Twin Perspectives

December 7, 2005
Arrival in San Diego and Final Farewell

This morning we awoke at five o'clock to see the sun just kissing the glassy surface of the Pacific Ocean as we neared San Diego Harbor, though to say that we slept would be a huge understatement if lying in an excited knot of anticipation can be called sleep at all. It was as if someone had painted a bright orange stripe across the blue of the sky, bleeding like watercolor into the black of the sea at night. Breakfast began earlier than any other day aboard the Explorer and so after a rushed bowl of cereal, the waitstaff surely scrounging for the final selection of shredded wheat, granola, and frosties - nothing extremely palatable after one hundred days at sea - and our last glass of orange juice served by wonderful Mezraim, we made our way to Deck Seven Forward to find the prime spot for our arrival. At once questions started pouring forth. How far were we from the dock? When would we arrive? And the most important, for it meant the difference between seeing your loved ones after so long and wishing you had never climbed out of bed, for it would be just like missing the whole event. Which side of the ship would face the dock? It took some time, but common sense proved to be the best answer to this inquiry when several deck hands began preparing the deck five gangway for docking procedures, though we were originally told of the deck three departure So with luck on our side we clung to the rail in the chilly morning hours passing the cluttered shores of the harbor while standing on tiptoe to gauge our approach. After such a flurry of activity we learned that the San Diego officials and pilot were almost one hour behind schedule and were forced to stand our ground an hour more or risk losing our prized rail space. With a swarm of students behind us we don't doubt that they would have rushed the rail in our departure in much the same fashion as they flocked to the dining room on taco days.

Of course, all thought of anyone but yourself flew out the porthole when the cruise ship terminal came into view. We knew that seven hundred parents had registered for the welcome reception, but words could not describe the emotions to finally see a large crowd of moms and dads, aunts, uncles, brothers, and sisters after one hundred days, screaming and waving and everyone looking for that special someone. It may seem like a good idea to future shipmates to yell to "mom" or "dad" but it proved a most futile effort as there were hundreds of both, all swinging their heads from side-to-side in response to those familiar words. As we neared the dock and began our now-all-to-routine, but strangely different, disembarkation procedures we lowered our red beach towel over the rail with the words, "We Love You" in large white letters, though the word "love" was a gigantic heart and the "you" a simple "u" instead for ease of reading and visibility.

From the railing we glimpsed the row of cruise ships, the what-appeared-empty-soon-to-discover-tighter-than-a-sardine-can-upper level filled with parents, moms and dads, aunts and uncles, gandparents, brothers and sisters, all here to welcome us back to the states. Somewhere in the mileau of colorful signs, balloons, flags, waving scarves, and bizarre "easy-to-spot" objects were our parents we knew - dad wearing a red tie-dye University of Maryland t-shirt, red Terps baseball cap and Terrapin flag. We had planned this, the red. We held our sign, our fiery red towel with the words "We Love You" duck-taped to the fuzzy fibers. Nevertheless, where were they? Had they arrived early enough to choose a prime locale amidst the cluttered, cram-packed crowd? We skimmed the mass, red here, red there, a smile, a wave, none familiar.

Our peers, many too exhausted to arrive for that prime spot with moveable arm space sandwiched and pushed around us now that the time had arrived. From the moment the Explorer's hull kissed the concrete of the pier we didn't have to imagine what the school of fish fluttering their vibrant plummage of banners and signs on the sea of cement felt like squeezed side by side. Perhaps irritated at first, we couldn't blame them. We had waited one hundred days for this moment - reuniting with our parents, ready to share the adventure - and so had they.

At last we found them, but they hadn't found us. Pointing, waving, followed by more pointing. "Mom," "Dad!" The names don't work for as wonderful a title as they are, the pier was filled with moms and dads all answering to the call of their wingless sons and daughters on the ship. After many, "I don't see them. Do you see them?" comments on Heather's behalf, Megan extended her arm over the polished rail, directing our gaze to a large University of Maryland flag bearing Testudo, dad decked in his red and black tie-dyed Maryland t-shirt and mom in a bright coral blouse with what we could only assume was a brand new scarf. It took some time, a lot of arm swinging and acting like a complete goofball to finally attract their attention, but when our eyes locked we started to cry, and we could tell that mom was too, though she was waving her fluffly black scarf in the air with much enthusiasm. Sqawking loudly we must have sounded like a flock of strange birds ready to swoop down on our parents. Only we were without the ability to act on that behavior. Later mom would say, "I knew you would have a red sign, and I saw that red banner during the entire approach. In fact it was the most visible, but I just forgot and did't think it would be you." After seconds more agonizing than the initial panicked search, they spotted us as well. From that moment we spent the next painful six hours, at least, watching, waving, smiling casually, sitting near a window, becoming burnt in the sun for so many hours, waiting for the Bering Sea to disembark.

