SAS Blog #2

Disclaimer: This is an informal blog. I tend to be fairly scatterbrained, and my writing sometimes reflects that. As such, I may not write in complete sentences. I may switch tense without from past to present and back again. I don’t typically recheck my work for anything other than basic grammatical/spelling errors (aside from the tense thing), and English sticklers may cringe if I type something incorrectly. All I can say is this: Again, it’s an informal blog. I’m not looking for a Pulitzer here or something. Take it or leave it.


Day 1 (08-27-10)

I’m back. After a 5-day road trip from Boulder to Pennsylvania, 5 days at home, and a 4-day road trip from Hatfield to Halifax, I’m back on the MV Explorer and ready for another semester at sea. The boarding process went pretty quickly and I was able to de-board the ship after putting my luggage in my cabin. This time around, I’m in Cabin 3004 (Portside, forward). My parents and I wandered around Halifax for a little while and checked out the Citadel (a Canadian National Historic Site) before I headed back onboard. My roommate is a guy named Paul from Massachusetts and he goes to Babson College. Today was a pretty typical “first day.” Everyone is wandering around trying to get a feel for the new environment and trying to meet as many people as possible. That’s the easy part… the hard part is remembering their names, even minutes later.

At 5pm, the horns were sounded and we departed Halifax. Being on the ship again just feels right in a way. Watching the land disappear out of sight and seeing our wake churning out behind us really made me feel like I was back where I belong. But at the same time, something was missing: Everyone else. I went into this voyage knowing how difficult it would be to separate memories of the last trip from experiences this time around. And, painful as it is to say, I’ve already caught myself saying “Last time,” or “On my last voyage,” to start some of my sentences. I know it’s impossible to be here with a completely unbiased view of the voyage, but I guess I didn’t realize how easy it is to project things from last year onto my current circumstances. It’s a work in progress. I suppose it will be easier to separate things once I actually get to know everyone individually and take some classes. But for tonight it’s “That dude looks like Doug” and “Let’s eat on the 6th deck, I always eat there… or, well, ate there.”

But it wasn’t all self-reflection. I met some great people and I know we’re going to have a great time once we all get settled in. I’m not looking forward to a whole day of orientation tomorrow, though. Perhaps I’ll just skip one or two of the sessions since I’ve done them before. The comparison thing might just work in my favor sometimes…

Day 2 (08-28-10)

8am wake up? No thanks. Morning orientation is really a rehash of everything that was said yesterday and things I remember from before. Back to bed.

Grabbed lunch, went to orientation part 2. Watched the Haze/Gordie video for the 48th time, and listened to Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak for a few minutes. That’s right. For those of you that don’t know, Nobel Peace Prize winner and all-around goofy/incredible guy Desmond Tutu is sailing with us for the entire voyage. Yeah.

Typical SAS night of snack time and card playing in the 6th-deck dining hall tonight. Nothing too fancy though, we lose an hour of sleep tonight as we sail eastward towards España. Class starts tomorrow. Hooray for Global Studies…

Day 3 (08-29-10)

Day one of class today, and you know what that means… Global studies! It’s back and just as useless as ever! Alright, I’ll cut the professor some slack. It’s the first day, and he has to introduce the student body to a massive amount of topics with which many students are unfamiliar. Naturally, he started with George Bush and how he screwed up the world. Solid start. Anyway, it will probably pick up as the semester wears on. Also, rather than having Global Studies every day, it’s been changed to an every-other-day system. Which means I only have to suffer through it on ‘A’ days. Nice. Sea sickness has been rather prevalent throughout the ship thus far. Many students weren’t even able to make it to their first day of class because of it. There’s a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic so we’re moving at 20+ knots to avoid it. It’s actually more consistently rocky right now than I ever remember it being before. I haven’t been sick yet, so I’m hoping it stays that way.

I also had Environmental Science class today. Nothing too exciting. Sustainability. Saving the environment. The usual. And to keep the tradition of awkward meetings alive, I’ve really just been wandering around the ship for the past few days. If I see a group of people I don’t know sitting around playing cards or trying to keep up a conversation, I sit down and join them. Of course, there are some pretty amazing people onboard, and I had forgotten how weird it is to go through the process of meeting them all. But I love it.

We studied in 5th deck dining hall for an hour or so tonight just to kill some time. Yeah, I studied. On purpose. It’s weird, I know. And then I introduced some more people to the magic of snack time. Snack time has become so popular in the last 2 days that they’ve opened BOTH serving lines in the Garden Lounge and they replenish the food for a solid hour. AND we get plates/silverware instead of just napkins. We’re moving up in the world. No pun intended? Was that a pun? I’m going to sleep.

Day 4 (08-30-10)

Day two of class. Marketing and World Religion. Nothing too exciting there, and I think ti’s safe to say I’ll never break through in the marketing/advertisement world. If it’s anything like the class anyway. Sheesh. We watched the sunset out on the back deck and it was cloudless and beautiful and everything that I remember. Water in all directions. No land (land). Fantastic.

