Day 12: 1/20 Mermaids and Trivia

                When you’re on this ship all the time with not many forms of entertainment, having a good movie on the loop can be a very nice treat.  When said movie is Disney it makes it 100 times better, and when it is The Little Mermaid it makes it 1,000 times better!  In the time in between my classes, dinner, and trivia, I’m pretty sure I watched the movie 4 or 5 times (and watched it more the next day).  Disney movies will probably be one of the greatest little delights I will have on this ship.  Apparently there will be more throughout the voyage, so I’m excited for that!

                The trivia night was pretty fun and interesting.  I actually learned quite a bit of random pieces of information.  Some of the things I learned were: there are 418 cabins on the ship, the leftover food on the ship gets ground up and pulped out into the ocean, there are 8 inhabited islands in Hawaii, 2/3 of eggplants are grown in New Jersey, the index finger of the Statue of Liberty is 8 feet long, there are very few teams in the NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB that don’t end in “s”, the first bathroom scene was on the show Leave it to Beaver, there are 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet, corn originated in Mexico, and pineapple originated in Brazil.  There were a ton of other questions, but I don’t remember them all.  Even though we didn’t win, it was a good time!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHEN!!

Day 11: 1/19 Bleh Kind of Day

                Today was not a very good day for my stomach.  The seasickness started again; it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it was the very first day, so I guess that’s good.  I think it is just being at the front of the ship that really gets me sick, but let me tell you it is not fun at all!  I spent the day kind of in a daze and really didn’t do much besides sleep and eat.  I did sign up to be on an intramural soccer team though, which will hopefully be fun.  It’s 3v3 (which isn’t my favorite), on a hardwood type of surface (even though it isn’t hardwood), and in the basketball area which is pretty tiny.  It will definitely be interesting so stay tuned for how it actually goes.  Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY!!

Day 10: 1/18 Sudden Goodbye

                Being in this part of Hawaii was very nice.  It was a wonderful temperature outside with the sun shining for the majority of the day; I even tried to get my tan on for a little bit.  I wish we were able to get off the boat, since there was an actual beach and I know this part of the island and some people here.  The reason we couldn’t is because it would cost a ton of money and we would have to go through customs again (I think) and it just wouldn’t be worth it.  I was going to lunch when I noticed that the boat was moving!  I suddenly freaked out because I wasn’t expecting to leave until later in the day.  Keenan and I started talking on the phone.  He tried to get me to go to lunch and just say goodbye then, but I was starting to freak out a little bit because I knew in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t be able to hear his voice for a long time.  I was trying to hold on until the very last possible moment to say goodbye, and then the phone call suddenly dropped.  In that moment my heart dropped and my stomach twisted into knots.  I frantically tried to get service and call him back, but ultimately failed.  I guess that was just the universe teaching me to not be so greedy and to learn to let go… dang universe!

Day 9: 1/17 Stuck in Honolulu with a Bunch of Idiots

                As I woke up this morning we were still at sea.  My roommate made me panic though because someone told her that it only took around 3 hours to get to Honolulu, so maybe we already stopped there and left.  This worried me because I was planning on talking to Keenan one last time before we didn’t have cell service any more.  I frantically ran to the TV to check the map of our location (which is always on channel 1), and found that we hadn’t reached Honolulu yet.  After a big sigh of relief I got ready for the day.  After my class, I was still waiting to get close enough to land to get service; in the mean time I checked my email and read our sea update that our RD (resident director --- each sea has one) puts together each day with some reminders, notifications, events, and stuff like that.  At the very top it said that there was a mandatory meeting for all students tonight in the Union.  There was also an announcement telling the shipboard community about the meeting and stressing that it was mandatory.  We also learned later in the day that we were going to stay in Honolulu for the night to avoid a storm and would leave no later than 1800 the next day. 

