Hey all! Well we just updated, but wanted to fill you in on the goings on today! It is our first day back on the ship since Ghana, and there were no classes because it was “Neptune Day”. Now we didn’t have really any idea what this was, so we were excited about the prospect of sleeping in a bit late and having an easy day with no classes… At around 7:30 this morning (if you know us at all, you know that neither one of us likes to be up at this ungodly hour) we heard a gaggle of people running up and down the hallways tweeting whistles, banging drums, yelling, singing, banging on doors and making all sorts of other loud, obnoxious noises. Well we continued sleeping when that all died down and then at a few minutes to 9am an announcement came over the loud speaker saying:
“Attention Pollywogs! Come up to the 7th deck by the pool. King Neptune and his queen Minerva have boarded the ship with their court of guards and goddesses for we are about to cross the equator. You will now become Shellbacks!” Apparently someone who hasn’t crossed the equator by sea before is considered a Pollywog and after they are initiated into the Order of the Shellbacks or something like that and they become Shellbacks! So then we all gathered up there and there was a big celebration/ceremony thing. We all lined up by the pool and they poured ‘fish guts’ all over us (I don’t know what it actually was, maybe fish goo, it kinda looked like that green Nickelodeon goo stuff y’kno?) and then we jumped in the pool and when we got out the ‘royal court’ had fish in their hands that we had to kiss then the academic dean dressed in a Greek god toga knighted us with a sword thing and then we had to go over and kiss the queens ring and then king Neptune’s ring and bow to them to be initiated as Shellbacks (Neptune was the ships captain covered in green skin paint and all decked out like a Greek god with a crown and a trident and everything). Then everyone is traditionally supposed to get their heads shaved, but it’s your choice, so now there are a ton of bald people walking around!
Well we hope everyone is well. Keep emailing us! Sorry we haven’t added any new pictures to the flickr page recently. It’s been really hard to find an internet café/ the time to go do all that. We are already really booked in South Africa but will hopefully find the time to upload pics! Miss and love you all!
Kiah and Rachael