Drawing to a close
Tonight is my last night on the M/V Explorer. What a journey it has been – 106 days! I am packed and early tomorrow I disembark. Two days exploring Spain, and then heading home. I am so excited to get...
View ArticleWeekly Photo Challenge: Up
This week’s photo challenge (which expires soon!) with The Daily Post is titled “Up”. [Let the record state that I love that movie.] I have been sailing around the world for 106 days. Today we...
View ArticleWeekly Photo Challenge: Culture
Two photo posts in a row! This week’s photo challenge with The Daily Post is about culture. YAY! I have seen a LOT of that these past four months. The most beautiful thing about culture and travel is...
View ArticleWeekly Photo Challenge: From Above (Floating Market, Vietnam)
It is the eve of my examinations, and I have been back in South Africa for exactly a week. It has been incredibly difficult to focus on studying. Fortunately I don’t start with the most difficult...
View ArticleMedical Monday: Disabled in Vietnam
In my Semester at Sea reflections, I return often to Vietnam. I think it was the first country to shock me, well and truly. It was not very easy to make my SAS experience medically-oriented, and I had...
View ArticleWeekly Photo Challenge: Escape
I took this picture at Elmina Castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, during my visit there with Semester at Sea in April this year. We learned about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in high school history class,...
View ArticleSemester at Sea: Happies and Crappies
Yesterday was a whole month since I have been back in South Africa. That means that my whirlwind circumnavigating-the-world experience has been over for over a month! And I have written painfully...
View ArticleReview: The Big Necessity by Rose George
One of the first things I noticed when I started traveling was international differences in public restrooms. In New York City I was met with the conundrum of a city that has everything except...
View ArticleTTT: Books for the Traveler
I am changing things just a little for today’s Top Ten Tuesday. The topic is Top Ten Books that feature TRAVELLING in some way. I’m choosing books that I think travelers would like. Whether you are...
View ArticleBooking It Around The World
Last week I posted about books for travelers, and I realised I never wrote about my forays into bookstores while traveling. Most Semester at Sea students decide to collect ONE THING in each country....
View ArticleWeekly Photo Challenge: Myanmar In My Eye
This week’s challenge with The Daily Post is titled The World Through Your Eyes. Myanmar was a fantastic country. Really like no place you’ve ever been; nothing like the rest of Asia. We were walking...
View ArticleSemester at Sea on a (Low) Budget
I get a lot of questions about the expense of doing Semester at Sea, and how a financially challenged student may go about experiencing this unique study-abroad opportunity. It’s important to know that...
View ArticleWeekly Photo Challenge: Sea
I grew up by the ocean. Feeling the sand under my nails and scrabbling as the water tried to swallow my sandcastles was second nature to me. In the late summer months, after-school activities meant...
View ArticleWhat Travelling the World Taught Me About Patient Care
When I heard about Semester at Sea for the first time, I admit it was the idea of travelling the world that attracted me. I knew from a little bit of experience that travelling would enrich my...
View ArticleBook Review: Hives in Paradise
This was the first book I bought while on Semester at Sea. Hives in Paradise by Midge Hill Mebane was sold to me at the Hilo Farmer’s Market on our second (and final) day in Hilo, Hawai’i by the...
View ArticleAfrican Penguin Awareness Day: Boulder’s Beach, South Africa
Penguins are one of my favourite animals (I also like geckos, and giraffes, among others). The boy made me get up super early yesterday morning to go to the Boulder’s Beach Penguin Colony. I was...
View Article100 Reasons for Gratitude
We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday in South Africa, but last year I copied Christine from Bookishly Boisterous in posting 100 things I’m thankful for, and I loved that exercise so much that...
View ArticleAfrica Needs More Books
I was walking through my home suburb (read:village) with my brother the other day. We went to the local library, sampled some books (slim pickings) and as we walked home, I asked about such-and-such a...
View ArticleBook Review: China Underground
China Underground by Zachary Mexico was the third book I purchased on Semester at Sea. The book comprises a series of anecdotes of various Chinese citizens, whom the author met and interviewed while in...
View ArticleHow I did Semester at Sea while at Medical School
I have alluded to this before, but medical students rarely do Semester at Sea, and when they do, they are usually there for a short while. For example, the few medical students from the University of...
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