Another day, almost to Mauritius

After Macroecon, Global Studies (Professor Ringrose lectured today), and catching up a bit on journaling, I had another lunch. Recently at least, I have never been feeling fully satisfied with the food. I need good food, it’s kind of difficult to be a vegetarian on this ship, especially when you have to eat pasta and potatoes and bread everyday and can’t eat dessert. I met with Sneha, a Indian student from Singapore also on SAS, and who was also doing the Indian preport. We talked about topics we were going to discuss at preport, and after that we had a long conversation with Aaron, Tesia, and Nathalie. I chilled with Nick on deck 6 (who I ran into randomly later), where we saw some whales quite close to ship. Again, I don’t understand why I have been seeing so many whales recently on the open ocean. It’s nevertheless truly wonderful to see these majestic animals in the middle of the ocean, especially since they are not common to see. We went back to Nick’s room and watched some How I Met Your Mother. Dino and I have converted so many people on this ship to watch this show, after all its quite an amazing show. At dinner, the okra was pretty good, but I still did not feel completely full after eating. We had Dino’s pre-birthday cake, before I headed back to my room and chilled. At 8, I went to cultural and logistical pre-port for Mauritius. This Island, which is literally unknown in most of the world, especially back home, seems very beautiful and I can’t wait to see a country outside India dominated by Indian people (they were brought there as indentured servants by the Dutch, French, and English. We went to Kathleen’s room to make plans. I really want to go see the waterfall there and jump off of it. However, the others were determined to go to the beach the first day, celebrate Dino’s birthday that night, and maybe go to the waterfall the next day. I was kind of iffy on this since I knew that they would be drinking, but they would not listen to me, so put some faith in them. Dino, Nick, Michaella, and I went to classroom 1 where we started watching Band of Bothers from the beginning. I better finish it this time. This will be the third time I started watching this show and I’ve only got up to episode 8 out of 10 the last two times. At 12, I was the first one to wish Jacob for his birthday. He is now no longer a teenager. I remember my birthday and the feeling of no longer being a teenager, it was weird. I am excited for Mauritius since it will likely be a relaxing trip. It will be nowhere as hectic as the last stops… or at least I hope.
-Nimish
October 13, 2010

A Simple Day

I woke up early again, to tutor Aldin and Genavieve again. These kids are really something: they are excited to learn and adorable, but maybe a little too energetic. Sometimes it seemed a little difficult to hold their attention (there’s only so far the black key notes can interest little kids) since they are so energetic, but it will make me more patient and understand more what its like to teach and deal with kids. After comedy and history, I had a delightful lunch of mashed potatoes. It’s interesting how a little change can taste that different (“mashed” potatoes) even though I am already so fed up of potatoes. At 2 I went down to tutor Kelly. There I found out that Kelly’s mother wanted to take over in tutoring her, so I was off the hook for that. Since I was now free early and had nothing else to do, I went back to my room and spent more time alone, watching tv shows. I’ve been feeling really uninterested in things recently, like I’m burned out or something like that. And we are not even halfway done yet.. I hope this is something that won’t last because we still have so many amazing things to experience and places to see. Dinner was simple and today was when it hit me how much I miss home food. I cannot wait to get good food in India. Afterwards, I spent a little more alone time before going out and going Zombie Hunting with Ben, Howard, and Megan. In the garden lounge, we found Dino, Aaron, and Nick sitting. After some conversation, we somehow ended up dancing (Aaron teaching us the moves) to Thriller, the Cha Cha, Tunak Tunak (by Daler Mendhi), and a random middle eastern song that Aaron loved. It was quite random, but that’s what I love so much about this voyage, the number of random things that happen. We went to the Open Mic Night, where we witnessed some great performance of music, poetry, and even short stories: one girl shared with us the story of her suicide attempt which was very saddening and intense. After it was over, I felt really inspired and I really wanted to play the piano. However I had no sheet music. I could find some, but with the way my days have been rolling out, I would not have time to do this anyway sadly. As I was walking back to my room, I ran into Jenn and other making signs for Kate for her birthday. I joined them, and at 12 we went to her room and surprised her (funny part, I don’t even know her that well). After the ensuing conversations, I called it a night around 1. Another simple day.
-Nimish
October 12, 2010

