Neptune Day

On Thursday night around 8:30 we crossed the Equator! You would have thought it was New Year’s Eve or something, the way people were crowded together outside cheering and taking pictures. I have to admit I was pretty excited myself. On Friday we didn’t have class because it was Neptune Day. Neptune Day is sort of a ritualistic celebration of crossing the equator. I hear that crew members who pass the equator for the first time are usually asked to perform some silly task. This time they got fish guts thrown on them, had to jump in the pool with their clothes on, and kiss a fish. All of the students were invited to join in on this tradition – many people did. Another weird thing about Neptune Day is that people shave their heads (don’t know why). Around 100 people ended up doing it, 10 of them being girls.

Prior to reaching each country we have a cultural and logistical “pre-port” session. Friday night was the cultural pre-port. There is a Brazilian student on board who led the session. It was pretty informative and made me really excited about eating new foods. Tonight was the logistical pre-port where we learned about things like safety, transportation, money, communications, and other things like that.

Other News – I joined a political group onboard. Some of the issues we are working on include getting people absentee ballots, getting copies of the presidential debates and coverage of election day (we have no television), having our own debate, organizing a ship vote where we will see which president Semester at Sea favors and which states those votes come from, and a few other things. There is a volleyball league on the ship now and I decided to captain a team which is pretty funny. I’m still working on the whole frisbee-on-a-boat thing. Maybe we’ll get some beach games going at port.

We arrive in Salvador, Brazil early in the morning!!!