                The mandatory meeting started and it was the Executive Dean (Tom) who was speaking.  He started off with saying, “This is not going to be a dialogue.  This will be a monologue.  I will be speaking to you and you will not have the opportunity to talk or ask questions.”  He went on to explain that there was an incident in Hilo the night between the two days we were there where a hotel was basically trashed.  He said that 200 students were staying in 32 rooms.  The lobby and many rooms were trashed, and someone puked in the elevator so they had to completely take out the carpet in the elevator and replace that.  There were hundreds of empty alcohol containers, and people were recorded on video coming in with alcohol.  There was one lady from the University of Hawaii- Hilo who was staying in the hotel and didn’t get any sleep the day before an interview because of the students; now it is rumored that the university won’t have any affiliation with SAS (don’t know if that’s true or not).  The hotel security kicked some people out, but no one was arrested by request of SAS.  He said that if it weren’t for this request that many people would have been put in jail.  He then went on to say that these people were very lucky that this didn’t happen in a different country, because if it were in some other country they could have easily been put in jail or caned or some other form of punishment and SAS couldn’t do anything about it.  I knew that there were some kids on this trip that came for a booze cruise and are just here to party, but seriously??  That is just amazing to me that people would even do that.  They really are lucky that this happened on U.S. soil and not in another country, but it shouldn’t have even happened in the first place.  Like Tom said, “At what point did you think this was okay?”  I just don’t understand.  I haven’t heard of anyone getting kicked off the voyage, but I’m sure there will be a ton of people that will have points.  If I haven’t mentioned how points work, there are a certain number of points that each action receives and the max you can have is 10. After that you get kicked off the voyage, and, no matter where we are, it is up to you to get back home.  I really hope people don’t act like this again because not only does it look bad for SAS, but it is also a danger to them.  Hopefully people wise up, or else I really do think that the consequences will be a lot more severe.

Day 8: 1/16 Markets and Waterfalls

                Today I woke up nice and early to head into town with some people.  We got to downtown Hilo and went to this coffee shop with wifi so some people could use the internet to skype or update their blogs or whatever.  After some time spent there, we went to the Hilo Farmers Market which happens on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  At the market there were a lot of fresh food vendors and craft vendors.  The food ranged from fresh coconuts to pineapples to rambutan to coffee to fresh fish. I didn’t get any food, even though now I kind of wish I got something because fresh food is somewhat limited on the ship.  I did buy some things from the other parts of the market, but caught myself several times wanting to buy something and then thinking, “There are so many other countries you’re going to go to. You don’t need to buy this.”  In any case, it was fun to just walk around and see some local crafts and things that people had to sell. 

After walking through the whole market, we decided to go to Rainbow Falls which is a waterfall near town.  Luckily, when we went, there were other people that also were heading there.  Otherwise I don’t know if we would have found it on our own because it was kind of tucked away in an unusual spot.  There was a designated spot where people went to take pictures of the falls from a distance, and it was a very pretty waterfall (pictures will show up at some point hopefully).  We then ventured up towards the top of the falls.  On our way there was this giant tree that was more like a jungle gym for people of all ages.  It was really easy to climb, so Shelley and I were having fun climbing up, around, and through the tree.  After some play time in the tree we went to where the falls started.  We walked/hopped across some rocks and went towards the cliff overlooking the falls.  For a while I was just amazed at how cool it was to be up there near this beautiful waterfall, but after a while I got a little anxious being so close to the edge and went back away from the cliff.  It was pretty crazy how much water falls from this waterfall, but how little water looks like is feeding into the falls from the top. 

After some time, we went back towards town to get some lunch.  We went to this place called the Wiki Wiki Kitchen and got some laulau which is pork that is wrapped in some sort of leaves and steamed.  It was pretty good, but not my favorite thing to eat. After lunch we went back to the market to pick up some things that we weren’t sure we wanted earlier but now wanted to buy.  While in the market, Shelley decided she wanted some shave ice, so we went to an ice cream shop near the market.  While we were in there, there were some other SAS students who just bought some ice cream that was a bright purple color.  They told us that it was delicious and they highly recommend getting it.  The ice cream was ube flavored; ube is a purple yam and is similar to a sweet potato.  I ended up getting an ube ice cream cone, and I have to admit it was quite delicious!