A Me Day

Today was a “me” day. Our macroeconomics presentation went well, and in Global Studies we had a guest speaker who worked in Sudan where she had lost her leg when I supply crate fell on it. She was very knowledgeable and taught us a great deal about the conflicts going on in Sudan. After a quick Lunch, I went to Dean David’s office where he requested me to do the preport for India and explained how to go about this and what I should talk about. I am going to talk about “Dos and Dont's” in India and I’m always glad to spread my knowledge (I know a lot of people are going to ask me many questions anyway. I then went to Ben’s art class (I’m not actually in it, but he invited me to be a guest since I enjoy art so much). It was a fun time, but I must say that I would not want to take art as a academic class; it would ruin art for me if I was graded for it. I then went back to the Garden Lounge and had lunch again. I went back to my room and had some alone time, since I kind of wanted to get away from people for a little bit. I watched a movie, and enjoyed my time with myself. Today was Canadian Thanksgiving so we had a special dinner, after which I hung out with Jason before my group history project at 9. No one showed up to it, so I went back and hung out with Jason for longer in his room for a little while, before we headed up to the Union to participate in the Drumming Circle event. My Ghanaian drum is definitely out of tune, and I need to figure out how to tune it, but it was still a lot of fun I really enjoyed the different beats and rhythms. I went back to my room until I went to sleep. Today was a “me” day.
-Nimish
October 11, 2010

A Shocking Day and Night

Today is 10/10/10. That doesn’t happen everyday. I woke up early, even though it was a b-day and I start at 10:45, because I was teaching piano to two kids at 8:30. I was introduced to my victims: Aldin and Genavieve Smith. Their mother, Amy Smith, was very nice and understanding. The kids took turns, I taught one while the other did work with Amy. Within the next hour we were done, and the family made their way to deck 5 for the kid’s school time. This was truly a great experience. It was the first time I was endowing my knowledge about piano upon someone else. Alvin and Genavieve were very playful so it was sometimes difficult to hold their attention. However they were very energetic and excited to learn piano. I had to learn how to keep their interest: “Do you want to learn the black notes? Well first we need to learn the white notes.” I spent today just teaching them the notes and making sure that they knew the location of the notes relative to one another. In short, I am really looking forward to teaching these kids. It makes me better appreciate Vira aunti’s hard work to teach me piano. I went to classes, which went as normal: comedy a lot of fun, history uninteresting. I kept getting hit by socks of humans, which was really annoying, because I pretty much never got a chance to tag anyone. I made an interesting observation: It was like we (the zombies) were being hunted instead of us hunting them (the humans). At 2, I went down to tutor Kelly. She was shy again, and I had to help her memorize the periodic table (wow, at this age?) and do math. It really is not a lot of fun to tutor someone who is not very engaging or seemingly interested. I later went to Ben’s room, where we were bored and started a Planet Earth episode. David Attenborough is so awesome and his voice is the animal show equivalent of Morgan Freeman’s voice for Hollywood movies. Halfway through, Megan and her friends came by to attack Ben (and me since I was there anyway). After an insane fiasco, involving me taking the hits for Ben (since I answered the door and got hit first), and Megan stealing Ben’s laptop to draw him out, we were stunned. Around 6, I got ready for my Family Dinner, and headed to Classroom 9 for Extended Family Dinner at 6:45. The food was a great change: amazing tomato soup, salad, ice cream, and a main dish which I don’t really remember but was good. Pat introduced us to a friend of hers, Karen, and we all talked about our experiences since last meeting and our life goals. Pat is a great person and she is very thoughtful, nice, and caring. At the end of the dinner, she gave us letter openers, mine having a zebra top and design (apparently every time she has seen me I have been wearing something colorful with a nice design, so this seemed appropriate for me). At 8, I had to leave dinner early to go to my Macroecon group’s project meeting with Allard. She cleared a lot of questions we had, and everything was made a lot simpler than we had imagined it to be (didn’t actually have to turn in a written report till end of classes). After we dispersed, I joined Alan, Amy, Bria, and Hannah and tried to draw. Of course this failed because Drew came by. Although he had been converted to a zombie, he was till pelting us with socks just for fun. Drew is such a playful guy. I later headed back to my room with Aaron to watch a movie together. We settled upon Wall-E and were about to begin it when we noticed flashes outside my window. Lightning! We immediately left for the 7th deck where we found a huge number of people (including Jacob and everyone) out in the rain enjoying the storm. This was by far one of the most ridiculous and insane lightning storms I have ever experienced. The lighting was going off every 10-15 seconds all around us, forcing us to keep our heads moving in all directions. At first the storm was really cool, but after a short while, it just became insane. There was lighting going on at very close proximity to the ship. There were a number of lightning bolts that were so close to the ship that we actually could see the bolt forming striking the water a short distance away, and dissipating. And the thunder after these bolts was absolutely mind-blasting. We enjoyed the storm for around 20 minutes, everyone screaming and cheering to the views and sounds of the lightning, it was a unbelievable experience. Eventually, once the lightning started getting really close, the LLC’s had to force us inside, or at least under the cover of the 7th deck pool. At this point the storm began to ironically calm down, the lighting was still frequent, but not as much as before. And the storm seemed to be moving on towards a different direction. After waiting another 30 minutes or so, I headed back to my room again. There I began watching “The Hurt Locker” with Nick before falling asleep halfway. Today was quite a sizzling day.
-Nimish
October 10, 2010

