http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/SuzannesJourney/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from SuzannesJourney en-us Tue, 21 May 2013 06:39:58 +0000 Tue, 21 May 2013 06:39:58 +0000 By day five I had seen enough to make the thoughts in my head unprocessable.I know we have poverty diseases and starvation in the States. I know that we don39t display our poverty for the world to see and that other countries think that all Americans are wealthy while in reality we do have a considerable number of issues to work on. However as far as I know we39re not to the point of loi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Andhra-Pradesh/blog-687321.html To say I love it here would be an understatement.We always called it McCloskey Time... here it39s India Standard Time. Either way lateown agenda.The food is incredible. Alex thinks I have a tastebud disorder because I39m constantly complaining about bland food but that39s never the case here... unless someone tones down the spice because I39m American.I wasn39t raised to be http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Andhra-Pradesh/Kakinada-/blog-681112.html I39ve been in India for a bit over a week and honestly I39m avoiding my blog because I don39t know where to start. Even just this little explanation has taken around a half an hour to write because I keep trying to elaborate but it feels impossible.I39ll start you off with this video... we didn39t do anything other than show up in the neighborhood to see a clean water project. We http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Andhra-Pradesh/Visakhapatnam/blog-680841.html With the encouragement of my neighbor Kathy I decided to apply for the Group Study Exchange GSE program through Rotary. I didn39t know much about it other than you had to be 2540 years old Nonrotarian In your field for at least two yearsI didn39t know if I would qualify or if I had the right experience they39re looking for but I figured the worst that would happen was t http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Michigan/Jackson/blog-663751.html ATTENTION If you read nothing else in this entry please scroll down and read the part about Loren and the links I included...you won39t regret it.HOTEL Ambassador Hotel Tchoupitoulas Street New Orleans LAAIRLINE DeltaTHURSDAYThis trip came about when I found out that not only is my friend Megan heading down to New Orleans for a convention I had 600 on my college refund card. All I hea http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Louisiana/New-Orleans/blog-619840.html I had a comment asking about the food and drink and as far as that goes unfortunately we were staying at an all inclusive dive resort so the only food and drink we enjoyed was what they made us. The Port Royal beer was good but I'm no beer connoisseur so other than good I'm not sure how to describe it. We ate a lot of excellent fresh seafood The snapper was probably the most memorable. http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Utila/blog-589390.html Last day of diving. We got to check out a sunken ship. The top of it was around 65 feet deep and the bottom was a bit lower than 100 feet. I love wrecks. There was a huge moray eel inside one part of the ship. This ship was purposely sunken which is obvious because it is in one piece but it has been there long enough that it is covered in growth and fish. Huge groupers swam around it. We http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Utila/blog-587612.html VIDEO NOTES Videos are below the textDivers and Dolphins 20 seconds inDiver One Can anyone tell if they're males or not Diver Two Let me...I've got a little lesson I can give you later.Diver One Has anyone seen a peckerDivers and Dolphins 1 minute inWatch the dolphin in the upper left corner. I didn't see it while I was videoing but it jumped backwards out of the water.Music by Th http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Utila/blog-586905.html Today Im skipping our two morning dives so I can get my online homework done for the day buuuuuuut.the internet isnt working. So thats cool. Apparently us Americans used three days worth of their very limited bandwidth within a two hour span last night. The internet provider cut us off for 24 hours. We do three dives a day. On the evenings that we do a night dive we skip the a http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Utila/blog-585776.html Today our dive leader let me borrow his dive computer. Its the first affordable computer sold to divers called the Skinny Dipper. It tells you how long youve been down your depth and the time you have left to safely dive. No memory no beeping no buttons no fancy graphs warnings or features. Bare bones necessities and it is great. Plus it works which is a major improvement from th http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Utila/blog-585573.html The day started at 630 in the morning. Our dive equipment was transported to the boat and we headed to breakfast. The first dive of the trip is an easy one that is mostly for everyone to get their weights right and acclimated to the water. I didnt do so well. Actually I didnt do at all. I freaked. Ive gained a lot of weight since we bought my wetsuit and on top of the tight http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Utila/blog-585523.html You guys are going to be so jealous when I get back to Michigan with this rockin tan.on my hands. Thats one downside to wetsuits awkward tan lines.We made it safe and sound to Utila an island off of Honduras near Roatan where we went to complete our open water followed by our advanced diving certifications. Utila is sought after by divers in hopes of getting a glimpse of the l http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Utila/blog-585350.html We headed south with friends Chassen and John...the trip was sure to be interesting if nothing else. Neither of them have left the country both are single ready to mingle and excited to take on Cabo.The resort was incredible. I had no idea what we were in for and it wound up being perfect. The boys each got their own bed and a private bath. There was a living space with a full kitchen. Al http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Mexico/Baja-California-Sur/Cabo-San-Lucas/blog-460754.html I know I said creating an account and becoming a private subscriber would be painless but a step is being missed....If you have created an account when you log into your page there should be a box that says 1 Invite under the icons. I attached a picture of roughly what it will look like....it isn't exact but close enough.If you do not see the accept invite box send me your user name and I' http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Michigan/Jackson/blog-475878.html I have turned this into a mostly private blog so that I can monitor who has access to it. While I love to share my adventures I like to know who I am sharing them with. With the hype over employers and schools looking at Facebook accounts and all that nonsense can you blame meYou can still view new and old entries if you create a travelblog account and accept the invitation. If you have not http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Michigan/Jackson/blog-470674.html Once we were out of the canyon we crashed for a night in Flagstaff then headed south to Sedona Arizona.We stayed at a motel for the night that a middle age hippie couple bought after falling in love with the area. There had been a flash flood just days before we got in and an article in the paper with pictures of cars flipped roads washed out and other damage to the area.Frankly I was too s http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Texas/Amarillo/blog-464782.html http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Michigan/Jackson/blog-431243.html UPDATED January 3 2009I saw a tshirt that said I Love the Grand Canyon with a hip design that I kind of liked. I decided that I would wait until after we hiked out of the Grand Canyon before I made any purchasing decisions. I wound up buying a shot glass insteadIf they had a shirt that said I might love the Grand Canyon a few years from now when the incredible pain from hiking to the bot http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Grand-Canyon/blog-440916.html Whoa.Since my last entry we have driven all around the state of Colorado visited Utah and hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back. We originally planned all these great places to see...Yellowstone Yosemite etc but between concert tickets I bought for a show in Colorado and a last minute opening for the hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon the time restraints eliminated a lo http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Flagstaff/blog-436935.html The car is officially our home. Car chargers dirty clothes random fruit and bags of chips.... Our belongings are in every crack and crevice of that thing. If you're planning a trip out west and would like to hear some reviews I'll make an entry at the end of places we have been to for sleeping eating and anything else I can't think of at the moment.Currently I'm sitting in our room at a H http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Colorado/Denver/blog-433950.html