Bahamas-
Bahamas was pretty fun. We stayed at the wyndham along with the rest of the sas students even though we didn’t try to really meet anyone, Kristen and I were still pretty nervous. Kristen, my mom and I all went to this powerboat adventure which was really fun but too long. We fed sharks and sting rays which was really scary. It was fun though. We went to Senior Frogs one night for dinner and then the night after the powerboat adventure Kristen and I went there to try to meet SAS people. I was forced to go on stage which was SO embarrassing. I actually did it twice haha. But we met some pretty cool people there. The next day we got up early to go into Nassau and shop before I had to go on the boat.
Day 1 Jan 11, 2011 On ship-
I had to board the boat earlier than everyone else because I was work study. I am an administrative assistant so I work with the assistant dean. Pretty scary. It was pretty fun being on the ship a day early because I got to meet a few people and everything which was nice. My mom got to come on the ship that night so I could show her around and everything which was really cool. I ended up going to Senior Frogs again that night with some people I had met and I had a pretty good time but I had to get up at 6 the next morning because work study students had to help with registration for the rest of the students.
Day 2 Jan 12, 2011
I worked from 7-2 with no breakfast or lunch. Insaneeeeeeeeee. After that I found Kristen out by the pool and met up with some other cool people. We went to dinner and everything and got acquainted with the ship some more. We were supposed to leave at 5 but because of the big storms, they decided to put off the disembarkation until 8 pm. My mom decided to go to the dock to wave goodbye, it was one of the hardest moments I had to deal with, along with saying goodbye to Spencer. We had meetings right after that up until 10 or 11 pm which was terrible because I was SO tired.
Day 2 Jan 13, 2011-
We had orientation ALL DAY LONG. I slept through half of it since I was so sleep deprived. Whoops. They gave us an hour and 15 minute lunch break and Kristen and I went and took a nap during it then it was back to more orientation. It was sooooo long but they actually tell you really important things so you really have to listen so hopefully I didn’t miss too much while I was napping :P I also signed up to be an instructor for a work out class, doing insanity for everyone which so many people were really into. We basically went straight to bed after all the meetings.
Day 3- Jan 14, 2011
First day of classes! I was up at about 7 to get ready and have time to get breakfast before my first class that day which was Global Studies… going to be a very difficult class for me. After that I went immediately to international business which shouldn’t be too bad. After that I had enough time to grab a quick sandwich and then I had to work from 12:30-2:30. While I am at sea, not in port at all, I have to work 2 hours a day for my job. Basically my job consists of making copies for professors and doing random odd jobs. The first day wasn’t bad except the woman who writes the Dean’s Memo was sick so I had to write it. Scary scary scary. It was nerve racking working with the assistant dean and also the “voice” of the ship. Basically whenever there is an announcement my boss comes on and grabs everyone’s attention. Right after work I headed to Stress relief and management. That course should be so fun. The first day we started learning Tai Chi, a form of moving meditation. It should be really fun. After that I had dinner and then finally got to sit down for once. We ended up stopping in Puerto Rico for some gas and we all got internet service The rest of the night I just did homework and ended up going to bed early.
