Sea's Get Degrees

April 11, 2017 Last night I had my second to last pre port. This morning I got off the ship for the last time before getting off in Germany. I'm currently in a bus in Morocco, the last port before this incredible voyage comes to an end. To say time has been as quick as a blink of an eye would be an understatement. Yet at the same time, I've had enough unreal, once-in-a-lifetime, jaw dropping, beautiful, crazy experiences to last for a lifetime...or seven. I'm sure this is true for most people but if you would've told me when I was 14 that I'd have the kind of life I've had in the last 5 years...I would've put my black hair up in a ponytail, told you that you were crazy, and snuck out of my basement window. Crazy how lives can change sometimes...or the scenery of a country. We got on the bus in Casablanca and I took a nap for a solid hour before waking up to North Dakota fields. I'm not kidding, I thought I was still sleeping when I looked out the windo...

Genuine, Incredible, Welcoming, Hard-Working, Caring, Happy, Community, Family-oriented….those are just a couple of the words that I would use to describe the Ghanaian people. Even in the 100 degree weather with 100% humidity, I was sad to leave this country filled with, honestly, so much more than I was expecting. My first steps off the ship onto land were, like I said, very hot. I got on a bus with about 30 other SASers, our bus driver Steven, and some guy named Fred. But I quickly learned that it wasn’t just some guy named Fred and let me tell you why. Fred grew up in a village that didn’t have any school for him to attend. A man in the village decided to start teaching some of the kids with nothing more than some seeds to count and a mango tree. Fred spent years excelling in school, sometimes having to walk 2 hours each way to get there, all while knowing his family was sacrificing parts of their lives for him. By the time he was done with the 3 years of high school, he passed the ...

We pulled up to Cape Town at about 8am. After getting through immigration, Amanda, Jessica, and I decided to get a taxi to Table Mountain. On our way there, a guy ran a red light and hit our taxi. Our taxi driver saw him so he slammed on the breaks and turned away. Amanda and Jessica got a little whiplash but otherwise we were all fine. Not a great way to start the trip, but it could have been a lot worse than it was. We got another taxi and headed the rest of the way to Table Mountain. We took the cable car up to the top of the mountain. Unsurprisingly, the top of the mountain is super flat, and it has an incredible view of the city against the ocean. We saw a little booth advertisement and again, unsurprisingly, decided to go abseiling down the side of the mountain. Abseiling is like repelling, where you are in a harness connected to a rope that you kind of control but mostly the guides make sure you don't die. It was a ton of fun. After we hiked back up the 112 meters we abseil...

India…what a place. I honestly don’t know what I was expecting out of the country, but I think all expectations were exceeded. I knew that India had some of the worst polluted cities in the world and many people live in poverty, but when I was there, that’s not what stuck out in my mind. The more I travel through these countries, the more I realize how materialistic my own culture is. From what I’ve seen and experienced, these people are just as happy, if not happier, with so much less than what we have. I’ve realized that they don’t need iPhones or fancy cars or material things to be genuinely happy. Their connections and relationships are far more important to them and it’s a wonderful thing to see. The kids all playing with balls or playing tag during school rather than sitting out on their iPhones…people eating dinner and actually interacting with the people around them rather than the people who aren’t. I love it. My first day was mostly spent on a tuk tuk tour. A tuk tuk is like ...

The country of Myanmar. Have you ever heard of it? If not, that's completely fine because I hadn't heard of it before coming on this voyage either. But dang I'm glad I know of it now because it's an amazing country. To be honest, this is the main country where I was worried about my safety. Even though Amanda and I were constantly on edge about the poisonous snakes we were told about, I felt just as safe as any other country I've been to. A little background info: for about 50 years, Myanmar was under strict military rule and was in complete isolation with no tourism allowed. In about 2010, the country started to change, opened its borders, and in 2015 had elections to elect a president. It is a developing country but is extremely welcoming and has friendly people. For the first day, we docked in Yangon at about noon and I joined a SAS program to explore the city for the evening. Our ship was actually about an hour and a half drive from the city so we had to take bu...