The first of several Spain seminars was tonight, and that’s uber-exciting because our Academic Dean for the voyage is David Gies. He’s written over a dozen books on Spanish culture, won the Thomas Jefferson Award for outstanding service to the University of Virginia, been named Professor of the Year at that same institution, and been Knighted by King Juan Carlos of Spain. And, he’s just an all-around good guy. Tonight, he spoke to us about some ideas for things to do when we’re in España (other than consuming mass amounts of alcohol, of course), and gave some suggestions for places to go. It was interesting, as always, and made me even more excited for my plans. As soon as I get off the ship, I’ll be going to the train or bus station and making my way to Sevilla for the night. The following day, I’m heading up to Madrid and staying there for 3 days before returning to Cadiz. And it looks like I’ve conned one or two people into coming with me, so it should be a great trip.

Someone re-introduced me to Bananagrams today, and it’s one of the coolest games ever. It’s like speed-Scrabble. But better. I also found a few people who know about Settlers. And I can’t WAIT to bust it out.

Ps – I’m already sick of the ship food. Potatoes. Pasta. Salad. Meat. Fish. PB&J. Repeat. Taco Day soon? Please?

Day 5 (08-31-10)

Dolphin sighting. Already? Yep. There was a pod of probably 15-20 off the stern of the ship this afternoon while I was eating. A few of them would jump out of the water right in our wake, and then more could be seen jumping a few thousand feet away, and everywhere in between. It was pretty fantastic. I should also mention that I slept in a little too long today. Missed breakfast… and global studies. Class-wise, this could be a long semester. Whoops.

More card games and get-to-know-you things this evening. I apologize for the lack of variety, but life kind of seems to be in cruising mode right now (Again with the puns? Who is this kid?).

But I did have my first meeting for the Programming Committee. Like last year, I’m in the group of students that organizes on-ship events like Karaoke Night and the Talent Show. Our first event is tomorrow, and it’s a ship-wide photo scavenger hunt. Groups will be awarded point based on creativity for their photos, and the winning group will have their best photo set as the desktop background for every computer on the ship. Should be interesting. I’m also helping with the Sea Olympics committee, so we’ll be planning some of the events for the Sea Olympics in November. I’m rather excited.

Tonight’s meeting on Spanish culture was called “Dining Out in Spain,” and Dean David gave suggestions for places to try different food/drink in España. Chocolate con churros is first on the list, as always. Also: tapas. I don’t care what they are, just every kind of tapa I can find. Muy delicioso. ¡Que aproveche!

Day 6 (09-01-10)

Short post today. Class and conversation. Games and giggles. Emphasis on the giggles. There’s a girl on the ship that laughs more than anyone I’ve ever met and it’s unbelievably adorable. And so I nicknamed her Giggles. And it stuck. Yes. People don’t even know her real name anymore. It’s really not all that exciting, but I was happy about it.

The scavenger hunt was a long process, but it went pretty well. Two of our Lifelong Learners and our Security Officer (formerly of the Secret Service) were the judges for the competition and it ended in a tie. Both teams’ pictures are up on the computers now, and we’re all enjoying their ridiculousness.

Interesting news today: We’re getting to Morocco a half-day earlier than expected. Which means that we’re leaving Spain on Wednesday night, and getting to Morocco on Thursday at about noon. So we get 5.5 days there instead of only 5. And more days in port is always good news.

Tonight’s Spanish seminar talked about famous artists in Spanish history, including El Greco, Goya, Velázquez, Picasso, and Dalí. And now I’m really excited to see the Prado Museum in Madrid. And the other two famous museums that are right there whose names I cannot remember. Hooray for culture!

In preparation for Morocco, the Intercultural Communication class has been recommended to watch the film, Babel. It was placed on one of the ship-wide TV channels, and I decided to watch it with some friends because I had never seen it before. Wow. Gripping. Depressing. Powerful. Disturbing. I can’t say I fully endorse a viewing, but it’s certainly not something to watch if you can’t devote all of your attention to it.

And now it’s 2:45am. Silly time changes. I suppose I should try to sleep… So much for the short post.

Day 7 (09-02-10)

So apparently basic Environmental Science is like… all chemistry. And biology. And other science-related things that I haven’t seen since high school. But I wasn’t completely lost, and I even answered some questions in class (Who knows what an ion is? This guy). Mr. King and Miss McCormick (or whatever your name is now?), I thank you.

Tonight was cultural pre-port for Spain, and it basically rehashed many of the things we learned in the previous 3 seminars. But I’m excited to get going.

Day 8 (09-03-10)

Money issues dominated my life today. My financial aid still hasn’t come through for the semester yet, and so my tuition is officially overdue as of yesterday. The lady I had been working with in Boulder’s financial aid office hasn’t returned my calls or emails in 2 weeks. So I went to the Executive Dean to talk about my situation, and she offered up some of her free internet minutes to help me out. Unfortunately, I really needed some phone time. I used the rest of my phone time calling the financial aid officer one last time, and I actually got a hold of her. She figured out my situation, and apparently the loans have just been delayed in the electronic world. Whatever that means. But I guess I’m set.

Logistical Pre-port tonight. Travel in groups. Try not to get raped. Don’t be a dumb American tourist. The usual. I think I might be a bit of a tourist in this port, but I’ve accepted it. I like museums. My tshirts have American brand logos on them. I’ll stick out. Oh well. Packing up the hitchhiker bag only took a few minutes, and I spent the rest of the night playing Bananagrams and sitting in my hallway meeting people I hadn’t seen before. We talked about plans for Spain and bonded and such. But it’s 2am on the night before we get to a country, so I suppose that means it’s time to sleep. Goodnight all… Spain awaits!