Day 4- Jan 15, 2011
B day of classes, aka I have one class at 12 which means I got to sleep in. I got like 11 hours of sleep which I really needed. I went to consumer behavior which my teacher is pretty wacky. After that I went to work which I had to make a lifesize calendar, literally it was bigger than me. Over 6 feet big and I had to hand draw the whole thing with one tiny little ruler. Very annoying. After that I went back to my room and took a mini cat nap and ended up going to dinner shortly after. The food on here surprisingly isn’t that bad but it is very repetitive already. We had our first pre-departure meeting which was both boring and hilarious. Basically they try to scare you so you stay safe but I am not dumb, I know what not to do. But the doctors did this really funny skit. They made a full body condom to protect us, hilarious. They also did posters that said “Don’t get bit” (aka by any dogs or anything like that because of rabies) “Don’t get Hit” (since they drive on the other side of the road and DO NOT WATCH OUT FOR ANYONE) “Don’t to IT” (To clearly not have sex with locals) “Don’t get Lit” (To not “become a part of the local drug trade”) and “Don’t eat shit” (because most times when you get dysentery its because the water you drink actually has poop in it. Really yummy huh?) After that there was a lot of stay safe things and we got into what to do and see and stuff. It was really informative. I ended up going to bed right after that
Day 5- Jan 16, 2011
Welcome to Dominicaaaaa! Which I found out is pronounced Dom-in-ee-kah which I’ve been saying it all wrong this whole time. We got off the boat at about 9 and headed for our trip. We began by going to the ti tou gorge which is like a freshwater cave with a waterfall and everything. It was really awesome, and cold. I jumped off the waterfall which was really hard to get up because the current was so strong because dominica is basically a rain forest. After we went to Trafalgar falls which is beautiful. Here there are two waterfalls that are monstrous. One is the mama and one is the papa. We hiked to them and went into the natural hot springs which were literally a hot tub, it was soooo nice. We went to go to the base of the falls but the guide of the other group said it was extremely slippery and told us we were not allowed to go because getting to this is literally climbing over boulders that are wet and mossy, and I was in flip flops. It really sucked because you could just tell it was one of the most beautiful sites to see. After that we went to Champagne Reef to grab a bite to eat and snorkel. They call it champagne reef because there are bubbles coming out of holes in the coral that actually look like champagne, although it wasn’t what it was cracked out to be. We snorkeled for a while and here is where the best part comes in… my underwater digital camera that cost 300 bucks, breaks. Never really been used either because I was so afraid to break it before this trip. The lens stopped shutting and is stuck and the LCD doesn’t work at all anymore. So that was pretty upsetting so I just got out of the water and decided to go try to rinse it off which didn’t work. We headed back to the ship when our tour guide Levi who was absolutely amazing decided to take us for a bird’s eye view of Roseau. The image was absolutely breathtaking. And pictures could not describe it, if I had any. After going back to the ship we got some dinner and got ready before going out to a local club. I decided to bring my backup camera which everyone though I was crazy for bringing two cameras but when I went to Peru in high school my camera broke the first 2 days and I had no personal pictures of the country. We ended up leaving to the club which played all sorts of reggae music and it was amazing. The guys here are just as creepy as in the Bahamas except they actually ask you if they can dance with you instead of just coming up. I continued to say no sorry I’m dancing with my friends or no sorry I have a boyfriend and they would get really mad. The place had no ceiling so when it rained it just was all over the dance floor which was cool. Apparently the rum here is amazing so we decided to all get a rum and coke, yea one sip of that and I handed it off. It was more like rum and some more rum. Especially when you’re not the drinking type, straight rum is not a good thing to have. I just danced the night away and I took one picture. After that this one guy told me he loved me and then the DJ called me over to his booth to tell me I was beautiful, after that we decided it got wayyyyy to sketchy and decided to leave. We went to where the rest of Semester at Sea kids were called Krazy Coconuts. This was seriously one of the cooooolest clubs I have ever seen. It was 2 floors with one floor as the VIP section and they had an outside huge room for fresh air without having to leave, and then there was a massive dance floor with a stage. While the rest of my friends were drinking I was dancing and trying to have a good time but being around intoxicated people is not the most fun. Then the guy from the last club that told me he was in love with me found me at krazy coconuts and begged me to dance with him and let him hug me. After Kristen and I decided we had to leave because this place also got really creepy and we went back to the ship. While on the way back to the ship, I tried to turn on my camera that has lasted forever and took one picture on that night and it was BROKEN. Needless to say I broke 2 cameras in 1 day in the span of 7 hours. Bad luck is not even a correct term for what happened to me.
