Off on the right foot

The MV Explorer, cruise ship turned floating campus, arrives first in Brazil. After a week of only seeing 360 degrees of waves and sky, 650 slightly seasick, disorientated students pour out of the vessel and onto the cobblestone pavement of the port in Salvador. I have a field trip scheduled, so I wait outside the ship for the rest of my group to arrive. I walk to the side of the dock, scoping out the surrounding boats and ships. How strange to see life outside my new little ship bubble. Another ship is pulling in next to mine and a rowboat of fisherman is anchored nearby. I flop down on the dock and pop my foot out to sit cross-legged when off flops my flip-flop into the ocean. Great. My first step into a new country is going to a barefooted one.

Before I even have a chance to react, one of the fishermen anchored for lunch dives away from his companions into the ocean and swims fluidly to rescue my floating flop! Tired from the swim, his strapping shoulders hoist him back onto his boat. Immediately he turns back to me, waving with a wide smile. He and his fellow fishermen mutter to one another in what I can only assume to be Portuguese.

On the way to my field trip in the bus I write, My reality is warped- where I am in unfathomable and these people are real and warm. No expectations… surreal results. Then I apologize to my neighbor for the puddle on the bus floor from my soaking wet shoe.

Embarkation

I find myself on the ocean-view deck of Señor Frogs in sticky humidity stuck to random strangers. They wont be strange for long though; we’re hugging and handshaking as the excitement brims inside. Our world travel has begun and so have the chants: “S-A-S! S-A-S!"

Our arms are exhausted from carting massive body bags across the United States and through Bahamas customs today. We have just enough strength left to salt our hands, squeeze some limes and pour the tequila.

When the lights of the bar turn on we venture to the darkness of the beach. The hugging and handshaking continues as we dance in the sand and stare into the endless horizon. We confess newfound love to one another and announce that never before have we made friends faster. We are ecstatic; we don’t know what to expect. We are going on Semester at Sea.


Well, now that I look back on that night all I can think is how innocent I sounded. My writing suggests a sense of hope and anticipation, so much so that I realize my naiveté to the experiences I was about to have. When I thought of the globe, I could only picture artificial maps or the unfamiliar names I read in the “World” section of the New York Times. “Traveling around the world” was just a glorified expression; it had yet to be a collection of experiences.

I’ve found that traveling is all about the little details: the signs, the funny quotes, the logistics that always seem to get complicated, the conversations, the bus tickets, place names, directions, addresses, etc. etc. So I took my journal everywhere and scribbled it all down. And now I’m home and reading it.

Global Osmosis is my deciphering of the scribble. It’s also my attempt to relive the encounters that turned me into a writer. I hope you like it. And I hope you get the travel bug too.