From the Atlantic to the Indian

I woke up at 11. That is over 12 hours of sleep. I don’t think I have ever done that before. I can only imagine how tired I must have been. I made my way up for lunch which was eventful for the following reasons: first of all I saw a number of whales in the distance (first noticed by the puff of smoke made by their blow holes). Its interesting to think that I had not seen any whales in the open ocean, and after seeing them from 20 feet away in South Africa, I see some on the open ocean the very next day. Second, they announced that we had crossed the Cape of Agulhas (the southern most tip of Africa) at 3:57am last night, officially making our transition from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. And thirdly, Global Studies for B day tomorrow, will be canceled for tomorrow and replaced with our favorite, the lifeboat drill. I went to Deck 5 to read for classes. The day had very misty and yet sunny weather, with very wispy clouds. In the distance, I could see the African mainland, which was teasing us since we had just left Africa yesterday. I must say, I don’t think I have ever been this interested in reading for classes since middle school. Reading for Comedy and Global Studies were actually quite interesting: the comedy books were of course entertaining while Global Studies was eye opening and informative. During dinner I ate a lot of toast. I don’t know what is up with me recently but I have been craving toast recently and have been eating around 2-4 pieces each meal. It is just such a nice change from the usual pasta, potatoes, and random vegetarian dish. I am already getting a bit bored of the food now, and we are not even halfway through the voyage yet. I signed up for trips for the second half of the voyage, met my Macroecon group at 7:30, went to the Zombies game meeting at 9, and hung out with Ben and Howard till after snack time. I made my way back to my room and found the Drew group (Amy, Jenn, Drew, Kevin, Dennis, Katie, etc) getting ready to watch Ratatouille, so I joined them. Before the clock struck 12, I got ready for zombies and got my sock weapon to protect myself from the zombies. I was sitting along the side of the “cubby spot” in the hallway near the stairs, and I suddenly felt a pat on my head. It was Aaron standing on one of the top stairs as he was coming down. “What’s up Aaron?” “I got you.” “What?” It turns out that Aaron is zombie #0…. And I was his first victim. That’s right, from everyone playing the game on the entire ship, I am the first one to be tagged. I lasted 5 minutes in the game. As “angry-like” I was, I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation and the coincidence. And Aaron and I were then immediately pegged by a sock by the others, knocking us out for the next hour. Aaron then left for his room to email the Zombie leader to claim me as his victim. We continued the movie, and eventually Ben came along and touched me too. “What?” “I am zombie #0, and you are my first victim.” This was confusing because we were told that there was only one Zombie #0, so we went to Aaron and talked to him and emailed the leader, later to find out that they made three Zombie #0’s just to speed up the game. So I was once again laughing at this fact which was even more ridiculous: I was tagged first by two of the three Zombie #0’s. The mere probability of that happening is so small, and yet it did. I finished the rest of the movie with the group, as they were constant on edge and freaking out to keep themselves safe. As soon as the movie was over, I took off to my room to sleep, still amazing at what just happened. It is what it is.
-Nimish
October 9, 2010

