1. »  China Video!

    Went from Hong Kong to Beijing and then to Shanghai. Had so many good times…eating dim sum, losing our hostel, and going through the tunnel of awesomeness with my ladies.  Oh, and of course I can’t forget, climbing 6 million steps on the Great Wall.  Ok, I forget the actual count Justen and Joe got…but it was a freaking ton of stairs. 

  2. [Flash 10 is required to watch video]

    This was one of my favorite times during SAS.  I was doing a cooking class in a township in South Africa and randomly got put with an LDS family.  Once again, I apologize for my singing…

  3. »  India Video!

    Made chicken tikka masala and naan last night then watched this video about 20 times…I guess you could say I miss India :/

  4. »  South Africa Video

  5. »  Morocco Video!

    Since I was so terrible about blogging during Semester at Sea I figured I should go through and post my port videos.  So here is numero uno, Morocco!

  6. [Flash 10 is required to watch video]

    I’ve got joy, down in my heart

    Deep deep down in my heart

    Jesus give it to me

    No one can destroy destroy

    Jesus give it to me

    No one can destroy destroy

    I’ve got joy, down in my heart

    Deep deep down in my heart

  7. »  Ghana Video!

  8. On the second day in Cape Town my friends and I rented a tour van for the day and went for a long gorgeous drive around the Cape of Good Hope.  We started at Chapman’s Peak, one of the most breathtaking views you could ever see, and ended at False Bay, a bay given its name because no one could ever agree on if it was part of the Atlantic or Indian Ocean.  On our drive we saw the Twelve Apostles (a mountain range with several peaks…I think it’s a lot more than twelve though), stopped to see the penguins, and hiked up to a lighthouse overlooking the ocean.  We also drove through a nature reserve and saw antelope and ostriches.  At other points in the drive we saw camels (no big deal, I already rode on one of those in Morocco!) and, get ready this is awesome, a chimpanzee riding on the back of a motorcycle!!  I wasn’t fast enough with my camera, but that was pretty much the event that solidified my love for South Africa.  It was a fabulous day; perfect weather, amazing scenery, couldn’t ask for anything more.  

    On the second day in Cape Town my friends and I rented a tour van for the day and went for a long gorgeous drive around the Cape of Good Hope.  We started at Chapman’s Peak, one of the most breathtaking views you could ever see, and ended at False Bay, a bay given its name because no one could ever agree on if it was part of the Atlantic or Indian Ocean.  On our drive we saw the Twelve Apostles (a mountain range with several peaks…I think it’s a lot more than twelve though), stopped to see the penguins, and hiked up to a lighthouse overlooking the ocean.  We also drove through a nature reserve and saw antelope and ostriches.  At other points in the drive we saw camels (no big deal, I already rode on one of those in Morocco!) and, get ready this is awesome, a chimpanzee riding on the back of a motorcycle!!  I wasn’t fast enough with my camera, but that was pretty much the event that solidified my love for South Africa.  It was a fabulous day; perfect weather, amazing scenery, couldn’t ask for anything more.  

  9. Day numero uno in Cape Town I went to a Xhosa Township on an SAS trip to cook up some Xhosa grub with the local mamas.  Even though apartheid ended in 1994, there are still millions of black South Africans living in townships and unofficial settlements, and so tours like the one I was on were started to further cultural understanding and repair some of the psychological damage created by apartheid.  So here we were, day one, fifteen minutes away from our luxurious port, in the middle of a modest township that poignantly revealed the complex healing process of the not-so-distant past.  When we got to the township the students were divided into several groups and each group went back with their mama to their home to start cooking. Two of the groups actually butchered their own chickens.  Unfortunately I missed out on that experience, but later I heard that one of the students tried to chop off their chicken’s head but the knife was super dull and so they just hacked at it for a while without making much progress…that reminded me of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” when the opossum tries to bite the chickens neck but his teeth are too short to go through so he just ends up gnawing on it, hehe.  Sorry, I hope there aren’t any vegetarians reading, that was a little gruesome.  Anyway, it should make you feel better to know that the mama didn’t let this go on for too long and she quickly put the poor chicken out of its misery. The group I was with was a little more…humane…We went to our mamas house and met her husband and one of her sons who was home (the rest of her kids were at school).  We made some tasty food: beef with various spices, butternut squash, spinach, and this maize based porridge type stuff that I think she said was called stable pop or something like that.  Our meal was served with fat cakes, which is this super yummy squishy fried bread, basically like a doughnut but not quite as sweet.  The best part was we got to eat everything with our hands.  Well, just our right hand actually.  It is considered extremely offensive to accept or eat food with your left hand (I think that’s because that’s the hand people use for…other purposes…in the bathroom…icky, I’ll stick with tp).  Anyway, I found using my hand to eat quite practical because I kept picking stuff up and being like, “DANG THAT’S HOT!  I’m glad I didn’t stick that in my mouth!” so instead of burning my tongue, which always really sucks, I would put the food down and wait for it to cool off.  Brilliant.  Also, that’s what she said. The best part of the visit though, was that the mama I was with just so happened to be LDS.  It was just really nice because at this point I hadn’t been able to go to an LDS church for a month and was really missing it.  I started talking to my mama and her husband about the church and so the other people in our group got curious about it.  Her husband ended up teaching our group about the first vision and then to help me feel a little more connected to church they got out some hymn books and had us sing some hymns with them.  I posted some videos from that a little while ago, and I know my singing isn’t great, but it was really special for me to get to have that experience.  It’s nice to know God is aware of me no matter where I am in this crazy world.

