...a bit of blogblock. How many hits did we get, again, sir Jim who sends me emails? A few thousand? Huh.

Photo one: (These are in no particular order except that the people featured first are those whom I will miss the most and who have supported me the most and who deserve to be first on my blogphoto non-order with the exception of my beloved and beautiful grandmother whose photo I have not on file.)

My grandfather. This photo is in my kitchen (my discovering the exotic begins), at the budding of what was a fab bon voyage party thrown for me by my parental unit. Pa, as we call him, is Santa Claus. Actually.

Photo two: Bear. My main man. The love of my life. (Mary, don't tell Spanky.) He loves getting his photo taken. Especially when he's sleeping and I creep up in front of him really close to his nose so that the flash illuminates all the cute little wrinkles his knitted brow makes. He's 98 in dog years.

Photo three: My invisible family! This is my Mom, Dad, Bear, Jo, Dan, Mary Shea and Danny (the bearers of such glowing wonders.) This photo is taken in the rainy music filled orb that was my backyard one night. There was a lot of dancing.

A propo my family and the bon voyage party, yesterday was just perfect. It rained the whole time, we were all cold and soggy, there were a billion people eating for hours and hours and Susan Horst brought a pie that would have knocked the socks off any blueberry lover. Whew, it was good. And exactly the thing my palate was craving after endless days of packing my two enormous duffle bags full of deet, ziplock bags (for what?...), ponchos, my dad's 30-year-old sleeping bag, and the like. I have never, in my entire life, at one time, at so many stores, spent this much cash. Holy Moses. It's out of hand.

If anyone reading this ever pursues Semester at Sea, I recommend getting five jobs for the summer and setting up five more for when you return. Some kid told me he budgeted about $2,000 a country for this trip. HA! Yea. I'm crying about the $4.99 Giant charges for good, natural, organic peanut butter when Trader Joe's sells it for $1.49. Get serious, Giant. And less greedy.

So. Other than that, I'm in good shape for this trip, I think. My dad and I will leave at 4 a.m. on Thursday morning (not 5 a.m., Dad 4 a.m. We shan't be late.) for Phiwwy to catch a 7:45 a.m. plane to San Diego. While there, we'll dabble in the plethora of vegan restaurants they have, and probably splash a bit in the Pacific. That itinerary is completely open. Going to the zoo is a possibility. Does anyone have comments about this? I am on the side of the fence that feels zoos are inherently uncomfortable places to point at animals. But I've heard this is kind of a big deal zoo. Like something one would be interested in seeing, even if she thought caging perfectly able-bodied creatures is something one ought to feel guilty about unless he were saving the lives of endangered species or maybe providing a safe venue for increased reproduction or beneficial and cruelty free research for/of them.

Eating is going to be tough on this trip. Call to all sympathetic: please send me Clif bars, granola and dried figs and dates and even cashews sometime in the next four months. My always changing address is posted on the Semester at Sea website http://www.semesteratsea.com/voyages/fall2007/fa2007_communicatewship.html.

If you do send cashews, make sure they're roasted and salted. Almonds and pecans are okay too. And sunflower seeds. Or, if you'd rather, you could send some nice hemp bread. Not to be picky. And letters! Send me letters!

Until soon,

C

ps--check out our itinerary: http://www.semesteratsea.com/voyages/fall2007/fa2007_itinerary.html