A Day in Cape Town

I woke up early, once again, and quite sleep deprived, again (only 3 hours). After a quick breakfast with Howard, we went to the Field Desk, and tried to figure out to do Cape Point or Cape Town. Seeing that Cape Point would be a longish trip, and just not that practical to visit, we decided to just roam around Cape Town. We exited the ship, walked through the V&A, and entered the city. Actually getting to the main part of the city took about 20 minutes to walk to. Once we entered the city, many of the preconceived notions I had of it were shattered. Before coming to Cape Town, we heard that the city, and South Africa as a whole, was a very dangerous place where basically anything could go wrong at any moment. The Diplomat at the Diplomatic meeting on the first day particularly scared me. However after just 10 minutes in the city I realized how wrong these people were. I’m not saying that Cape Town is not dangerous (because I’m sure it is at night), but during the day at least it was a big city with a small city-like atmosphere. It was quite pleasant, probably helped by the fact that the weather was great, and people seemed to be happy. We wandered down random streets, taking in the environment, getting some soveigners along the way. Behind the skyline, Table Mountain shined and shimmered, as always covered by clouds/mist. Today seemed a bit like rain at first, but eventually became a splendid and sunny day. We crossed a bridge, went left and right down streets, stop at markets we ran into, Howard made a phone call to his dad, and we wandered some more. After around 1.5 hours of walking around, we finally hit up a market that was much larger than the others. We were there for about 5 minutes before Howard had to leave for an SAS trip. Now I was on my own, this was the first time during the trip that I was legitimately wandering on my own anywhere with no knowledge of where exactly I was going. It was a great feeling actually: I really liked it because it had this liberating feeling to it (I don’t have to worry about other people and their needs and desires). I strolled the street of the market looking at shops, enjoying the atmosphere of the shoppers interacting with store-clerks, people talking at a restaurant, and just the whole mood of the place. I had to be careful which stores I looked at: if I even showed some interest in the items, the clerks would latch on and not let me go. I met one clerk who was really cool: Mohammad Ali, a doctor-in-training doing his masters and giving me good suggestions of other sellers and things to do. After 2 hours of traveling on my own, I decided to make my way back to the ship and see what others were up to and drop my stuff off. Walking back, I traveled down streets I ran down with Howard, not knowing how and amazing at the fact that I had found my way back to these streets after wandering the city for around 4 hours. As I got back to the V&A (more musicians and performers) I ran into Amy and Jenn who were going out to Green Market, which I had been looking for before but couldn’t find. They told me to come with them, and so I decided to do just that. After getting some money from the ATM, I headed by taxi back into the city. Green Market was basically a square of a large number of vendors (mostly of crafts and arts) cramped into tiny make-shift stores. As Amy and Jenn did their girl shopping I did my own thing. I thought that the sellers at the other market were clingy; the sellers here at Green Market put those sellers to shame in terms of clinginess. They were absolutely ridiculous. If I even approached their shop (which was impossible to avoid since all the shops were so close together) they would jump on me and start making ridiculous claims and deals, even if I was completely uninterested in what they were selling. At first I was fine, but after a number of such sellers, I did not like it because I felt really bad for them since they were trying so hard but I wasn’t buying. I got the things I needed, and after about 30-40 minutes, I left with this fiasco with the other two. A nice police officer helped direct us to a place to find taxis, and we were soon on our way to the port again. Back at the mall, I bid good bye to Amy and Jenn, and headed to the craft market and various other stores to get the last few things a needed before heading back to the ship. On the ship I wrote my postcards and turned them in with plenty of time to spare before dock time. So I decided to head back into the mall and get some last minute internet time and spend my last few Rand. In the mall, I went back to the same spot I had last gotten internet the other day, which was in front of a cell phone and internet store called “CellC.” As I tried connecting to the frustrating V&A free internet connection, one of the store clerks came out and saw me. He then invited me into the store and use their internet. He even offered me coffee and tea, even though he knew I would not be buying anything. It was really nice of him. And since I was having difficulty connecting to even their internet, the guy gave me one of their internet USB cards, which gave me super fast connection. After skyping my parents, I headed to a grocery store to use my last Rand. I had a difficult time finding something I wanted for 13Rand or less, but I finally settled on a bag of kettle chips. With the time I had remaining, I reconnected to the free internet, quickly skyped Yash for the first time (he was quite angry at me :) and then left for the ship. I got back later than my usual: 5:30, but I was still able to get on in time. Going to dinner, I ran into Mezrim who told me what a great guy I was, which was a great self-confidence booster :). I had dinner outside with Johnny and Michaella, who I hadn’t seen all the time in port since Table Mountain, since she was on her safari trip. Inside again, I sat with a few kids and their mother and talked about things. I found out that Professor Sanchez would be returning to the ship at Mauritius and not teaching Global Studies until after India. Apparently one of his eyes had a detached retina during our South African stay, and so he had to get surgery and needed a good amount of time to recover from it. Later on during the night, I watched us leave. It felt like we had been here for such a long time, and it was only 6 days. It probably was because I had done so many amazing things in such a short amount of time. During this stay, I hiked table mountain, went on a safari, cage-dove with Great White Sharks, visited a South African Township, saw one of the World Cup Stadiums, had a long night out with friends, wandered the streets of Cape Town, and had three experiences next to something that could have killed me. It was a great port. Ghana was an amazing port in terms of culture and opening my eyes. South Africa also opened my eyes (the township visit), but was mostly an amazing port in terms of doing crazy things. I reflected on my experience for some time before going to my post-port reflection group meeting. After the usual “what did you do, what did you like/not-like, how did it affect you,” we were done around 10. And I called it a night early. By 10:15 I was in bed and within 5 minutes, I was gone. I am so happy that we have a reading day the next day. That gives me plenty of time to sleep and recover from my sleep deprived last 6 days.
-Nimish
October 8, 2010

