*A short break from India*
I am interrupting stories of India with a breaking story from life on the ship. Yesterday our ship crossed the equator at 2:45 am. In order to honour this crossing, Semester at Sea held a traditional celebration known as Neptune Day. You should try Googling the chaos!
From the days of Columbus a long standing tradition has been kept in place. Those who have never crossed the equator by ship are referred to as Polywag’s. These Polywag’s upon crossing the equator are supposed to all jump into the ocean. Semester at Sea put their own spin on this tradition, making it original and a day of extreme decisions.
At 8 am we were woken up by the loud banging of pots and pans, with loud whistling and people chanting down our hall ways. Drowsily, we ate breakfast and then headed up to Deck 7 to see what was going on. None of us really knew what was in store for us, we all had heard rumours from previous voyages, but the crew and staff were pretty hush-hush about what was going to happen, just grinning whenever we asked what to expect.
Sitting around the pool in our swimsuits, some of the professors were dressed up like the Greek God’s complete with face paint, white robes and fake wigs. They had us line up one by one as we voluntarily got what they claimed was, fish guts poured on us. Whatever it was, it was sticky, smelled horrible and turned my hair choppy and green.
Instead of jumping into the ocean like Columbus would of had us do, we all jumped into the pool, that was slowly turning green and smelled like a giant fish. Not much of a rinse off, it was more repulsive than relaxing.
Climbing out of the pool they had us kiss a fish… a real, dead fish. All I can say is that it was salty. Then we kissed the rings of the God’s before heading over to the last station.
The last station was insane. Four chairs were set up where people voluntarily sat down and allowed the staff to shave their heads. The whole ship got Britney Spears fever, as girls, men, children and professors sat down to shave their heads bald. We all crowded around in our swimsuits, smelling like fish as individuals donated their hair to locks of love, and took a Bick razor to the rest of it. It was madness! Only on Semester at Sea would this be acceptable… over 50 people walked out the ceremony with no hair on their head, and the only thing left was the mass amount of hair piled up on the wet floor, being swept away into a past memory.
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