We headed back to the ship around 4 because we wanted to make sure we got there with plenty of time to spare in order to not get dock time.  Dock time is a penalty that SAS gives for different reasons, but the main one is if you’re late getting back on the ship in a port.  What it does is it makes you have to wait a certain amount of time (correlated to the punishment) on the ship before you can get off in the next port.  Dock time can range from an hour to a day to an entire port, so it isn’t something I was looking to get.  When we got back on the ship I had plenty of time before we were scheduled to leave the port, so I utilized the opportunity that I still had cell service to facetime with my family and Keenan.  I miss these people dearly, so being able to talk to them outside of email made me very happy.  Tonight we leave to head towards Honolulu to stop for fuel, so that will be the last time I will have cell service and get to do things like talk to people back home on the phone.

Day 7: 1/15 Land Ho!

                From talking to a friend who did SAS in a previous semester, she suggested seeing the sunrise and watching the land emerge in the horizon in every port.  This idea really sounded like a cool thing to do for all of the ports, so today I started my day early (or what I thought was early enough) to see the sunrise and look for land.  When I got up to the 7^th deck, the land of Hawaii had already made its debut in the horizon, but the sun hadn’t risen yet.  Unfortunately, there were so many clouds that there wasn’t a very good sunrise; hopefully the other ports will be better.  In any case, it was very exciting to see land for the first time in about a week!  But what the majority of the people on the 7^th deck were doing, and seemed the most excited for, was using their cell phones since we now had service.  It was quite amusing to see how attached people (including myself) became to their cell phones for the time we were in Hawaii.  I think one of the things I’m looking forward to during this trip is not being so dependent and attached to technology, but for the time being it was nice to be able to call and text people on this trip and people back home.

After eating some breakfast, we had to wait for the immigration process to begin.  It took a good 2 hours or so to go through immigration which kind of worried me since it was just into Hawaii.  I wonder how long it will take for other countries.  How they did it is they call up every person to go through customs (in groups) and then we are let off the ship.  First they called up faculty, staff, and lifelong learners to go through customs, then they went through each “sea” starting with the 2^nd deck and moving their way up to the 4^th deck (my sea was last to be called).  All we did was go up to the faculty/staff/LLL lounge, picked up our passport and showed it to a Hawaiian Customs person, and then gave our passport back to a worker.  It seemed like it was pretty quick, but there were a couple of people who didn’t go up and so everyone had to wait until they went up there and went through the process.  Once everyone was cleared, they allowed people who were signed up for field programs (trips planned through SAS) to get off the boat first because many of them were on time constraints. 

I signed up to go to Volcanoes National Park through SAS because I didn’t know anyone who was planning a trip up there, and it was something I wanted to do while I was in Hilo.  I mean how many times in your life can you go see an active volcano? Then again this volcano wasn’t erupting or anything (I didn’t even see any actual lava), but in any case the volcano is active.  When I got off the ship, I had to wait for the bus that would take us up to the volcano, and while I was waiting I noticed that I was swaying.  It was the weirdest feeling to be on solid ground, so my body was swaying from habit of being on the ship.  I don’t really know how to explain the sensation but it was a wild feeling!  I finally got on the bus and our first stop was the caldera of Mauna Loa (I think that’s what it’s called) which was pretty cool and pretty impressively large.  In the middle of the caldera there was a spot that steam was coming out, and just below the steam was where lava was trying to surface.  We then went to a spot where a large amount of lava flowed many years ago, and now the lava has hardened into lava rock.  It was wild how much lava had come out of these fissures because there was a large amount of land that was covered by this lava.  Our guide told us that it was probably about 10-12 feet deep.  We also saw some molds that were formed around trees; when the lava flowed and moved around trees, the difference in temperature of the trees and the lava caused the lava to “freeze” and turn into lava rock and the tree would burn inside of the lava so there was just a mold of what used to be a tree.  During this part of the tour it started to rain pretty hard.  I was wearing a light rain jacket, but it wasn’t enough; I was so soaked that the rain permeated through my jacket.  We then made our way to this area that was almost like a rainforest that contained a lava tunnel in the middle of it.  The lava tunnel was made when a lava river flowed and melted through a rock, forming a tunnel.  It was really cool to go through, and apparently there are a bunch of them around the world and some can be miles long!  During this, I ended up wearing one of the ponchos that the bus had, which was a one-size-fits-all deal, which means it swallowed me up.  It was pretty funny to see some people who were probably about 7 feet tall wearing the same ponchos and having them come to just above their knees, and then mine coming to maybe the middle of my shins.  The interesting thing about the Big Island of Hawaii is it is in the middle of trade winds so it has many different climates all across the island; one side gets a lot of rain while the other side is more barren (I find this pretty fascinating but that could just be me).

