JANUARY 13th, 2011- first full day at sea.

Yesterday was a whirlwind of emotions to say the least. I thought I was going to cry or be extremely upset saying goodbye to my parents when I got on the ship, but surprisingly I wasn’t! I mean, it was sad, but I was just so excited to finally get on the ship that I didn’t even take the time to think about it. I got on the ship and found my little box… I mean cabin. Gina was already all unpacked, and I didn’t even know where to begin. We found Idin’s room, because he is really close to us! We wrote a post-it that said “3133… see you there” and stuck it on his door. I wish you could hear his accent. He is from Iran (I think I’ve said this before…) and has the greatest accent. I don’t even know how this got started, but when we hung out with him in the Bahamas, it became out joke to always try and say “see you there” in his accent. I’ll get a video someday, you need to hear it. So we went to lunch out on the deck, and met some more people. After lunch I finally came back and unpacked… it was a nightmare. The ship was supposed to set sail at 5pm, but because of all the storms back home, they had to hold it until 8:30. They thought they were going to hold us until midnight, but everyone finally got in. We had one meeting before we set sail last night, and it was honestly the most awkward thing. Most of us were extremely exhausted, so when the speaker told us to close our eyes (she was doing some sort of meditation thing) just about everyone fell asleep. I ate dinner with 9 of the people I met in the Bahamas. It was nice to have a somewhat… family dinner. After dinner, Greg wanted to teach me how to play cribbage, so we went up on the 7th deck by the pool with some people to try and play… but the wind was trying to steal our cards. We sat up there and talked until 8:30, when everyone came outside to say goodbye to the Bahamas and our families. It was the most incredible feeling seeing the ropes come up and watching the shore get further away. We had some more meetings last night, and went to bed pretty early. The water was a bit rough last night and this morning, so everyone has been trying (but most, not succeeding) to getting their sea legs. My cabin is at the back of the ship, so the noise of the engine puts me right to sleep. A lot of people don’t like it, but I need that white noise to sleep. The rocking of the boat was an interesting feeling, but everyone will tell you that it makes us all SO tired. I slept for a good amount of time last night, and I still feel like I could sleep all day. Today, we are pretty much spending all day in the union for orientation. I sat with Idin, Gina, Gavin, and Drew all morning in the first part. Gina and Idin fell asleep so eventually they just went back to the room. I dozed off a few times, but forced myself to stick it out. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes. We just figured out that they stream what is going on in the Union on our tv’s in the cabin… so if I really can’t handle it (the rocking is the worst in the union, by the way) then I’ll come back and listen from bed! I’ll be uploading pictures when I’m in port because we can’t upload pics on the ship. Classes start in the morning, and I’m very excited! I got all my books yesterday, and there are SO many. This is definitely not going to be an easy semester… but that’s the great thing. I’m going to be challenged in so many ways and I can’t wait. Alright, that’s all for now! I’m going up on the pool deck to see nothing but ocean.