Neptune Day!

There is no celebrating Valentine’s Day on this ship… it was Neptune Day, the initiation sailors go through when crossing the equator. Although we crossed the equator last week, for some reason they like to put off celebrating it until late- it might be so we forget about Valentine’s Day all together, I’m not sure. Since we had no class today, we had a social last night, which included standing in line for over 15 minutes to get probably the smallest glass of wine you’ve seen in your life. This must be their way of monitoring what we drink, because by the time you stand in the line twice you’ve given up on the whole thing. We did figure out, though, that once you get your first drink, immediately go back in line and socialize with your friends in line and by the time you’ve finished your first drink, you’re at the front of the line for your second! Worked out well. The party’s theme was “Party Animals” and everyone was supposed to dress up like an animal, which is very difficult considering no one considers packing anything along those lines when you have to fit your whole life in two duffel bags. People got pretty creative, though, I was impressed. Some guy took the plastic cover for his sleeping bag and got in it and called himself a caterpillar.
We were woken up at 7:30 this morning by the crew all dressed up in crazy outfits, blowing train whistles and beating on pots and pans and screaming. Everyone negligently got out of bed, for the most part, went and ate breakfast, and either watched or took part in the festivities. The Neptune God sits on a chair that overlooks the pool, and the process goes: stand outside the pool, get fish guts poured on you, jump into the pool to wash them off, get out of the pool, kiss a big disgusting fish, and then bow to Neptune and Minerva. After everyone who wanted to do this, the head shaving began, and I kid you not, girls shaved their heads!!! Have no fear, every hair is still securely in place on my head, and Jess’ and Tessa’s too, in fact we didn’t take part in any of the fish gut, jumping in the pool business because, well that’s just not really our thing. We woke up last night to the roughest seas we have seen yet. We had to duct tape our drawers shut, things were falling off the shelf and waves were crashing into our windows, and it’s still going on as I’m writing this. I resisted the temptation to take anti-seasickness meds because they knock me out and I’m worthless for the rest of the day. (Take, for example, Jess who is in our room asleep right now for this very reason.) It’s been raining on and off, so we haven’t been able to really enjoy our day off by laying out, but it’s nice to catch up on all of my reading! We only have a few more days at sea until Cape Town, and all the fun starts all over again! I have heard some pretty crazy stories about people getting things stolen in Brazil since being back on the ship, but most of the stories consisted of people doing things that Semester at Sea specifically told us not to do.
I am continuing to enjoy my classes. We had our first Global Studies exam the other day, and it was OK- not too hard, not too easy. We are currently studying apartheid in South Africa, which is interesting because it corresponds with the book I’m reading for my Women’s Studies class, “When I was White.” I am learning a lot of interesting things about South Africa that I never knew, like television was banned until like 1976, or something crazy like that. Also something I learned that I guess I never thought about… the word “hobo” comes from “homeward bound,” which makes complete sense, but I honestly never stopped and thought about where the word hobo came from. Am I the only one who didn’t know this? Dad: to answer your question about what I’m going to discover while on this trip is where words come from that I have never thought about, ha only kidding, that wouldn’t really be money well spent. I assure you, I’m learning much more than that. Until next time! Xoxo Marissa