Oi, Brasilia!

We have finally arrived in BRASIL!!! This morning at 5:30am, Maggie and I ventured out onto the seventh deck to watch the sun rise over the city of Salvador, which surprisingly looked like New York City’s skyline from afar. Although all of us were looking forward to getting off the boat in the early morning to give us a whole day to tour Salvador, the immigration process is excurtiatingly slow. There are 750 people who have to get off this boat and they have to check and deliver everyone’s passports to the passengers before any of us can get off. So, currently it’s 9:30am and we’ve been waiting for 2 hours to get the ship “cleared.” While we’re waiting I thought I would give an update of the last few days:While classes are going smoothly and are super interesting, the whole ship had a day off on Friday September 5th to celebrate Neptune Day. It is a day honoring the gods of the sea while we cross from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere over the equator. At 20:33 on Thursday wecrossed the equator with cheering, screaming, singing, and excitement. The following morning, we were abruptly awakened with drums, flutes and chanting from the “Royal Guard of the Sea” led by King Neptune at 7:30am. Maggie and I rolled over and went back to bed. However, the Royal Guard came by again at 8:30 followed by an announcement by “The Voice” telling all passengers to head to the seventh deck for Neptune Day Festivities.The 7th deck was jam-packed with the entire shipboard community. It was crazy. On the starboard side of the ship, shaving of heads was going on. Apparently that is the appropriate way to honor the gods. The other ritual is getting fish guts poured on you and jumping into the pool. It was gross, smelly and disgusting, but it was tradition so we all endured the smell in order to honor the gods. The rest of the day was basically a party. There was music playing on the 7th floor deck – basically a pool party. It was the perfect day. Not to mention the food in the dining rooms that night was amazing- fajitas with chips and salsa!!


BRAZIL-So we got to Brazil on Sunday September 7th at 5:20am. Once we got off the boat, we immediately went to the elevator, which takes people from the lower city into the higher city. The lower city is really dirty, especially right outside of the port – people peeing in the streets, dogs everywhere, and people selling stuff to you from all sides. But once in the upper city, the buildings changed from rundown to colonial and you could tell there is a lot of history in Salvador. We went to Pelourhino Square, the main center of town. There, you could see the many churches that the Portuguese built. The group we were with ate lunch at a quaint little side street café with samba music playing in the background. The pizza we got was amazing!That night, we went to the area called “Barra,” which is right on the Atlantic Ocean. The restaurant was an outdoor and we drank sangria and ate typical brazilian barbeque (try the moqueca- it’s delicioso!) while listening to the waves crash on the beach. After dinner we walked down the street to a lighthouse where we found some local kids our age who were playing music up on the hill next to it. They let us sit next to them to enjoy their late-night jam session. It was so picturesque and relaxing. But, all of us had to get up at 4:45am the next morning to go on our trips to either Rio de Jainero or other places.