First Impressions

Well well well.... where to start! So Aug 27, 2007 became the day my life began to change and grow! We all met in San Diego, California to pile on to buses to get bussed down to Ensenada, Mexico. The bus that I was on was ironically all Colorado kids, so we all had a good time figuring out similarities between each other. It was a very pretty drive down and I even saw dolphins swimming in the surf along the coast. Once we got there we had to go through tons of lines to get on the ship and sign papers and pick things up and just lots of weird security stuff. But one good part of all those lines was I met this really amazing girl. Her name is Kristen Olsen and she is from Colorado too! (She goes to Fort Louis in Durango) We totally hit it off right from the start and we call ourselves 'passport' friends cause we met in the passport line! Kristen is one of those girls that I feel like I have known my whole life and I absolutely love her! We have so much in common and everyday it seems like we find another similarity or reason that we like each other more and more. She is just plain awesome and I totally love her!

Once I finally got on and done with all the paper work, I found my room on the 3rd floor on the port side. I walked in and it looked just like a regular cruise bedroom. Nice and tiny with two beds, a bathroom and a closet. Ok I am just going to paste my first email here for those of you who have not read it yet. If you have just skip this part!

Well here I am, I am aboard the fastest cruise ship that is around, sailing around the world!!! So this “ship” as I keep being reminded is an actual cruise ship. The story of the ship is that it was a cruise ship that sailed in the Mediterranean a couple of years ago. Then the company that owned it went bankrupt and then the ship eventually became the new official ship for Semester at Sea and she is named the MV Explorer. There are 632 students aboard and 762 total people which includes all the staff for the school and the staff for the boat operation. So in a sense there are a lot of people on a pretty good size boat.
However the crazy part of this whole thing is that I am on an actual cruise ship, literally! Our rooms get cleaned and our beds get made everyday, we get our laundry done for us, the food is actually pretty good (WAY better than Africa food!) and we get served at all of our meals! It’s so crazy but really fun! We even have a spa aboard the ship so we can get our nails, hair, massage, facials, hydrotherapy baths….the whole works! I know, crazy hunh!
As far as the boat, it moves a lot more that I expected it to….way more than a “regular” cruise ship. As we all walk form place to place on the boat we all sway back and forth with the all the rolls in the hallways. It is really funny to watch but it is also really hard to walk all drunken like all the time! I usually never get sea sick at all but unfortunately it got the best of me yesterday afternoon. I am pretty sure that almost all of the people have gotten sick as well cause there are wet-vacs running all the time if you know what I mean!
The one thing I was worried about on this trip was my roommate, but I think I got pretty lucky. Her name is Leah Dicicco and she is fun Pittsburgh, PN and goes to the University of Pittsburgh. She is a pretty cool girl but the only down fall is she is a.d.d. about our room being really super clean and organized and if something is not in its place she kind of flips out a bit!! But besides that she seems pretty cool.

Well my classes are going really well and I don't really have a lot of "busy homework" but there is just a lot of reading to do. I think my favorite class so far in terms of interest is my poverty and disease class but my cultural geography class is awesome because my professor is really amazing and unique!

I am just meeting lots of new people of all different types from all over the country and all over the world. I have my group of homie g's that I hang out with everyday and we are from all over the US! We are already planning future road trips to visit each other!

Well thats all for now!