Another day in this Amazing City!!!!!!!

Holla!!!!!

We spent the day hiking up the Mt. Avila that I spoke about earlier. It was an extremely long hike witch finished at one of the top lockout points. We also went back to the top of the mountain via the gondolas on this tour. We learned a lot more about the city today including that they shut down the main highway around town on the weekends from dawn until 1:00pm which is pretty interesting considering. What I first noticed was a table set up in middle of the highway selling the usual sodas and fresh juices. Then after taking a second look we saw people riding there bikes as well as people walking their dogs and just generally enjoying the outdoors. You would not believe how many people were out hiking the trail with us hundreds. And then when they got to the top they had either brought a picnic lunch or a newspaper many of whom seemed to be alone and enjoying a day out on the beautiful town.
Well we did end up going salsa dancing which I got to admit I am not very good at compared to the locals but I figure if you keep moving your feet you will be ok. We meet Christian at the mall with about 30 other SAS students and he informed me if we wanted to get into a disco that I needed to wear pants that I didn’t have. So I went into the mall the first store I went into was Timberline and there as well as the next two stores wanted around 300 US for a pair of blue jeans. I guess you can now tell how up scale this place was so then I found a store that had reasonably priced jeans considering. It was pretty funny trying to tell the attendant that not only did I want to buy the jeans I also wanted to cut off the tags and wear them out of the store. Once they realized exactly what I wanted them for they got a good laugh out of that.
The first place that we went to had a cover of five dollars which had drinks included weather you wanted them or not. It was kind of like a sports bar but it was funny because they would not let the guys wear our hats inside. There were probably 20 locals watching the Venezuela soccer team play a game and they were going crazy almost the whole night. We then went to the disco and it was very funny looking at the expressions on the faces of the guys and others in the disco after they realized that AJ and I had brought about 20 girls with us. They really didn’t know what to think.
As I said earlier we had planned on going to Margarita Island with Alberto and friends but found out that the ferry left at three thirty today and would return tomorrow instead of Tuesday when we wanted it to at 8am. So we decided to arrange a tour for tomorrow with some friends. We are going to go on one of those jeep tours to two beaches, a banana plantation as well as a waterfall all day so that should be fun.
Something that I have not talked about that I am sure is just going to get worse is the fact that there is no concept of days of the week on the ship. I was just thinking of this and it took me a minute to figure out exactly what day it is. Because we run on a A and B day schedule for school and then port days so in that case it is almost irrelevant what day it is beside for church on Sundays.
Another interesting thing that I am learning about is some of the different religions in particular the Jewish faith. Which is kind of funny because I really haven’t known any in Texas that I know of. And Eric and several other friends here on the ship are. They were telling me about the Jewish New Year that is about to come up. As well as I get to hear about Eric’s stories trying to find a good Jewish girlfriend on the ship. Lots of fun as you can tell. Well I better run I will talk to you all soon.

PS Photos are coming as soon as I can find an interent shop where I can download from my casio until then sorry.

Chow!!!!

Chad