We felt ecstatic seeing them on the dock, and even more so when the first sea departed. Though by this time we had given up our spot on the rail after Bob and Betty waved to our mom and dad and directed Bob's granddaughter to our parents on the pier. We made our way to their suite for our final goodbye, hugging and telling our newly adopted grandparents that we would definitely see them again. Soon Bob and Betty emerged onto the pier, we watched as they collected their bags and went to greet Bob's granddaughter, finally waving to them in the distance as they climbed into a car and were off. On the otherhand, it was barely noon and not even two hours into the disembarkation, which meant more waving to mom and dad, crying, and eventually lunch. We had our final meal, both Mezraim and Ormond taking good care of us, Ormond with warm chocolate chip cookies and lots of hugs. So we soaked in the sun as we waved to our parents and found ourselves sitting in the Union one last time in view of the window and wondering if we were ever going to leave this ship. But by almost five o'clock we gathered our dozen or so bags, crowded into Purser's Square like sardines with our very anxious fellow Bering Sea Polar Bears. Amidst the goodbyes, a collective GROWL emitted from the bowels of the ship as "The Voice" announced the Polar Bears departure and the Bering Sea poured forth. We balanced precariously on our descent seeing mom awaiting us at the bottom, dad taking pictures, and Megan climbing back up the gangway for Chi, the now familiar name of her six foot Chi Wara mask bought in South Africa.

After such a show of talent and a smidgen of luck descending the steep gangway, we made our way to the forest and hillocks of Samsonite, North Face, and Jansport beasts still emerging from the great belly of the ship. Still it took some time, lugging and pulling to gather our four large duffels, though it felt a lot longer than it actually took. With our luggage in tow we walked the final few steps to the security gate and into the outstretched arms of our mom and dad. Mom was in tears of utter joy, but we will never forget the flood of happiness in her eyes. "Don't ever leave me like that again," she said between sobs, hugging us so close we could feel her heart.

Over a month has elapsed since the end of our voyage, and still it is too difficult to allow the thoughts and emotions to flow onto the page. We try to let them come naturally, but they do not. We want to write them down, but we cannot. We hope to summarize our experience, but hope is lost. We have yet to organize our twenty-eight giga-bytes of photos completely, but we look at the photos, unprinted, everyday. The only people to have witnessed these magnificent images are our parents, and one friend of the family. We now realize how impossible it will be to ever truly share this entire, incredible, wonderful, priceless...

Never would we have believed that a study abroad could be so well suited to an individuals interests, dreams, and desires to discover the world. Over 500 pages of text written since our departure from Nassau, Bahamas - a memoir, a journal, an autobiography of a wonderful adventure. A keeper. More appropriately, they document the journey, the good, the bad, the happy and sad. Even the not-so-good-at-the-time-but-laugh-at-them-later memories - dripping of sweat in the sweltering heat of Nueva Esparta's largest island, Isla de Margarita, ready to dump the innards of stomachs as we're churned in the thrashing of waves at Seal Island in South Africa, hot and dirty on a four hour train to Agra, and stuck on a bus for eight hours between Kyoto and Kobe, Japan. They all seem like such an adventure now. Adventure. What a great word, even the sound as it rolls off the tip of the tongue. Ad-ven-ture. What an adventure. Semester at Sea was perfect in every way. And we can authentically, veritably say that its an amazing opportunity to sea the world.

