I've Never Not Seen Land Before!

Hello Friends and Family!

Today was my second full day aboard the MV Explorer, and everything is really going great. The ship does seem huge, but it is getting smaller each day. The food (I know you were wondering about that, Mom.) is actually quite decent. There are multiple options at each meal, usually accommodating vegetarians, and giving a white or red meat option. Meals are served buffet style and each meal is open for just about two hours. I've been eating tons and tons of salads, almost two at lunch and dinner because it's not brown yet as we only left land two days ago. The seas have been really nice to us, too; we've had very smooth sailing until this evening. I have yet to use any Dramamine, but I have not taken off my pressure point wristbands. They seem to do the trick.

On Friday, I boarded the ship at about 10 am after going through more security than at the airport. We had to give the ship officials our passports, get our bags thoroughly searched twice, go through a couple sets of metal detectors and then we were allowed to walk up the gangway (which by the way, is HUGE). Once on board the ship, we had to go through quite the reception and paperwork line through the union. There was lots of handshaking and introductions with the various offices on the ship. Here, the infirmary staff took our yellow fever documentation and we talked with the registrar about the possibility of adding another class, you know, all the school-y stuff. After that, we were free to explore and unpack, and awkwardly mingle. I say that with a bit of sarcasm, but it really was like freshman year of college all over again. We had lunch, and then we had an emergency drill, which, on a ship, is kind-of hilarious. You have to go to your cabin from wherever you are, grab your life vest, put on close-toed shoes, long sleeves, long pants, and a hat. Then proceed to your Muster Station. Mustard, you were wondering? Yeah, exactly. Now imagine you just heard all those direction spoken to you over a PA system in a British accent. My muster station happens to be in one of the two dining rooms and so once I’ve put on my hypothermia prevention garb, I’m to proceed to the dining room where I stand in a very straight line of girls in front of the guys and never speak. Imagine: a bunch of college kids who’ve barely just met, all wearing a shiny bright orange, listening to British (yes, I mean that) and wondering about what the hell a mustard station is. Just a little bit funny. Anyway, after the emergency drill, we embarked on our voyage! It was incredible, I met up with some friends I met in the hostel, and we made our way to the very bow of the ship on the observation deck. On the dock, lots of Semester at Sea employees and parents waved us goodbye while a BAGPIPE AND SCOTISH DRUMMER PLAYED FOR US. YEAH! Remember how I thought the bagpipes were the best part of graduation? Well, this was obviously much better. I’ll put a picture of embarkation at the end of this post. We had dinner shortly after we embarked and after dinner, there was a welcome ceremony that was pretty cool. We were introduced to the Captain, the various deans, and the entire faculty. Sometime in there, I met my roommate, Kirra, who is from Florida and super nice. I like her a lot. Her mom did Semester at Sea in the 70’s, which is incredible and makes me even more excited about going on this Voyage.

Oh, by the way… I’m on a SHIP, not a boat. And I’m on a VOYAGE, not a cruise.
This is, apparently, a rather important tidbit.

Yesterday, we had an ALL DAY orientation in the union. Now, this was an excellent idea because we all, understandably, were wondering about quite a lot of the daily goings on of a ship, however; everyone on the ship was expected to attend (that’s just a lot of people in one space no matter how big the ship is) and the union is located on the sixth of seven decks in the bow of a ship. Talk about being rocked to sleep. And today was the first day of classes. I had global studies and public speaking. Global studies, thus far, is slightly disappointing because I thought it was going to be a class on culture, and on specific information about the areas we are going to be visiting and today was like a boring statistics class presenting documentation proving that the world is indeed flattening, i.e.: becoming more and more globalized. I was unsure what to take from the lecture. I’m holding out hope that it will improve. Public speaking seems like it’s going to be quite fun and my professor seems awesome and crazy. More on classes later.

I guess, on the whole, I’m adjusting to ship life pretty well. No problems with seasickness or feeling confined or anything. I mentioned earlier that the sea has been pretty nice to us until tonight. She was just barely rolling when we departed from Halifax, and has been increasing ever since. It’s really nice while sleeping actually, and is sort-of calming. Perhaps that is because I’m convinced (if I believe in reincarnation) I used to be some sort of sea-dwelling creature or because I’m pretty accustomed to boating. Walking about the ship, and especially down the narrow hallways is hilarious though. We’ve not all developed our sea legs and it makes us look like we’re in a drunk-simulator. But this evening, MAN!, we hit some waves. I was sitting on my bed in my cabin (which is inside, so we don’t a window) and I started to feel the ship roll a lot more than usual and then everything was moving! All the drawers in the dressers came out and the chairs fell over, all the stuff that was out on the bathroom counter went down, and our tv, which is on a spinner-thing on the shelf, spun all the way around. And what goes up comes back down, so then, all the drawers slammed shut, everything now on the floor slid around, and the tv spun back the other way. I could hear people out in the hallway falling around, and after it was over, I went out to see what everyone else saw. The guys across the hall have a window and they said their window was under water! We’re on the third deck…that’s not that low. I guess the chairs on the decks all slid like crazy and the dishes in the dining hall all fell, and a bunch of water from the pool splashed out. And that was only two big waves! It’s been a bit rougher since then, but nothing that bad. I can’t even imagine what real rough seas will be like.

Some facts: My favorite part of the whole ship is the 7th floor deck on the bow. It’s prettiest and least populated place on the ship. Taking a shower on a ship is surprisingly easy. We have been traveling during the day at an average speed of 17 knots, and during the night about 23 knots. We have fancy TVs in our cabins that show us on a map where we are, how fast we’re going, our latitude and longitude, and our course. I miss you all in the States, but this voyage is so far excellent and I’m glad I’m finally doing something cool on my own! Oh, and we’re losing an hour just about everyday on our way to Spain. It’s 8 pm at home on the east coast, and it’s 11 pm here right now.

PS: Please forward this link to anyone you think would be interested in reading this. Also, to e-mail me, just send it to klkintzing@semesteratsea.net. I'll respond to you if you e-mail me. Right now, I don't have my address book set up to fin all of your e-mails. Look forward to hearing from you!

Until next time…