A Beautiful Sunset Begins A Beautiful Week

Above is a beautiful picture of last night’s sunset. This photo was not doctored or photoshoped at all, this is what we saw. All my friends and I ate our dinner outside as we watched this gorgeous phenomenon take place. It was by far the best sunset I have witnessed at sea. We are in the Indian Ocean, sailing our way towards India. We arrive Thursday morning. The Indian Ocean is like no other ocean. It is as smooth as you can imagine. I never thought an ocean could be so smooth. The water is like glass, and to top it all off, dolphins have made a few appearances the past couple of days, including during lunch today.

On Saturday we had the sea Olympics. I watched many events and participated in one, but I had so much work and studying to do that I was not able to be out and about as much as I would have liked. My sea, the Arabian Sea, did not win. The Bering Sea won, and they get to get off the ship first in San Diego. I am kind of glad we didn’t win, because if you get off the ship first, then you have to sit there and wait for all your friends to get off.

Classes have been going well. I have more work than I have ever received in school before. Mainly this comes out of my history of Africa class, which is by far the most awful class I have ever taken. I spend a great deal of my free time on this ship reading novels by African authors and doing work for just that class, and I have yet to learn a damn thing about the history of Africa. I feel like it is a literature class more than a history class. Not to mention, it is supposed to be an introductory class, and the way the teacher grades us and gives us work, it is by far the most difficult class I have ever taken. So I guess I am saying it just is not fair, but oh well. All my other classes are great and I am doing well in them. We just passed the halfway mark for the academic part of the voyage. We haven’t gotten halfway through the actual voyage itself yet, but that day is soon approaching. It seems like just yesterday that I was getting on the ship in Nassau, and I wonder where January and February went. I am sure the next 2 months will fly by.

As for my camera situation, it is still broken. Apparently, the problem with my camera is a huge problem in Canon cameras, and there is actually a class action lawsuit against Canon for it. There are specific websites set up and dedicated to this problem. Basically my lens is jammed and I get an E18 error message. I took it to the ship’s photographer, Josh, and he said this was about the 20th case he has seen of this problem. He gave me suggestions to fix it and I looked online as well. So far I have had no luck, but I plan to devote the rest of my day to trying to fix it, even though I have about 70 pages to read in a book for *cough*NON*cough* history of Africa.

I can not wait for India. I have heard from so many past voyagers and people who have visited India that it is a culture and land like no other. Some people will find it repulsive and disgusting, others will find it fascinating. I am expecting to find it maybe a little both. I believe I have prepared myself pretty well for it, but as it is known, one can not prepare themselves for the unknown. I have studied how things are done in India, and I have prepared myself for some of the sights I may see. Of course, seeing these things in real life instead of reading about them or talking about them with people will be the true test to whether I am prepared or not. Either way, you can look forward to an interesting, and yes quite possibly long journal entry. We are in India for 5 days, and I have such an incredibly hectic schedule, that I will want to describe as much as I can in here. I believe India will be one of the most important countries we visit on this voyage, and I plan to try as hard as I can to convey my experiences to you. The last thing I will write about today is where I will be traveling to in India. We dock in Chennai, which is in the south of India. I will spend the first day there, and then I will be traveling to Delhi, the capital of India. After that I will travel to Varanasi, one of the holiest cities in the world and home to the river Ganges. After that I will travel to Agra to see many sights including the Taj Mahal. There is much more involved, but those are some of the major areas I will be visiting.

It is now time for me to go throw my camera against the wall a few more times. Hopefully I can pick one up in India, we will see. Hope everything is going well back in the States. India is supposed to be incredibly hot this time of year, 90-100 degrees. I will try to send some of that warm weather your way…

P.s. – Thank you again for your wonderful comments either through my guestbook, emails, or at the bottom of my blogs. I appreciate it :-)