So, what's next. Well nothing so grand. We returned to the University of Maryland on January 22, 2006 and have resumed classes once again. Study, sleep, eat, study, study, eat, sleep, study, as Nana used to say. We have compiled a video, an hour in length to share with others. It will most likely be the only photos they ever see. Not many are willing to sit through that pleasant torture of ten hours of photography. We wish they were. In this video we have highlighted the entire trip, each port, each place, each moment. We have imagined ourselves making copies to slip under the doors of all the professors in the art history department, handing them to our roommates we have only just met, anyone who has heard a brief mention about our study abroad. And yet, even that would not be enough. We cannot fathom how others from the voyage are faced with the shock of re-entering the world of familiarity they willingly left behind. We are thankful to have not only the most incredible new friends from the voyage, but each other. Unlike others, we have someone directly involved in our life who has witnessed every moment of this adventure. We can share all of those memories,100 days worth - 2,400 hours, 144,000 minutes, 8,640,000 seconds. We can say "chocolate chip cookies" and recall how Slim Shorty brought us these wonderful treats warm and melty from the oven. We know it is Mauritius, pronounced Mar-ish-us, and not Mar-it-ti-us. We know Myanmar is Burma and where to find Cambodia on a map. We imagine someone inquiring as to the neighboring countries of Cambodia being equally as lost when told its next to Myanmar. Only after a sigh and we say, "That's Burma," does a light come on in the attic. Not everyone is as fortunate. So why is it still so hard to find the right words? But maybe we have already said them.

The familiarity of what we left behind when we began the voyage is what we strived each day to find while on the MV Explorer. Now that we are home, it is the familiarity of the MV Explorer we search in vain to rediscover. As we sit in the quiet solitude of the gallery where we work we are enclosed in a vestibule, a void, that only the ticking of the clocks on the wall seem to fill. They are a constant reminder of the seconds, minutes, hours passed since our return. Tick, tock, tick, tick, tock they chant in a syncopated rhythm all their own. Like caged animals we watch the bustle of the Student Union sally forth, each student set on their pursuits. It is quiet in the gallery. That is familiar. The quiet of the sea, of the ship, of discovery.

We want, we want, we want...we want what? Even being whisked immediately into the holiday season only prolonged the agony of finalizing our thoughts. Friends and co-workers would ask our parents what they were getting us for Christmas only to be shocked to discover not one gift was purchased, not one item under the Christmas tree, besides our new worldly treasures. They just did not understand, they didn't get it. We've just circumnavigated the globe, visited fifteen countries before our return home, over twenty-six cities, eleven flights, two catamarans, one train and eight hours stuck on a bus in Japan. What could we...would we...should we...want after that, the greatest gift in the whole world? Nothing. Nothing.

This is likely to become our shortest journal entry ever, compared to the novels written on a dialy basis. Perhaps it is procrastination, perhaps we are just not ready to finalize the journey. We remember a comment made by Tom Hanks as the conductor in the Polar Express, "The thing about trains... it doesn't matter where they're going. What matters is deciding to get on." The thing about Semester at Sea is...you may know where you are going, but it turns out completely different in the end. That's why we love to travel. Our twenty-first birthday is February 25th and we imagine saying it like Bilbo Baggins, "Today's my eleventy-first birthday!" It seems like such an important occassion, being the first since the conclusion of our voyage. Like Bilbo Baggins we have ended one chapter in our life, never to see the world of the small Shire again in the same light.

With our twenty-first birthday fast approaching we have made plans with our parents for a birthday weekend in New York City to see The Lion King on Broadway, and are making plans to visit Bob and Betty over Spring Break in Florida. Oh, we cannot wait! But even farther down the road, we graduate next December and then it really is the great unknown, though we do plan on a trip to the Mediterranean (Turkey, Croatia, Italy, Greece, and Egypt) or just sailing around the Caribbean on a catamaran and snorkeling just about anywhere. Of course, we wouldn't mind a return trip to Cambodia in the near future either. But if you take a trip to the Caribbean, look us up, we may just have our tearoom and be waiting for company.

We have ventured back into the West, a changed world in our view - of commercialism, wealth, and the divide of the haves and have-nots. We had a voyage of discovery. We had a chance of a liftetime. We had everything we could have ever wanted. But we saw the shacks on the hills in Venezuela, the favelas of Brazil, the townships of South Africa, the caste system of India, the sun over Angkor Wat. We realize that this above all, is the only thing we really have to say. We have witnessed both the beauty of this world and its worst societal problems. And like Haley Westenra sings on her CD, Odyssey, "And I never saw blue like that before, across the sky, around the world/You've given me all you have and more/And no one else has ever shown me how/To see the world the way I see it now/Oh, I, I never saw blue like that."

We guess we have written our tale: There and Back Again: Twin Perspectives.