather is warm, the waves have calmed, and it’s study day for the students, which means they are all out in their bikinis and shorts laying by the pool deck. This last stretch has been the longest yet. When everyone hopped back on the ship the night we left Spain, people were so excited to be going home. The energy was contagious, people who’d never spoken before on the voyage were all of a sudden walking hand in hand, hugging one another and chanting Ole, Ole Ole! Ok, maybe that was because they drank so much absinth at the bars in Cadiz. At any rate, people were happy and excited. But then we had some of the worst weather yet, and people weren’t even leaving their cabins. I didn’t have the luxury since I was up to my ears in details for the Ambassadors Ball. The night of the ball the ship was rocking and everyone had a great time. But the next day they had their final classes before exams, and not surprisingly, attendance was low. In our last Global Studies class, each professor gave a 5 minute farewell lecture. One cried, some wrote and read poetry about the voyage, and others continued the theme of their courses. After three days of intense waves, we have finally reached calmer seas. And the mood on the ship has taken a more somber tone. Everyone seems to be looking forward to getting home. And getting done with finals. It’s a strange place to be, because part of you wants to return home to all your friends, family, the comforts of home, and the other part of you knows you’ll miss the adventure of traveling the world, the feeling of being out at sea, with nothing but miles and miles of waves and blue sky. I’ll miss my sea, and the friendships I’ve made with students, staff, faculty and the crew. There are so many things that I will miss about this voyage. I’m still as grateful as ever that I had the chance to be here, and meet all these people, and see so much of the world. As I was beginning to pack yesterday I pulled out a sheet of paper that listed all the ports we would visit. And I remember that at the time, it was just an itinerary. These countries and these ports, for the most part, held no meaning for me. They were just cities on a map, that made a circle around the globe. Now, I can look back and remember the people of Vietnam, Burma, Japan, Egypt, everywhere. I have memories from each of these places - some highs, some lows, the unexpected, and the unforgettable. At least I hope I won’t forget.


I know that when I get home people will ask what country was my favorite or what I did in each of the ports. I’ve been working on a little Top Ten list of sorts and here’s how it goes.

Top Ten Best Overall Experiences
1. Japanese bath.
2. Kayaking in Lantau Island, with two friends from the ship.
3. Chatting with Deaf Children in Vietnam
4. Playing with kids at a church camp in Burma
5. Wearing the Indian Sari at a cocktail party in Chennai
6. Playing an Indian version of poker and just hanging out, laughing with George and his friends. 7. A night of Karaoke in Kyoto, Japan.
8. Card games and radio addresses on a sailboat with five students and 1 Croatian skipper.
9. Swimming in the warm clear waters of the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii.
10. Meeting up with friends in Barcelona and falling in love with the beauty of Sitges.


Top Five Cuisines
1. Vietnamese Pho’
2. Turkish kebabs
3. Spicy Indian food that you eat with your hands.
4. Tapas and Pinchos in Barcelona.
5. Dim sum plates in Lantau, and the coconut curry chicken soup in Hong Kong (yum).


Worst Food
1. The fruit on the ship, way past the state of ripeness.
2. The hot dogs on the ship (ok, I didn’t even try them, they looked so bad)
3. Imitation eggs on the ship (that I ate because the fruit was bad)
4. Fish heads and fish liver in Japan.
5. Japanese food in Barcelona (can’t wait to have sushi again in California)


Worst drivers / worst traffic
1. Chennai, India (Lived in constant fear for my life, nearly had a heart attack)
2. Cairo, Egypt (Did not even cross the street for nearly half of one day)
3. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Actually told people to tell my parents I loved them if I died)

Safest, most efficient, and best transportation
1. Japan
2. Turkey
3. Spain

Top three friendliest, most welcoming people
1. Japan
2. Myanmar
3. Egypt

Top three most beautiful sights
1. The mosques and Haga Sofia in Istanbul
2. The Pyramids at Sunset
3. The Dalmation coast on the Adriatic Sea in Croatia

Most beautiful cities
1. Istanbul
2. Dubrovnik
3. The Hong Kong Skyline and the shores of Repulse Bay.

Best on Ship
1. My Sea Social! (Classy or Trashy, the best sea by far)
2. Sea’lympics
3. Open Mic nights
4. Transiting the Suez Canal
5. Barbeques!
6. Swimming during global studies exams
7. Karaoke in the F&S Lounge.
8. The view from anywhere on the 7th deck.
9. Watching the sunrise as we pulled into Hawaii.
10. Never getting tired of seeing the sunset on the sea.

Belle of the Ball?

Friends and family members have often heard me say that if and when I ever get married I do not want to have a big wedding. I like to have small gatherings at my home, holiday parties, sometimes even costume parties. Well, ok, I’ve said it; I do enjoy parties. But planning an end of the year Ball for over 600 people, to me, was almost like planning a wedding. For the past three months I’ve been meeting with my “event planning” committee (we elected co-chairs and sub-committee chairs way back in September) on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. We had to create a budget, select a theme, shop for decorations, design, assemble and deliver invitations, create publicity, set ticket prices, choose a diverse and tasty menu, coordinate music venues, create a slideshow, line up performers, sell tickets, assign passengers to tables, schedule two dinner seatings, a cocktail hour, the champagne toast, a dessert buffet, photos with the Captain…. and try to get ourselves ready for the Ball - which for me meant a trip to the salon and trying to remember how to tie my bright pink sari again!

As soon as I arrived back on the ship from Spain, I was back to work, with only two days to tie up all the loose ends for the ball. I was up half the night trying to work out the logistics, checking and cross checking the lists; did we really order over 400 filet mignons? Would the entertainers show up on time, would we have enough time to decorate between the end of class and the start of the ball? Would tickets be delivered to each cabin in time? There were last minute passengers who decided they now wanted to buy tickets, there were a few people who didn’t like their seating arrangements and requested another table, vegetarians who wanted to know why we were serving eggplant instead of tofu, and I was running around trying to make everyone happy. Do I sound like a bride? Fortunately I did have two fabulous co-chairs and a great committee of students working just as hard on the Ball as I was, and in the end, the event turned out to be simply fabulous!

Seeing everyone dressed up in their Indian Saris and fancy evening dresses or suits they had made in Vietnam, walk into the beautifully decorated dining room we’d spent hours planning and executing, made me smile. Everyone looked so beautiful, and the entire ship looked amazing in our Bollywood theme – the crew even made us a giant chocolate Taj Mahal! The rooms were brightly colored and adorned with saris, Indian throw pillows and colorful decorative hats. When I finally got my sari on, and made it to the second seating in costume, I was so excited to see everyone that I went around to each table snapping photos. Someone at my table asked, “Where’s Danelle”? To which another friend responded, “She’s being the hostess with the mostest”. Seriously, had I known I would have my wedding on this ship with over 600 guests, I would have registered at Bloomingdales! Now I have a bunch of photos of people eating dinner. What will I do with those?

All kidding aside, it was a fabulous event that brought together an entire community. We raised $5,000 after all of our expenses, to donate to the Students of Service Organization, the same group that coordinated the auction, and raised over $20,000. We’re now in the process of choosing several charity organizations to sponsor, and we even donated the saris to an adult passenger on board who works with underprivileged girls in America. I know I felt like a princess all dressed up in my sari, and if it will put smiles on the faces of young girls back home, then by all means, let them play dress up and learn a little about Indian culture! There is a great deal of fundraising happening on the ship; we are now in the middle of a shipwide drive for the alumni association, which seeks to sponsor low income students, and subsidize tuition for all. To many of the students on board this ship, an extra $30 or so that they can donate is the price they’d pay for a pedicure on the ship. But to most students in America $20,000 to $30,000 for one semester is a price much higher than they can possibly afford. With any luck we’ll be able to raise enough money to sponsor those same young girls dressed up in saris to go on Semester at Sea someday.