Summer Reading

When it was first settled that I would be participating in the Fall '11 Voyage of Semester at Sea I decided on a whim that I should read a novel for each country I will be visiting. It was a great decision.

I am not even half way through the list (~4.5 books down) yet all the bits and pieces of information I am picking up along the way are helping to make the prospect of this Journey a little less intimidating. I tried with each selection to pick a novel, not a history book, in an attempt to get a somewhat candid view of the cultures and customs of the countries I am visiting. So far I've learned a little about the importance of haggling, the purported exquisiteness of the durian fruit, and how to recognize a malarial attack, though I only hope to use two of those learnings this fall.

(My stack of summer reading)

So far I have finished my reading for Morocco, Ghana, Malaysia and Vietnam, with South Africa still in the works. I'm going to write a short little review of each for my own practice. The goal is that I write at at least the 6th grade level by the end of this voyage!

Preparation

Creating this blog is just one of many in my items in the expansive list of things left to do before I embark on what is surely to be one of the great adventures of my life. As I am writing this I am happy to say much of the heavy lifting is finished.

Thus far, I've rearranged my academic schedule, taken 8 months off from college to save up money and have applied and been accepted to the Semester at Sea program.

Next comes the more nit picky stuff:

Visas
Too many scholarship essays
Planning itineraries for 12 countries
Medical check ups
Vaccinations from Yellow Fever to Japanese Encephalitis
A bureaucratic marathon of academic paperwork for my home University
Class registration
Country Research
A self imposed summer reading list of one novel per port
Determining a packing list
And finally a lot of shopping for items that i am going to need abroad (voltage converters, back-up camera batteries, luggage, watch, etc...)

While I am trying to avoid complaining about first world problems, this has easily been the most logistically daunting task of my lifetime and all of my deadlines just keep steadily marching forward. What keeps me going is that the incredible itinerary below is coming along with them.

EMBARK: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Casablanca, Morocco 

Takoradi, Ghana 

Cape Town, South Africa 

Port Louis, Mauritius 

Chennai, India 

Penang, Malaysia 

Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam 

Hong Kong / Shanghai, China 

Kobe / Yokohama, Japan 

Hilo, Hawaii, USA 

Puntarenas, Costa Rica 

Traverse Panama Canal 

Havana, Cuba 

DEBARK: Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA