Semester at Sea - The Adventure Begins

Why, dear reader, are we writing blogs again after a multi-year hiatus? We wanted to have a way to keep interested parties updated while we are away, and want to record the experiences we are about to have. 

As many of you know we have been planning to go on a Semester at Sea since 2019. Semester at Sea is a multi-country study abroad program on a ship open to all students of all majors, emphasizing global comparative study. Colorado State University is the academic sponsor for Semester at Sea and since Ender works as a counselor at Colorado State, he was eligible to apply to spend a semester as one of the voyage's counselors, and able to bring the whole family along! We were originally signed up to sail in the Spring of 2021, but something was going on globally at that time which postponed our voyage...until now!  If you want to read more about the program itself, and the Spring 2024 voyage we are a part of, click here: Semester at Sea: Spring 2024 Voyage

Jacob would have been 10 years old if we had sailed when we originally planned, but now, as a 13 year old, we hope he can appreciate the experience more fully. He is going to miss the good friends he has made in Fort Collins, but we've assured him they will still be there when he returns. 

As the voyage drew nearer, Kim was hired as a child care coordinator on the ship.  Technically all children younger than college-age are being "homeschooled" while on board, but Kim's job will be to oversee the activities that occupy the kids during the days while we are at sea. 

Despite knowing for YEARS we would be sailing, we're not sure we ever felt fully prepared to put our lives on pause for 4 months and leave everything behind, but that's exactly what we did!  We were immunized, we got passports and visas in order, we soaked our clothing in bug repellent, and stocked up on our necessary medications, seasickness remedies, and prepared other well advised hacks we learned from former voyagers.  And we never could have left if we didn't have family and friends taking care of our home and our dogs, covering our jobs, and basically being awesome supportive people. 

We will board the ship in Thailand on January 2nd, however, while we are in the neighborhood, we couldn't pass up the chance to visit Vietnam and Cambodia, so we booked an early flight to make the most of our time in Southeast Asia. And so dear reader, it is on the 20th of December that our adventure begins: 

We reached the gate to board the first leg of our trip,  Salt Lake City to San Francisco, where the gate attendant tore up Kim's ticket and quickly printed a new one and explained, "your new ticket."  The airplane had a single aisle with two seats on either side and we had chosen 3 seats in the same row, but now Jacob had window, and a stranger had Kim's previous seat. Across the aisle from said stranger was Ender's seat and behind him, was Kim's new seat. We still can't quite figure out why they replaced Kim's seat with a stranger who could have just as easily sat behind Ender where Kim was now sitting.  

The stranger now seated next to Jacob was a kindly older woman who had recently torn her meniscus, had a 14 year old granddaughter who was interested in becoming an animator, and a daughter who recently retired who had a birthday the day before Jacob's.  They didn't talk the whole time, but they definitely got to know one another.  We learned nothing about Kim's neighbor, and Ender's neighbor tried to have a conversation, but Ender was asleep before the plane took off. 

This was a rough flight. There was some turbulence, and due to fog in San Francisco we had to circle the airport for a good long while before we were able to land. Luckily, also due to the fog, our connecting flight was delayed in leaving, so we didn't have to rush to get to the gate. Unfortunately, due to the late departure of our flight from San Francisco to South Korea, we were doomed to miss the following flight before we even took off. 

The flight from San Francisco to South Korea was PACKED, and since we only had carry on luggage, we were using our leg room as much as the overhead compartments which made for a particularly cramped 14 hours on the plane. Other than that, the in-flight entertainment was excellent and we each had time for multiple movies and entire television seasons to watch throughout the flight. Jacob and Ender started the flight with the episode of  Friends: The One Where No One is Ready. They only watched one episode because Ender laughs out loud which everyone but Ender finds embarrassing. He may have become emotional when Jacob whispered, "I can see why you love this show."  Jacob went on to watch one-and-a-half Christian Bale as Batman movies, half of Blue Beetle, Cloverfield Lane, and Mean Girls.  Kim watched what she was hoping would be available: Hello God, It's Me Margaret. She also watched BlacKKKlansman, Elvis, and the series: Love and Death, well, all but the last 30 mins of the last episode.  Ender watched, Inside (with Willem Dafoe, not Bo Burnham), what turned out to be the 3rd season of Barry, Blade Runner 2049,  and a couple of episodes of The Last of Us.  He would have made some different choices if he could do it over again. 

When we arrived in South Korea, the airline representative weas waiting for us with one of those important people signs that had our names on it.  They explained what we had already learned on the flight: our connecting flight had been cancelled and we had been rebooked on a flight the next morning. What we did not yet know was that they had also arranged rooms for us at the airport hotel in Seoul.  We preemptively went through security so we wouldn't have to the following morning and were given a meal voucher for an excellent dinner buffet. All things considered, this was a better outcome than if we had made our flight.  This way, we got a great meal, a good nights sleep, and would arrive in Ho Chi Minh city the following afternoon rather than a late arrival the night before. Everything was coming up roses. 

The next morning we arose early, grabbed breakfast in the airport, and boarded our 6 hour flight from South Korea to Ho Chi Minh City. 

On this flight, Jacob and Ender shared a screen and watched the second (technically the third) Jumanji movie, and the Flash. Kim watched Moving On and King Richard.  When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh we did the normal immigration/customs routine, got a cab and travelled the 45 minutes to our hotel in District 1.  If you've never been to Ho Chi Minh, the most remarkable thing to us was that the vast majority of commuters are on moped including delivery drivers, business people, and entire families (complete with the family dog) all buzzing around on scooters. Navigating the traffic had us white knuckled at first, but eventually it became clear there is a rhythm to the madness and a certain amount of horn honking which seemed to work for everyone. 

Because we are doing everything we can to travel on the cheap, we booked a pretty low-key hotel which turned out to be located above a "massage parlor" (in quotes because it's definitely a brothel).

The hotel has a fridge but no safe, a television but no television, a fantastic view of the back alley rooftops. 

Our family mantra for this adventure will continue to be: things will go wrong, so prepare to be flexible. I'm not sure how helpful such a mantra is when things actually go wrong, but there is some comfort in accepting fate and letting go of minor frustrations. 

Stay tuned for further tales of our time in Vietnam!