Another Long yet Rewarding Day

Again, the day started early, this time 7am, not as early as other days actually, but I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep. After breakfast, I headed down the gangway to meet the rest of the group for the “Township by Bike and Interactive Soccer” SAS trip. Once it was time to leave (Howard and Krystal were also on the trip with me), we boarded the bus and made our way to the township. Once outside, we were introduced to our bikes, made our choices (a few people got ones that were too tall for them, like Krystal), and began the tour. Biking through the township was a lot of fun, especially watching many of the other students who haven’t traveled on a bicycle in a long time (they were wobbling a lot and falling off a number of times). One thing I definitely feel is that traveling through an area on a bicycle is by far one of the best ways of doing so. You are going faster than walking (allowing you to see more), but you are also going slower than a car and in the open air (allowing you to experience more of the sights and smells of the region). And like walking, you can stop whenever you want. The township itself did not seem as bad as I thought (at least yet). I was expecting to see slums, dirt, and broken-make-shift buildings, however there were relatively good roads, the buildings were well walled and roofed, and it was not really that dirty. This is probably because the guides were not taking us to the bad parts, for reasons such as safety. Our first stop was a children’s facility. There was a basketball court and sports facility/gym, which were recently built to provide the children with a clean and safe environment, and a place to escape the turmoils of their world and develop away from those problems. Also there was a “Life Centre” which treated the kids of sickness and illness, but also was there to help treat kids that had acquired AIDS/HIV from birth, blood transfusions, etc. This made me sad, that children had to suffer from such ailments and lose their childhood and innocence due to the problems they were facing, which were mostly aftermaths of apartheid and discrimination that the local Africans had faced on the past few centuries. Then I saw a sign: a gun symbol, red cross-out mark over it, and said “This is a Gun-Free Zone.” This really made me realize the horrible situation that these residents were living in, that even in a children’s facility, they have to put up such a specific sign to help keep the violence away from these kids. At the same time, I also felt pity for the people who committed such acts. As I learned from our guide later, these “criminals” were often victims of disturbing backgrounds, psychological diseases, poverty, etc: again, many problems that were results of past discrimination and apartheid. Next we stopped at a new train station under construction. As the guide explained the situation of local transport and other such issues, I noticed something behind us: a restaurant in a shipping-container. That’s when I realized that there were a number of other restaurants, stores, and even homes that were located in such containers, breaking the perception I had that this township was not “that bad.” We then made our way to local residence buildings, where we stopped by a tiny building with a flimsy tin garage door. Opening it we saw the entire walls of the building covered in painted hand prints of children, the children living in the nearby buildings. This was one of the “dance studios” for “Happy Feet,” an organization that taught children, from a very young age, a type of African dance with clapping hands, stomping feet, and clapping feet. This was also a way to “distract” children from the troubled world that surrounded them and give them something to enjoy. After looking at the insides of the building, and learning a short dance routine, we made our way to the school. First arriving at the school, it seemed relatively nice, but I was not going to let the looks deceive me. We entered a preschooler classroom, where we were greeted by the kids there singing a number of songs including the South African national anthem: they sounded adorable. We gave the class some art supplies that we had brought with us, and then went to the main square of the school where we were treated to the school’s gospel choir and happy feet dance troupe. The gospel choir had beautiful rhythm, pitch, and voices, and the dance troupe consisted of highly talented dancers ranging from preschooler to middle schooler (it was great to see a 6 year old go to the front of the group and lead them on a sequence). It was then our turn to show the dance group and the school our dancing skills, and we proceeded to embarrass ourselves (we failed for lack of a better word). Then, the entire school and we made our way for the soccer field. The school’s soccer team was already practicing on the field in their uniforms and proper soccer