When we got back to the ship I went to take a shower since I probably smelt like a wet dog, and then I waited for Jillian and Shelley to get back to the ship so we could all go to Walmart to pick up some snacks and last minute things we forgot.  While I was waiting I got to facetime Keenan which was really nice.  I don’t know how I would function on this kind of trip if I couldn’t email or skype with people back home.  If I had to rely on letters I don’t know how well I would do with homesickness.  When we went to Walmart, it was a pretty typical Walmart with the exception of a Hawaiian souvenir section and that the McDonalds in the Walmart sold taro pies (like their apple pies but with taro).  I got one because I was curious; it tasted really good but was kind of odd looking because the inside was a purple color.  We stocked up on some snacks (which I highly recommend for anyone who is going to go on this trip because you will get hungry in between meals on the ship) and we got some coloring books (which I also recommend because they are awesome!).  We decided to stay on the ship for the night to save some money.  When we got back from Walmart, we just unpacked our new items and then watched Ted and colored.  Surprisingly, I was the last one awake.  For anyone who knows me, this is very rare for me to not fall asleep during a movie.  For the past few nights I haven’t slept great, so maybe that had something to do with me not falling asleep.

Day 6: 1/14 Fresh Air Never Felt So Nice

                Since that first night when I felt the need to get fresh air because of seasickness, I haven’t been outside.  I don’t exactly know why I haven’t had a meal or done my reading outside, but I finally got out onto the 7^th deck and did some reading (or tried to do some reading).  It is kind of difficult for me to do my reading outside though especially when there’s so much going on, and when I enjoy looking out at the ocean and all the waves I tend to get a little distracted.  Also, the warmth of the sun and a little bit of a sea breeze makes me just want to sit and enjoy rather than read a stinkin’ book.  Every once in a while when we are in the middle of the ocean it hits me how big and how amazing and beautiful the ocean actually is.  When all you can see is ocean around you, you start to feel very small compared to the water.  It’s a difficult thing to explain, but when I look out at the ocean I tend to get lost in thought about how remarkable the world is and how remarkable life is.  I hope that everyone has this feeling, and I hope I will continue to have this feeling after I am no longer surrounded by water but rather am surrounded by the more mundane life I live and love back home.

Day 5: 1/13 Missing Math

                Today was the second day of A classes, and even though I only had one class I spent the entire rest of the day reading for my classes tomorrow.  It is pretty amazing how much reading they assign for the little amount of time between classes.  I think it usually ends up being around 100 pages (give or take), and for a slow reader like me it literally takes the majority of the day to finish the reading assigned for one class.  I really am starting to hate reading for class especially when the material is either confusing beyond belief or something that bores me to death.  All of this reading really makes me miss doing math problems.  Granted, I am one of few people who enjoy doing math problems, but I think that this semester of work will make me appreciate math more than I did before.  In one of my readings they mentioned Euclid and Euclidean Geometry, and in that moment I got really giddy and excited to keep reading, but it was only that one sentence that mentioned math which made me sad.  I think the main reason why I am struggling to get all my work done is that it is different work from what I’m used to; I’m not used to having this much reading to do and it is really starting to hit me how little reading I have had to do thus far in my collegiate academic career.  I don’t know how I’m going to get through this semester.  Hopefully I’ll get used to all the reading, but at this point it seems doubtful.