    Day numero uno in Cape Town I went to a Xhosa Township on an SAS trip to cook up some Xhosa grub with the local mamas.  Even though apartheid ended in 1994, there are still millions of black South Africans living in townships and unofficial settlements, and so tours like the one I was on were started to further cultural understanding and repair some of the psychological damage created by apartheid.  So here we were, day one, fifteen minutes away from our luxurious port, in the middle of a modest township that poignantly revealed the complex healing process of the not-so-distant past.  When we got to the township the students were divided into several groups and each group went back with their mama to their home to start cooking.

    Two of the groups actually butchered their own chickens.  Unfortunately I missed out on that experience, but later I heard that one of the students tried to chop off their chicken’s head but the knife was super dull and so they just hacked at it for a while without making much progress…that reminded me of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” when the opossum tries to bite the chickens neck but his teeth are too short to go through so he just ends up gnawing on it, hehe.  Sorry, I hope there aren’t any vegetarians reading, that was a little gruesome.  Anyway, it should make you feel better to know that the mama didn’t let this go on for too long and she quickly put the poor chicken out of its misery.

    The group I was with was a little more…humane…We went to our mamas house and met her husband and one of her sons who was home (the rest of her kids were at school).  We made some tasty food: beef with various spices, butternut squash, spinach, and this maize based porridge type stuff that I think she said was called stable pop or something like that.  Our meal was served with fat cakes, which is this super yummy squishy fried bread, basically like a doughnut but not quite as sweet.  The best part was we got to eat everything with our hands.  Well, just our right hand actually.  It is considered extremely offensive to accept or eat food with your left hand (I think that’s because that’s the hand people use for…other purposes…in the bathroom…icky, I’ll stick with tp).  Anyway, I found using my hand to eat quite practical because I kept picking stuff up and being like, “DANG THAT’S HOT!  I’m glad I didn’t stick that in my mouth!” so instead of burning my tongue, which always really sucks, I would put the food down and wait for it to cool off.  Brilliant.  Also, that’s what she said.

    The best part of the visit though, was that the mama I was with just so happened to be LDS.  It was just really nice because at this point I hadn’t been able to go to an LDS church for a month and was really missing it.  I started talking to my mama and her husband about the church and so the other people in our group got curious about it.  Her husband ended up teaching our group about the first vision and then to help me feel a little more connected to church they got out some hymn books and had us sing some hymns with them.  I posted some videos from that a little while ago, and I know my singing isn’t great, but it was really special for me to get to have that experience.  It’s nice to know God is aware of me no matter where I am in this crazy world.

  10. Before I even start, I need to give South Africa an apology.  I was in Cape Town a month ago and am just now getting around to blogging about it.  This makes it seem like my experience there wasn’t worth talking about, a statement that couldn’t be more wrong.  I hope that in these few posts coming up I can give you all a glimpse of how beautiful this country is; it is geographically and culturally stunning.  So sorry South Africa, these blog posts probably won’t be able to do you justice any better than the short six days I spent there could.  I guess that’s all the more reason for me (and all of you!!) to go back someday.  Gaaah!  I can’t wait! J

    Before I even start, I need to give South Africa an apology.  I was in Cape Town a month ago and am just now getting around to blogging about it.  This makes it seem like my experience there wasn’t worth talking about, a statement that couldn’t be more wrong.  I hope that in these few posts coming up I can give you all a glimpse of how beautiful this country is; it is geographically and culturally stunning.  So sorry South Africa, these blog posts probably won’t be able to do you justice any better than the short six days I spent there could.  I guess that’s all the more reason for me (and all of you!!) to go back someday.  Gaaah!  I can’t wait! J

About me

I have never been out of the United States-not even to Mexico or Canada-so things are about to get pretty crazy! Starting August 25th the pages of my passport are going to be a little less bare...and 111 days after that I'll be able to say I have sailed around the world!