Neptune Day: head shaving!

The day after India was Neptune day on the ship. Neptune day is a navy tradition that says when a ship crosses the equator you have to shave your head! Then you are supposed to get fish guts dumped on your head, jump in water, and then get out and kiss a fish. Very random but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun!

We got woken up by our crew banging pots and pans at 7 am and then we had Neptune Day festivities until around 11 am then we had group pictures!

I woke up not having any intention of shaving my head at all! I had considered it last semester and talked about it with a few people and got bad reactions so I figured I wouldn't do it. I definitely didn't want to do it unless they were going to donate my hair to locks of love or some similar organization. So when my friend Meghan and I found out that they would donate our hair, we considered doing it for about 2 minutes and then let it go. Then I thought about all the people my mom works with who have lost their hair because of chemo therapy and of one of Odette's good friends Linda who lost her hair when she was undergoing chemo therapy as well and I thought why not do it for all of those people! Besides its just hair and there are tons of people who need it more than me.

I also figured that if I was ever going to shave my head, now was the time to do it while I was studying abroad and have time for it to grow back before I start interviewing for jobs and such after graduation.

So far I haven't regretted it at all and I have been getting really awesome reactions from people on the ship! I don't look as bad as I thought I would either but I have been trying to figure out a way to make myself look a little more feminine with the help of two of my friends from Pitt who also shaved their heads. A total of 4/8 girls from Pitt shaved their heads! And a total of 19 girls on the ship shaved their heads and 20 boys. It was pretty cool! Having no hair makes you pretty cold too!

China in two days omgoodness!! Time to catch up on sleep and homework and blogging! 

Vietnam

 ha long bay!

We got to the port around 11 and off the ship at 12ish and headed to the tailor shop to make an appointment to get dresses made! Lunch at a local restaurant then we went shopping at a local market.

Ho chi minh is beautiful!! I really was very impressed with how nice it is! The port is a ten minut walk to where all the shops and restaurants are so its really convenient.

Even though I know I am not here to shop, I can't help it in vietnam because they have everything! And its all so cheap!! They have north face stuff galore so I got a backpack and a fleece for a gift.
Facebook is banned in vietnam but I am able to access it on my phone which is cool.

The first night we went to a place called lemon grass for Naomi's bday and then out to a dance bar. The first place we went to seemed like one of those crazy techno clubs you see in europe. It was mostly locals and a little too intense for us so we ended up going to another place that was a perfct mix of sas students other foreigners and locals. It was so much fun and the time passed so quick. when we realized it was 315 we panicked a bit cause alicia and I had flights at 630 to hanoi and hadn't packed yet.

OKay time to leave the internet cafe. Will write more later!

LOVING VIETnAM!!!

Yesterday at dinner we were told that the ship was using all of its engines and running at full speed. At the time they didn't tell us why they were doing so but as always rumors were flying around the ship about pirates off the coast of Africa being after us or that they were going to reward us for some reason and get us to India early. This morning we were informed that 2 students and 1 staff member were in need of serious medical attention so we were going to dock at an island called Diego Garcia Island... a small island in the British Indian islands so that these 3 people could be air lifted to Singapore! Apparently there is a U.S. Navy base on the island so this morning at breakfast we watched as one boat came up to our ship and 2 other raft like boats were circling around the ship checking it out. Apparently there was a submarine beneath our ship checking us out for security reasons. 7 men came on the ship to do a security check and then they took off the 3 patients. Quite a bit of excitement for one morning.

Every day we get a "Dean's Memo" which is kinda like the shipboard community newspaper that updates us one whats going on and what events are taking place etc. There is a spot for rumors called the rumor ranger and this is what todays was:

The Rumor Ranger

(rumorranger@semesteratsea.net)

Is it true that the reason we picked up speed was because there were pirates around today? Yes, in part. We are passing through the distant edge of a potential “pirate zone” but no pirates have been sighted. We have a modest increase in security and as one of the fastest ships in the sea, we have a great defense with our speed. We also increased speed because we had two students and one crew member in need of medical attention that needed to disembark in order to receive more intensive care and monitoring as quickly as possible.