Day 4: 1/12 First B Day

            Today I had three classes starting at 800 and ending at 1815. Fun, right? My first class of the day is called Myth of the Self, and is about Buddhism and Psychology and the concept of Self in both topics.  It seems very interesting so far but also messes with my head sometimes.  But these are interesting things to get my mind and thoughts lost in, so I think I’ll enjoy it.  The next class I have is my U.S. Immigration Law class.  I am kind of happy I took this class because I don’t really know too much about my own country.  At the same time, I wish I took some sort of class that dealt more with the countries I am going to see and not the one I live in, but there isn’t anything I can do about it now.  The professor for this class is kind of nutty though.  She’s funny and nice, but she’s one of those people who tend to talk to themselves aloud almost all the time.  It’s hard to explain how she acts, but it is pretty entertaining at times.  After these two classes that I have back-to-back, I have my last class, which is titled Music Cultures, at 1700 (5:00 pm).  It sounds like it’ll be a pretty cool class; we’ll be talking about the different styles of music of the countries we’ll encounter.  The weird thing is this sounded like it would be my easiest class, but after today it sounds like it may be the one with the most work to be done (especially while we’re in port), which kind of sucks.

One of the craziest things so far is how we’ve been on this ship for only 3 or 4 days, but it feels like we’ve been on here for weeks!  Maybe it’s just being with the same people every day or doing basically the same thing every day, but it feels like I’ve been on this ship for a lot longer than I have.  However, even in these few days, I have gotten so sick of the small talk introduction questions like, “Where are you from? What school do you go to?” and usually when I answer, “I’m from Colorado,” they respond with, “Oh, are you one of those Boulder kids?” because there are 57 students from the University of Colorado- Boulder on this voyage (which is just under 10% of the student population here).  The funny thing is that I have only really met two other students from CU who are on this voyage, so it’s not like everyone from Boulder knows each other.

Day 3: 1/11 First Day of Classes

        Today was the beginning of our academic lives here on the ship.  We began with an A day (which I touched on in a previous post), which meant I only had one class… yay! The only bad news is that my class is in the Union, which is located at the front of the ship, which means lots of movement.  Since my seasickness wasn’t bad yesterday I figured I’d be fine… boy was I wrong!  Within half an hour, I started to feel nauseous and at one point thought I was actually going to blow chunks in the middle of my class.  The good news is I didn’t, but the bad news is I felt so sick that I just stayed in bed for the majority of the day.  I was able to get up and get dinner with Jillian and Shelley, and after dinner I went to this “Explorer Seminar” which is kind of like a lecture that happens most nights we are at sea.  The lectures are about different things that are usually relevant to the places we will be going next.  This one was about the Ocean (specifically the Pacific Ocean) and included a part about the animals we might see while we are at sea heading to and from Hawaii.  It’s pretty fun to learn about things when you don’t have to do homework or study for a test about the topic… weird! (That was me being sarcastic). 

Day 2: 1/10 Orientation

                The first full day on the ship is designated for “Orientation” which basically means a whole day of the students sitting and listening to people talk.  This kind of made me nervous with the seasickness that I experienced the previous day, but I woke up on this day feeling a lot better and didn’t get seasick all day.  I got breakfast with Shelley, and random people joined our table.  It’s similar to how I pictured my freshman year of college to be, because that’s how my brother described his freshman year experience where people would just sit at random tables and make friends.  However, that isn’t how my freshman year went, so it was fairly new to me.  I liked it though.  Everyone on the ship seems very friendly, and I haven’t had anyone rejected my request to sit with them so far, so that’s nice.  The orientation started at 900, and it was basically going over the material covered in the Voyager’s Handbook (which we signed off that we read).  I looked over a good chunk of the handbook prior to coming on the voyage, so the whole day seemed kind of pointless to me.  From the looks of the other people around me it was pointless to them too, especially the ones that fell asleep.  I’m sure for those who didn’t actually look over the Voyager’s Handbook, there were some important points made in the presentations, but I felt like I already knew most, if not everything, that they addressed.  Other than Orientation, I feel like not much really happened today.