equipment. We thought that we were going to get destroyed, until we started playing. It’s not like the players were not skilled, I felt that they didn’t really know how to play as a team. Although the game went into penalty shootouts, we pretty much owned them, which made me feel bad. I feel like we should have let them won, but I wasn’t playing during the shootouts. It was then time for us to take our leave. We got back onto our bikes and exited the premises. We stopped at the shipping container shop of a local medicinal man. This was a very interesting experience, as we got to see all sorts of traditional medicines used by such medicinal people, many of which were bones and skins of animals. We took turns entering the shop in groups of four, talked to him for a short while, and then were blessed by him. Our next stop was a place of many variations. First of all we saw some pretty intense slums, like the ones I was expecting to see, with walls made out of scraps and garbage, like the ones I’ve seen in India. Then there was an entire group of very new houses that even had solar panels to provide their own electricity. The only problem with these houses is that there wasn’t really any occupying them, since most people who had to money to afford them would just leave the township all together. We stopped at a local restaurant that was actually officially recognized by FIFA during the recent World Cup. Inside we enjoyed some African bread and fresh orange juice before leaving. On our way to the buses we stopped in a more town-like area of the township with stores. There a man approached all of us with some drugs and an alcohol-smelling breath. Immediately our guide and a number of locals began yelling at him for making a bad impression on us and shooed him off. After that fiasco, we reached the buses and left for the ship. When we got back, Krystal went off with some friends leaving me and Howard alone. Neither of us had been to the FIFA Stadium in Cape Town yet, so we got directions for it on the ship and headed back out. We got there within 15 minutes, and boy was it big. I actually had to sweep my head a little bit just to be able to see the whole thing. We found the entrance and got tickets for the next tour. Inside the grounds, we first entered the reception hall and waited for the guide. The stadium was really cool looking, but not as amazing as I thought it would be. It was definitely spectacular, but the entire stadium was built mostly of just concrete (even the wakeways outside and fence), and the outside was covered by a cloth like material. As soon as our guide arrived, we started out tour of the 7 levels of the stadium. As soon as we got inside, I was taken aback by the sheer size of the grounds and stadium seating area. I could not imagine that only 3 months before, 75-80,000 people were flooding this stadium and world-famous soccer players were fighting it off. We started on the second floor, then third floor, all the way to the sixth floor, where we enjoyed a view from the top in a box seat. Then we went downstairs to the first floor and visited the locker rooms (which was amazing) and the stadiums jail.... that’s right, the stadium had its own JAIL for rowdy spectators or other such police reasons. Then we were allowed onto the main field. Although we were not allowed to actually stand on the field, we were able to touch the grass (wow, I know right) and standing down there, where the players sat on the side and coach barked on the ones on the field, really made me feel like I was kind of there (I could actually picture the roar of the crowd). Our tour was then over, so Howard and I headed back to the ship (right after going to the bathroom and using a sink faucet that shot out water like a rocket, and made a quick stop by the nearby McDonalds [of course there is one right outside the stadium] to see what it was like). After getting a little bit more internet time in the mall, and dinner on the ship, I was invited out by Drew. So Drew, Bria, Lorlei, Amy, Jenn, Veronica, Kevin, and I headed out to first the Green Dolphin, then Mitchell’s, then Long Street, then the Green Turtle Karaoke Lounge (where I engaged in karaoke for the first time ever; I sang Billie Jean by Michael Jackson with Drew), and Dublienese (where we got to see a live band play some popular teen music from the back in the states. By that time it was late, and yet the others still wanted to go out. However when it began raining, and we began being followed by some homeless people who were probably trans-gender and trying to help but just be really creepy at the same time, we decided it was time to head back. Once back to the ship, we checked to make sure the other taxi made it back alright, which they did, and then called it a night. It was late, and today was an intense day: township by bike, soccer with kids, FIFA stadium, and a fun night out with my friends. It was a good day
-Nimish
October 7, 2010