Why hello there! I haven’t had much time to sit down and write a blog post, so here’s 2 days of fun in one tidy post!
Yesterday was a LONG day of orientation meetings. Lots of rules to know! Apparently if someone goes overboard, the ship goes 3-4 miles before they can turn around to pick up the person…that’s scary! We also found out that one person who was supposed to be on our voyage had a cancelled flight to Halifax on Monday night and missed the ship. Unfortunately he can’t join us in Barcelona because by that time he’ll have missed 7 days of classes. I can’t even imagine how the poor guy feels, I think I would be in fetal position and crying.
Also yesterday was our “Involvement Symposium” where we get to sign up for student groups. I signed up to be a writing tutor (hooray for correcting people’s papers!! I’m excited for that one!!), pre-med group, extended family (a bunch of students get assigned to a lifelong learner and they are our “grandparent” for the trip. We can have dinner with them and basically have a little family on the ship), yoga, and I signed up to help out with the kids. Some of the faculty members bring their spouses and kids, and there are kids ranging from 1 to 17 on the ship (and the oldest person is 92!). Basically a bunch of people signed up to help keep the kids occupied if the parents want to have dinner alone or something.
Anyway, last night was HORRIBLE. They warned us that we would be hitting some rougher waters, and they were NOT kidding. It wasn’t stormy or anything, but the waves are huge out here. For some reason I thought that the farther from land you get, the calmer the waters get, but apparently I have no idea about anything nautical in nature. I didn’t really get much sleep…our beds are situated so that when the boat rocks from side to side, we rock up and down like we’re laying on a see-saw. One minute, the blood is rushing to your head, the next minute you tilt to the foot of your bed. The first night was a gentle rocking and I soon got over it and fell asleep, but last night it was so bad that I was literally sliding up and down the bed! We had planned to wake up at 6:45 am so we could get to breakfast at 7:30 and class at 8. I woke up around 6 to very heavy rolling. The nighttable drawers in the room above us were slamming open and shut (how they stood that for half an hour is beyond me). I just laid there, waiting to either fall asleep or for my alarm to go off, but at exactly 6:43, one giant roll threw all of our stuff off the night stand. Talk about a wake-up call! Showering was fun this morning too, I was slammed against the wall during another big roll. Only 7 more days of this and we’re in Barcelona! I really do like the ship but I can’t wait until I can walk down a hallway without holding onto the railings!
I had all of my classes already today, but it didn’t help that I didn’t get sleep the night before. The classes seem good, I already have 30 pages to read in Anthro, 30 pages for Global Studies, and 6 poems to read for Poetry. I almost fell asleep during my poetry class because of the gentle rocking of the ship (and maybe the fact that I didn’t get any sleep last night.) I just got an email from Kevin, our LLC (kind of like an RA) about stargazing tonight at 2200 but Steve and I signed up for coveted ellipticals in the gym at 2200 so I guess no stargazing for me =(
Bought a phone card today. $20 for 13 minutes. Super.
Also spent quite a bit in the ship store. I got a few t-shirts, a sweatshirt, a blanket (super comfy!!), and sweatpants. I think I’m all set…for now =)
We are currently at 37 degrees latitude, 52 degrees longitude, traveling at 20.8 knots! Still very very far from Spain =(
My email here is ivnegrin@semesteratsea.net. PLEASE email me!!! Tell me what’s going on with the world! (It’s kind of ironic that I’m traveling the world and for 66 days I really have no clue what is going on in the world!) And apparently my forwarding from gmail isn’t working so if you’re sending me something important, don’t send it to gmail. I have to log on to the extremely slow internet to check that so I’ll probably only check it once a week.
4 comments:
Pinball in the shower - HA!! That's funny. I'd be afraid to shave! I can't believe you are giving up the stars to exercise. Are you my sister??? :-P Love ya! The world is fine, enjoy your little bubble for the week and don't roll your eyes at the kiddos. Bet you that 1 year old is loving the "rocking" motion.
Good thing your mommy sent you to Halifax on Saturday, huh. I feel bad for that guy. Hope he gets his money back!
the water should get calmer when you get closer to spain. Maybe 1 or 2 more days of rough seas, but then after that it shouldn't be that bad. The water in the Mediterranean is basically glass, so you won't have many rough days if any until you go to morocco.
I told you the boat would rock and you didn't believe me. Libby = good authority on nautical things. Also, a boat's horn does not have a special name, though my dad says it is sometimes called a whistle, though horn is perfectly acceptable. Saying "bathroom" instead of "head," though, is not. I assume you're learning all your boat terminology (port, starboard, bow, aft, galley, head, etc.). If not, do let me know.
I'm glad you're having a good time! Sorry it's taken me this long to read your blogs...I admit I forgot you had it which is why I have been absent, but I'm catching myself up on your adventure now. :D
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