Day 1: 1/9 The Beginning of a New Chapter

As some of you may know I suck at this whole technology thing so my blog will most likely be lacking in content since I may not be able to access it very often.  If you are looking for updates on what I’m up to or whatever, and this blog that I have isn’t really doing it for you, then please email me because somehow I have that working even though it was a super complicated process.  Here’s an update on the first leg of the voyage.

Day 1: 1/9 The Beginning of a New Chapter

The first day of my trip was extremely bittersweet for me.  On the one hand I was about to embark on an amazing journey, but on the other hand I had to leave behind the people I care the most about in the world.  These next few months will be difficult without them by my side, but having email and being able to skype every once in a while will definitely help. 

We were all assigned times to be on a bus that would transport us from San Diego to Ensenada, Mexico.  From what I have heard around the ship we did this because the MV Explorer is a ship from the Bahamas, and it isn’t allowed to port in two different US ports consecutively, so it couldn’t have been in San Diego right before we went to Hilo, Hawaii.  Not sure how true that actually is but it’s the only explanation I have for those of you who were curious.  Anyway, my bus time was at 10:30 am which was nice because I didn’t have to wake up really early to catch the 7:00 bus and I didn’t have to wait around for the 12:00 bus.  But, as any day in which someone is leaving goes, this one slowly started becoming sad and real.  I mean that it became “real” in the sense that I had spent so much time preparing for this trip that the day that I left seemed so far away, but it creeps up on you and then all of a sudden it is right in front of your face about to smack you.  It was finally hitting me that I am about to leave on this trip for just about four months!  It was no longer a bunch of paperwork or planning or preparing.  It was actually here and became very real.  As I am saying my goodbyes to my parents and Keenan (the boyfriend), I can’t help but cry (I am my mother’s daughter).  I have never been more than 45 minutes away from my parents, and in the past semester I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Keenan almost every day.  Once again, it became real that I was not going to see them or really talk to them besides email for four months!  That’s an extremely long time for me and the people that I am saying goodbye to, so it will be one of the hardest things that I will have to deal with on this voyage.  I get on the bus and grab a seat.  As we are pulling away, I try to give my last waves goodbye to my little entourage; I’m not sure how successful I was but I gave it a shot anyway.  The drive down to Ensenada was actually kind of pretty because we took a scenic route that hugged the coast.  But for anyone who has ever really been in the car with me for any extended period of time, I got a little car sick so I probably didn’t enjoy the ride quite as much as everyone else.

We got to the port and I finally set my eyes on what was soon to be my home for the next four months.  It’s a beautiful ship, but it was almost comical how small it looked next to this cruise ship parked just a couple of spots over.  I went through security and walked across the little bridge to the entrance of the ship.  It was shocking to me what it looked like on the inside. I don’t exactly know why it was shocking because I’ve seen some pictures and taken a virtual tour of the ship, but it is somehow different in person.  I had to travel up numerous flights of stairs to get to the Union which is on the 6^th deck to finish checking in, and then I was finally able to go check out my room.  On my way to my room, since my room is located at the very back of the boat (second to last room) on the 4^th deck port (left) side, I ran into Jillian Nedved.  We ventured on to try to find my room, and when I got there it looked like my roommate had already been to the room but wasn’t there at the moment.  I dropped off my stuff, and for a brief moment my roommate came in and introduced herself, but then had to leave.  Her name is Shelley Shapasian and she is from Cleveland, Ohio and goes to Elmherst, a school near Chicago.  She’s a pretty awesome roommate, so I consider myself very lucky.  I then went to explore the ship with Jillian.

