so apperantly there is this thing called neptune day when a ship crosses
over the equator. well, that happened today (3/13), and it was quite
fun. one of the traditions on neptune days is that you cut all your
hair off. since its coming off anyway, a lot of us thought that we might
as well do something funny in to it while we still have it. so there
were a bunch of us walking around with anything from a mohawk to
bulls-eyes to me, who had the friar tuck. i looked like the friars from
robin hood, or the bald stooge, which ever you prefer. i got many
comments on it, either that it was the best, or the worst, both meaning
the same thing though. people would want to take pictures of it, but
because im tall, i had to bend my head down. so there are about 50
pictures of me on other peoples cameras (many people i dont know, too)
with my head tilted down and my bright bald head surrounded by hair.

this morning, they woke us up really early by parading around in warrior
outfits, banging on drums or pots and playing various instruments. we
went up to the 7th deck and were neptune and his wife were sitting in
front of the pool. we all had to recite a poem about the shellback (bald
head) fraternity and then proceded with the rest of the neptune day tradition. First they poured fish guts on us, then we had to jump in the pool which was thick with the fish guts that had been poured on everyone. We then got out of the pool, had to kiss a fish, got whipped (which Im sure they did a lot harder in the origional days), and finally kissed neptune's ring. after all of this, many guys, and even a few girls shaved their heads. we had the rest of the day off, so everyone just relaxed and applied a lot of sun screen to their newly bald head. all in all a good day.
3 days until kenya!