Semester at Sea – Spring 2007 (Alex Song) On a ship, traveling around the world, at 20 miles an hour

As heard in a recent episode of Heroes, my Puerto Rico experience was “less than ideal” (this is a phrase I’d like to adapt into my vocabulary – it’s very management-esque). I hope this is where I leave my bad luck behind.

On Wednesday, as I stated earlier, I did wake up sick with a fever and sore throat, but was able to make it out of bed onto my “South African Roots” field excursion. The process of going through customs was quick and painless, and while standing in line I was able view the very essence of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. While walking up the stairs, Arch (he allows us to address him as Father, Archbishop, or Arch) was holding onto the railing and squealing, “Weeeeee!” No freaking joke.
Oh yes, we were also fortunate enough to be graced with presence of Puerto Rico’s Governor and Secretary of State, of which I can’t go into much detail as I hardly remember. It was just a quick 10 minute “Hi, welcome to Puerto Rico” speech with a “I’m excited to speak with all of you students” thrown in and a joke about Ricky Martin being in town but his concert being sold out. Yes it’s a shock to me too, Ricky Martin does still perform…just not in the continental United States (CONUS) or anywhere of great economic importance.
Our visit to Samuel Lind’s home was interesting. It’s the first time where I’ve seen an artist’s workspace up close, to see where they work and create their works. It’s quite interesting – it’s in an area that apparently has no addresses (according to one of our guides, the rural areas of Puerto Rico are referred to by directions instead of addresses…explaining our bus driver’s need to stop and ask people for directions so often). If you Google “Samuel Lind”, you can see he’s getting quite popular, especially in CONUS. He creates these very bright and colorful pieces with a lot of Puerto Rican influence (obviously) that are just fun to look at – not like the dull Mona Lisa or Michelangelo’s chapel.
Afterwards we headed across the street to a place that sold masks…I assume there was some history behind it, but it was not communicated to us and ended up being quick and uneventful. A short bus trip later we ended up at an outdoor restaurant down the block, where I drank El Presidente with some professors, and after waiting nearly an hour, ate a particularly unappetizing seafood platter. Unfortunately, this was my only taste of Puerto Rican food the entire trip and it was not the best experience.
We returned to the ship and I immediately took a nap so I could be fully alert to enjoy the welcome reception at one of the universities that was to occur that night. I woke around 2 hours prior to our departure and decided I was too sick to goto the reception, let alone get out of bed. Just felt totally out of it and went back to bed.
Same thing the following morning, I slept through my eco-bike adventure cause I felt like crap. I did goto Wal-Mart in the down time ($60 cab fare round trip…highway robbery) and stocked up on American food (baked Lays, Chips Ahoy, Pop Tarts) and every OTC medicine I figured I could use on this trip.
I was feeling well enough to go on the bio-luminescent bay kayak trip that night, and I’m very happy that I did. It’s pretty amazing seeing the water light up before you eyes when you splash it around. All of us got sexed all over our bodies – apparently the micro-organisms that are responsible for the glowing are constantly reproducing. Some of us got sexed in our mouths…it was really salty. Thanks to the combined efforts of myself, my kayak partner James Lissy, and the two girls in the adjacent kayak, we flipped both of our kayaks and I ended up losing my 45th anniversary Taco Time t-shirt L. We returned to the ship around 2300 where I ended up having dinner with some people at the pool bar, and met Liz, who also shares my aspirations to be in the FBI. I’ve seen a few people on the boat who have LE connections (my RA Drew who worked for DEA, our safety officer who is a former Minnesota state trooper, and another kid who’s a CJ major), which is kinda cool.
The following morning was spent freaking out and making phone calls, as I had left my wallet on our biobay van the previous night. With the remainder of my cash money I went to the Bacardi tour with some folks, learned about the history of Bacardi, got some free drinks (including the unreleased watermelon flavor), and got Bacardi stuff at the store.
I napped again and got my wallet back around 1900, leaving me 2 hours to run errands and get food. I ended up eating at McDonalds. Not as tasty as I had remembered. Then we finally set sail away from Puerto Rico.

I had one more day of that god-awful viral infection. But now I have a cold, and sea sickness. I fail at sailing.