Here’s the basic layout of the ship.  On the 2^nd deck there are the economy rooms and the “hospital” which is really more like a doctor’s office than a hospital; the 3^rd and 4^th decks are just rooms; the 5^th deck has one of the two dining halls, Tymitz square which has the Purser’s Desk and Activities Desk and Field Office, and there are some rooms on this deck too; the 6^th deck (from front to back) has the Union (which is basically like a lecture hall and they use it for large meetings and large classes and stuff that requires a lot of room for sitting), the computer lab and library, the store, numerous classrooms (I think there are nine total), a piano lounge and lots of tables and seats, and a dining hall that leads out to a sitting area outside; finally the 7^th deck has the faculty/staff/life-long-learners lounge, rooms, the wellness center and weight area (the weight area is outside), and outside on the 7^th deck there’s a little basketball court, snack bar, pool, and lounging area.  For a small ship it is still fairly big and confusing, so if you’re going to go on this trip someday just go and explore and get lost the first day. Slowly you will figure it out, but it is almost guaranteed that you’ll get lost and/or confused.

After some exploring, we were called to do a mandatory lifeboat drill.  We went back to our rooms to get our life vests and wait for further instructions.  This drill ended up taking like an hour or so to finish.  I’m sure it is important to know what to do just in case something does happen, but at the time this whole drill just seemed silly.  After the drill Shelley and I went back to our room and started unpacking.  While we were unpacking we saw the horizon moving out of our window; we were finally embarking from the port.  As exciting as it was, it was also one of those “real” moments.  We were actually doing it; we were leaving to go out to the sea.  It was a weird and somewhat frightening moment for me, but at the same time I was excited.  It was a similar feeling to how I felt in the weeks leading up to this trip.  When people asked me if I was excited for it, I wasn’t definite in my answer.  Yeah I was excited, but I was also very nervous.  The best comparison that I could come up with is the feeling you get right before you go on a rollercoaster.  When you’re standing there in line, you know it’s going to be fun, but for some reason you still get nervous and get butterflies in your stomach.  That’s how I felt for about a month leading up to this voyage.

For the first half hour or so I was completely fine, but, in the middle of unpacking, a sudden wave of nausea hit me like a ton of bricks.  Before my voyage I talked to a friend who went on it a previous semester, and she said that the ship rocked a lot more than a normal cruise ship since it is smaller.  I have never been on a cruise so I didn’t really know what to compare it to, but my mom went on one and said she didn’t get seasick at all and it was basically no biggie.  With all of this information I thought I would be fine and it wouldn’t be too bad.  Little did I know the first night on this ship would include some of the most nauseating feelings I have experienced in a long time.  I am pretty susceptible to motion sickness in cars though, so I don’t know why I thought it would be different on a ship.  Sorry, I don’t mean to scare off anyone who is reading this who will be on future Semester at Sea trips. For the record, many of the students and other people on the boat were completely fine and didn’t feel sick at all.  However, for the students that did get seasick it was not a very pleasant experience.  Walking was probably the hardest part because the boat moves so much that your body gets tossed around and it is difficult to walk straight.  The first few days walking down the hallway to my room (which is the second to last room at the very back of the boat) felt like walking around when you’re drunk (not that I know that feeling, mom).  The whole image of the long hallway was twisting and turning before my eyes which probably made me more nauseous.  Luckily, Jillian came to my room in the nick of time and we went to the 6^th deck to get some fresh air which helped a little bit.  A little later I ran into Shelley who looked pale in the face, a face that was unmistakably seasickness.  All of us were feeling like complete crap and went to try to find the hospital which was a venture in itself since we were so flipped around and couldn’t find how to get there.  We finally got there and found some medication and then went back to the deck outside to try the fresh air thing again.  We were trying to hold out until this meeting that was supposed to happen at 2000 (yeah they use military time for everything which isn’t terrible for me because it’s the only math I get to do every day haha).  We found out that it wasn’t mandatory so we all rushed down to our rooms to lie down and fall asleep.  Lying down was the only time that I didn’t feel super nauseous.  The fact that I only got like 4 hours of sleep the night before, mixed with the rocking of the ship like a mother rocking a baby, made sleeping extremely easy.