Day 6 Jan 17, 2011
We woke up early this morning to see if my cameras worked…epic fail, and grab some breakfast. After that we headed off the ship to do some shopping. We ended up going to an electronics store to see if they had any cameras for me to buy. There is NO real electronics store in Dominica so if you ever come here and break a camera or anything like that, sucks to be you. So I found this store that sold 5 digital cameras, all but one that took actual batteries (so old). So I start to look through them and realize the prices they were set at, because in Dominica they take US dollars just like they do Eastern Caribbean dollars. The cameras were set at about 833 EC = 330-350 US. (the exchange rate is not used universally in every store so it can vary). We decided to go try to find another store and we miserably failed, so after a phone call to my mom, or two, we went back to the store to purchase a camera. I got this waterproof camera, straight out of the 1800s basically that was the only one that took a chargeable camera battery and got a memory card to go with it and left… 300 dollars later because they gave me a discount. After some walking around we tried finding some food we found a couple restaurants which one was a buffet that cost 20 dollars American money and was straight up crap. We went to another that they had huge menu but only served 2 things for lunch and it was curry chicken or fruity pork… not the greatest soundings of things. We thennnn found another restaurant that said on their menu “chicken, goat, ham, beef, vegetarian” but didn’t actually describe what it was and when we asked and were shown what the food really was we decided to peace right out of there. We ended up at a….Chinese restaurant. How hilarious, didn’t even try Dominican cuisine. The Chinese here isn’t all that great either and its not like back at home where its take out and go. I got sweet and sour chicken and they cooked dark meat which I hate in the red sauce served on a platter, it was really odd. But oh well we actually got to eat. While at the restaurant I started looking at the camera and noticed that the memory card they gave me wasn’t the right memory card and talked to my mom one more time (sorry mom if your reading this for all my trouble today) and we decided I should just return it because it was literally refurbished from 2008, probably Olympus’ first underwater camera, you should have seen this thing. It also was only 10 megapixel which really isn’t great. It also was really annoying because it was a hugeeee rip off. So we ventured back across the town to the store and I went in and said I need to return this and they were totally confused. Which they speak English here, it is their native language besides Creole. So I made up a story that my mom had gotten me a camera and now I didn’t want this one because I didn’t realize she bought it (yea sorry mom again, I guess its pay back for the Disney incident :P) So I ended up getting extremely upset and shed some tears because they told me I couldn’t return it because I paid with credit card, apparently they aren’t up to speed with credit card usage here so they sent me to the manager or something named Blanch, let’s just say I HATE this name now. I went upstairs to her office and explained to her the situation and she was like okay and when she asked for the receipt apparently I had gotten a discount on the camera, coulda fooled be since it cost 300 bucks. And she told me I couldn’t return it so I attempted to tell her that I was never informed that it was a discounted product and I can’t return it and things got a little heated after that. We began arguing back and forth until she tried cutting me off by saying excuse me 5 times in a row when I stopped talking after the first time she said it. She tells me that she is doing me a favor and was going to do it but she wasn’t going to any more, mind you my mom is on the phone the whole time so I start talking to my mom and the lady is literally just standing there staring at me and then back at Kristen like she wanted me to get down on my knees and beg her or something and then 5 minutes later she calls the headquarters apparently from this tiny shop in Dominica, prolly her husband or something. She asks for the card which is a travel visa and almost tells me I can’t use that which would have made me even more upset. Finally she’s like welllllllll I can refund you but for a 20% charge aka you have to pay me 70 dollars for this because she also wouldn’t return my memory card because it was open already so now I have a memory card for 30 bucks that I’ll never use. So after losing 70 dollars, I just said okay thanks and walked out with 200 dollars back on my account. Basically the worst experience ever. However, things looked up because we ended up going to the post office to buy some stamps and found an internet café and a beautiful site to take pictures of our ship! So we ran back on to the ship quick to grab the computer and went to the internet café which I got to skype with Spencer for a little which was nice because I can’t on the ship but we had to go immediately after that so I couldn’t try to talk to anyone else, plus no one else was on. We arrived back on the boat before the dock time which if you are 15 minutes your late for dock time you have to stay on the boat for 3 hours at the next port which is really crappy especially if you have a trip right from when you get off the boat. But we got on nice and early and got to eat and relax. We currently have JUST left Dominica and unfortunately to say I am happy. This first stop has not been the greatest but I am hoping it will be better.
Reflection on Dominica- Dominica is a really beautiful place that is extremely green and lush. There are beautiful waterfalls and black sand beaches. There is less tourism there but they get all their money through tourism so there is a little market with lots of shops that really over price a lot of things. The whole accepting of two currency things is really hard to understand especially because they will say 4 dollars or 10 EC which can sometimes get confusing so it’s a lot harder to barter with the locals then in other countries. It is really crazy how much they over price things especially with that camera. 300 Dollars in US for the most basic camera? Even the locals get such a rip off its insane. I just expected everything to be relatively cheap in most of the countries but I was very very wrong here in Dominica. Even with breaking of two cameras and all the shenanigans that I encountered on the last day, I still thought the place was beautiful and really nice. Most of the locals were very friendly. Except there was this poor dog kept following us around and waited outside for us every time we went into a shop so that was really sad too. It really stinks that I feel that I don’t ever want to return here because I had such a sad time. But I do recommend traveling here to other people because of the gorgeous views of Roseau.
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