This day feels like it’s been going on for an eternity.  Aeriale and I started our morning off to me receiving one of my bags of luggage that were supposed to arrive and still wondering where the other was.  I finally tracked it down to find out it’d be here in a few hours.  I wasn’t able to wait at the hotel for it though, because we had to get checked in and board the ship.  When we arrived at the pier, we saw the long line winding down the sidewalk and decided that this morning was going to be interesting.  We later found out that Semester at Sea has a pretty efficient way of moving people along and we got through relatively quickly.  Unfortunately, we didn’t make it through without meeting the Media Director of SAS. 

 

As we were standing in line, Aeriale jokingly said, “Hey look!  It’s a big camera just for you.”  Little did we know that we would later be interviewed by that camera.  The media woman approached us and asked our names and then proceeded to tell us that she was going to interview us.  I stuttered out awkward answers and figured that they wouldn’t go anywhere…we’re still not sure what is going to happen with those few minutes of film.

 

We finally got in to the ship after awhile of waiting in lines and going through security checks.  Everyone is extremely friendly.  The crew took our bags immediately down to our rooms and we were able to meet a number of faculty and staff that we would be dealing with throughout our trip.  After going through a long line of stops we made it to our rooms.  They definitely weren’t what I expected.  People had prepared me for the worst, but when we got in here we discovered more room than I anticipated.  Granted, we really don’t have that much room, but we found a place for everything pretty much.

 

The ship is amazing.  It’s beautiful and there are friendly people everywhere.  I love the crew already.  When we were walking on they all were standing there smiling and saying, “Welcome aboard!”  I have yet to learn my way around this place to any extent.  There are numerous staircases and 7 different decks and it is honestly one of the most confusing places I’ve ever been in.

 

After we got here we dropped our stuff off and headed back off the ship to pick up my other luggage and meet up with Aeriale’s family to grab lunch and say our goodbyes.  We ate at a place right on the water where I had an interesting Philly Melt…Aeriale’s mom and I decided that the Canadians need to go to Philly and try a really melt before they try and cook one like we got.  After that it was time to board again.  I had my other bag this time and we made our way back up.  On our way to our room we met the two people we met yesterday and ate with, Eric and Grace.  We all decided to go for an adventure.  We wandered around most of the decks of the ship and at one point we decided to go outside and there we met Paul and Lindsey.  All of us eventually headed up to the very top just to check it out and all kind of stood there talking and getting to know each other a little better.

 

Aeriale and I eventually made it back to our rooms to unpack a bit to find out we weren’t going to fit hardly anything in this little crawlspace of a room.  We were trying to figure out how to split an odd number of drawers and how to handle things in general; it was interesting.  Throughout the entire morning and afternoon we’d continuously hear this *ding dong and then a voice would come on over the intercom; simply looking for students to go to the Pursar’s office or somewhere like that.  A little later, the voice came on and told us that we were going to have our lifeboat drills soon and we needed to get our lifejackets.  When the 6 alarms sounded we headed to our designated area where we all stood with our lifejackets ready for roll call.  The captain was less than impressed by our assembly in the dining area.

 

After that it was finally time to sail out.  We went up to one of the decks where we stood on the side and listened to a small group of bagpipe players who were there to send us off.  Standing there we met two more people, Dan and Brook.  We all stood discussing different things, such as the people working on the building below us and the huge rope that tied us to the dock.  Finally, we were off.  We were all standing there like, “Are we moving yet?”  And eventually we realized we were.  We all stood there waving at a number of people we didn’t know and none of them really ever found their parents at all even though they were all somewhere trying to wave goodbye.  After that, we all continued to stand there, admiring the thousands of jellyfish floating below us and discussing different things.  We made about 4-5 circles in the middle of the bay that we were docked in at Halifax; still no idea why?  Eventually, we were on our way.  A few of us went in to grab dinner and we all had a good time talking and joking about different things that were happening around us.

 

Sitting there I started to feel the whole seasickness thing coming into effect.  Even though I have a little patch on, it still hasn’t seemed to help a great deal.  You can feel the rocking way more than I anticipated.  After dinner, we decided to try and play cards in the Union.  Unfortunately, the Union is at the front of the ship and that’s apparently where you feel the waves worse…needless to say cards didn’t last long when we all started feeling a little ill.  We then decided to go out on deck for some fresh air.

 

Later this evening we had our first official “Community Meeting”.  The faculty and staff and everyone introduced themselves and wished us words of luck and encouragement.  Surprisingly, a lot of the professors are really sarcastic and seem as though they’re going to be a ton of fun.  Afterwards, we had to break off into small groups for some dumb ice breakers.  We got assigned small group numbers when we got there and then had to go find them and do two truths and a lie.  My group isn’t bad.  I guess we keep these groups throughout the summer to kind of have people there and meet others or something.  My truth about working at a lavender farm really threw some people off and then of course I had to entertain the ever so popular, “What exactly do you do at a lavender farm?” question.

 

After that was over, Aeriale and I both found ourselves back in the room, feeling rather overwhelmed with everything happening.  Oddly, it seems as though a lot of people already know each other.  I think that happened because there are numerous students from the same school and also a lot of people really went hardcore with finding and talking to Facebook friends that would be on this trip.  Unfortunately, I was not one of those people.  We’ve only been here for a few hours, but it seems as though we’ve been here for months already.  I’m slowly getting my sea legs and not stumbling about as much, but the sounds and movements are definitely going to take some getting used to.

 

We were both crazy thirsty and decided to go buy water…who knew that on a ship you could buy 1.5 liters of water for $1.50 and that they would be absolutely huge?  We didn’t!  When we were walking around trying to find some IT guys to help us with our computers after we got our water we ran into Paul and Lindsey again who were also with the girls that I had met yesterday at the airport who lost their luggage.  Luckily, all of us received ours and it seems as though we could get along pretty well with the group.

 

This trip so far has not been exactly what I expected in a lot of ways.  It’s different than anything I’ve ever done (which is a given), and one really different thing from Behrend is the fact that the guy to girl ratio is opposite.  Our students are 77% girls.  Now that’s weird…but we’ve definitely noticed.  This trip is already turning out to be more interesting than I anticipated.  I guess we’ll see what orientation brings tomorrow.