Let me tell you the food is so good�I stuff myself every meal�I even eat breakfast on "A" days! I eat lettuce every once in a while, beans, potatoes, and carrots whenever they have it! I think I am going to come back a little heavier, I eat so much, and this buffet style stuff isn�t good for me! Only having milk once a day is tough�they said we need a note from the doctor if we want milk more than once! I am trying all kinds of new stuff, some I don�t know why, and it is so disgusting!
The stars are amazing in the middle of the ocean�no lights except from the ship! I meet new people every day!
Things I wish I had brought with me:
� A little book to write stuff in when I am on trips (am going to get one before Cape Town)
� More shorts, all it is is hot
� More button down light shirts
� Snacks
� More pictures
� I am going to always carry around stuff to give away, it was tough in the Amazon, I didn�t think we would see anybody�I wish I would have had something to give away
� A fan�it is so hot in our room 78 degrees when we sleep�everybody else�s is 60!
� Travelers Cheques is the way to go�you just cash those at the Burser�s office
� Air freshener
� A digital camera, so you can show the kids/people the picture you just took�when you show them it brightens there day
� Less bug spray�I haven�t used any yet! Not even in the Amazon
� Another watch�mine broke the first day on the ship�when working for work-study�but I still carry it around with me
Our Praise and Worship service is going great we had 65 people last time�all we do right now is sing songs and meet people! I am in 2 Bible Studies; one is on FAITH and becoming "Christ like," we are going to talk about issues in our world too, and we are also reading through Romans! My other study is a Men�s study ~ Men of integrity, we haven�t started yet, we are having a dinner on V-Day.
We have a dance tonight (Valentine�s Dance on the 13th), it is a stoplight dance�wear red � if you are dating, yellow � if you are mellow, and green � if you are single and looking! It will be cool something new�I am wearing green! Oh well! A lot of people were wearing green; we sold out of green in the campus store today almost! ...Our dances can only go until 11pm because the nurses and kids need to get to sleep! It really stinks, some of the rules on here are worse than at State�we have to be quiet at 11pm! We are college students and we have that early of a curfew�ridiculous�
Some of us have been talking and we are probably going to be taking a lot of road trips this summer, if we can think of a way to make money while traveling�that would be sweet! There are so many places we can go and stay with people! I hope it is all right with you guys, but I have invited almost all of the ship to So Dak and offered that they can stay with us! Everybody gets a kick out of So Dak, nobody has met a South Dakotan, and nobody has been to So Dak! Its great!
I am off again�tonight is this Men/Women competition�don�t know what it is but we are going to give it a whirl! I�m back again�the competition was fun, they had 2 person pie eating�one person sat on another�s lap while the person sitting on the lap ate the pie with the person being sat on feeding them the cake (one person had eyes, one person had hands), suck and blow�you passed a card around a circle by sucking and blowing on it (the card slipped at times�ha), I was involved with a balloon popping contest�could use any part of your body except hands to pop it between two people, and a smarty/whip cream game�a guy laid down on the ground, shirt off, and a girl had to suck up the smarties and whip cream off the guys� chest and arms! All games were a competition between other couples, one guy/one girl! It was fun, we ended it with a limbo contest�I can�t limbo!
I love you all so much and think of you every single day! J
Love you,
Brady Jay"
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On the way to India, we passed through the Maldives Islands, a group of 1200 islands that are drowning because of global warming. The islands will be completely underwater in the near future if something doesn�t happen�I hear they are amazingly beautiful islands.
I was working, but heard about this sunset we had at 4:30 pm, it was the most amazing one most people have seen, they said�the giant sun went down behind a tremendous wall of clouds�as it descended, the sky looked as if it were on fire�just below the cloud line you could see this enormous ball of the brightest red ever�just then the tops of the wall of clouds turned green�the straggling clouds above the green tipped wall were rainbow colored! I saw a digital picture, it looked just like a blazing fire, if you didn�t know you would think it was!
I was involved with our cultural pre-port�a time before we get to our next port where we learn about the culture of the country�I had to dance to a traditional Indian dance�the 6 girls that danced were awesome�2 were our inter-port students, and the other 4 were SAS students, their parents are originally from India and now live in the States�they were all dressed in the native dresses�then the 6 of us guys got up and danced with them�nothing too big, just a little shaking and moving�it was so cool�everybody loved it! The theme for the dance tonight was 80�s style, most of our community dressed up in some way�there were some crazy getups�it was hilarious! We were thinking, soon people are going to be doing the 90�s style! The dance was great�all 80�s music�people jumping around doing stupid dances, but it looked good! Everybody was having so much fun that we stayed out way to late with the time change, but it was worth it! Only about 200 of the 600 students made it to our CORE (the one where the whole community has to go to) class!
We left at 4:00 am to get on our way; we had so much to see in 4 days. We found out that a day before we left on the train to go to Agra, the police found 5 bombs on a train and in the station! Our train was swiped a couple of times before we got on it, we ran out of room in our boxcar, so 4 of us had to sit by ourselves with a bunch of Indian people, it was cool talking with them. This one lady works for Dell Computers and is a Call Operator�so if any of you call Dell and a Linda (not her real name) answers the phone; it might be this lady we met. Almost all of the calls for Dell are out of India!
It was cool reading newspapers from India (in English) about the world issues, got a couple for a scrapbook. I was looking through a newspaper that a friend picked up in India and in the Sports Section, and it mentioned that South Dakota State�s Women�s team made it to the Division II National Tournament!"
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