Holla from Caracas!!!!!!!!!!!

Holla!!!

Let me Start off by saying how sad all of us are for the tragedy that has occured in New Orleans. We are experiencing it first hand here on the ship because those students who had to fly home to be with their families must of which their homes are destroyed, plus the emails from Billy, and we are also able to read a news paper called the international Herald for free on the ship.
I am curently in a really cool computer shop/houseware store/internet cafe in Caracas, Venezuela. We got up early this morning to begin with a breafing by the US Embassy members here in Caracas. Then we began our “Grand Caracas City Tour” which started out at a catholic church where a man named Bolivar is buried from the 1800s everything of any importance is named after him. Our ship actually docked in the port city of La Gauria which has Mount Avila inbetween it and the city of Caracas. The mountain is covered with “Shantis” which you wouldn”t believe made out of cement and mortar blocks all over the mountain that rises around 7,000 feet. After that we went to the gondalas that took us up to the top of the mountain, whith a view of the city you wouldn´t believe. I knew that the city was huge but, the view put it really into perspective it reminded me of Mexico City but with sky scrappers disperesed throughout. With a population of between 3 and 4 million people it would be the second largest city in the States behind NYC.
Speaking of being on top of the moutain it is funny how much the Venezuelan women love the American men and I am not talking about prostitutes but classy afluent women. AJ and I got asked twice by two group of women for a photo with them. Anyways after that we went to a restaurant called “Rucio Moro” I just looked it up on yahoo.com and it has a site if you want to see it. It is really cool and made the city tour worthwile. It is almost like Texas de Brazil but they only have one steak and theey come around with a flaming bowl and serve it to you, the rest of the stuff is served on the table with a avacodo, chese, tomatoes, etc. Salad, huge slabs of white chese, fried plantains stuffed with corn mash, and potato pancakes. All of this with a live band made it lots of fun the locals that were in there didn´t know what to think with about 200 gringos walking in. After that we went to a muesem that was an old coffee bean hacidea.
Venezuela is going to turn out quit fun I had my doubts at first with all the instability with Chaves and the US. But we have been learning so much Chaves is actually hated by the wealthy and loved by the masses they all say he is one of them. He states that he wants and will be in office til 2030 and the ship was originally trying to get him onboard to speak to us but somthing came up. Curently the people are happy with him gas prices are at around 2 or three US dollars to fill up a tank. I thought even with the shipping charges it would still be cheaper to airmail gas to you but know that is highly ilegal so I will not.
Anyways back to Venezuela we are going to stay here tonight and go out to an area that we are in called Las Mercedes. Before each port they bring on what are called inter port lecturers and students that will be from the port that we are going to. Anyhow Christian who was the interport student is going to meet us at the shopping mall (a big group of us) and take us around this tourist area. Alberto and George (horhey) has a friend that has a house near by that we might stay the night at or we might all get a hotel we are just playing it by ear. Anyways, then we will go back to the ship for a tour that will be hiking mount Avila ( I know what your thinking why in the world would Chad do somthing like that but we need to do it for my Biology class, which by the way has floor to ceiling windows that look out to the ocean talk about being distracted). Then We will go with Alberto (from Mexico city) and some friend (from Monterry Mexico) and others on the ferry to Margarita Island origially if you book it through Semester at sea it is really exspensive but through this the ferry is only 35 US roundtrip. With all of them from Mexico to translate it is sure to be a good time. Then we will return to the city and try to pick up a few things like a memory stick, ice chest, cokes etc. For our room. We tried to get cokes in Nassau but to give you an example of how exspensive it is a 24 pack of canned cokes was $10.80 US. Unbelievable.
As far as the ship we had our first pub night two nights ago which was a lot of fun, everyone got dressed up and were out on deck. After that closed down we had an after party in the Suite which was a blast, it turns out that we are only one of four suites that we given to students now that some good Carma on my part enough to make up for AJ (the guys know what I mean). And last night we went Salsa dancing in the lounge where two of my classes are held. Suprisingly I am pretty good, you just have to keep moving your feet and act like you know what you are doing. We will see how I do tonight when we go out. I still can´t get over all the people that we are meeting so nice and from everywhere today we still meet people from Norway and India. It is very interesting just sitting out on deck (trying to study) by the pool and talking to people about where they come from and what there background and views on life are. Even if we didn´t go to any other place besides the states I will still have learned a lot.
But it is so amazing every couple of hours either AJ, or I, or somone makes the comment that we cann´t believe we have been blessed with the oportunity to be a part of this. I know somthing I have not talked much about are my professors I will not go on for long but my business professor who teaches both is from Aulstralia who was head of the MBA program and is taking a cibatical. Who has studied and taught in hundreds of different places, he also wrote the 850 page strategic management book that we are studying from.
Next week when we get back on the ship we will start to join the different clubs that will be available like the Student Ambasadors which our Resident Director Karen is in charge of. If selected it will be our job to host all dignitaries onboard such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a few weeks, as well as plan the Ambasadors Ball towards the end of the trip.


OK, I cann´t beleive that I have written this much and you don´t have to read all of this but I guess if you have gotten this far it is because you are concerned and care ---- I hope everything is going well for you inlight of what has happened in New Orleans, and that those of you in school are studying and having a great time, and for those of you that are traveling will remain safe. For those of you in school (college I have heard it a million times but am just now truly realizing that College is going to be one of the best times and to live it to the fullest. I love you guys, the bellow post is new as of today I wrote it on the ship but as the internet is so slow I just saved it on a floppy and posted it today. Oh yeah, the ships phone is only 1.50 US to call out so if somthing does happen that we need to get ahold of you then I will for sure get in touch with you, I think it is like at least 4 dollars for you to call us. And so I leave you not with adios, but as the locals say.

Chow!!!!!!!!!!!!


PS – You know how bad my spelling is so I was trying to go fast and all of this computer is in spanish sorry.