Day 1 & 2: Rock the Boat...the best sleep aid!

Day 1:  June 15

Greetings everyone!  This is the first post coming from the MV Explorer. GET EXCITED!!! The day began at 6:30am as we showered and began making our way to the cruise terminal.  It took a little while to get through security, but it went very well.  I got onto the ship at about 9:00am and went to the room.  It is pretty nice!  I am living with 2 other people: Nick from New Jersey and Daniel from California.  Once I went to the room, I came back off the ship and went to lunch with my mom, Danielle and her family.  We had to hurry and eat lunch, since we had to be back on the ship by 2:30pm.  Once we got back on, Danielle went with me to my room to see if my roommates were there….nope.  We then went to go for a walk around the ship to see if we could find them.  Both of the roommates are pretty cool.  Daniel and I are very similar.   We set sail from Halifax yesterday at 5pm or 17:00 hours after participating in the lifeboat drill aka muster drill.  We then ran to the top of the ship to watch us pull away from land.   It was pretty cool knowing that pulling away from the dock meant that we were beginning the journey and all of countless hours spent have paid off.  Dinner was actually pretty good (a lot better than I expected).  I continued meeting a lot of new friends and everyone is soooo nice.  Danielle and I gathered up a small group of people we had just met and played various card games in the piano lounge.  The Dean’s and various staff members, including the Captain, came down and talked to all of us in the Union (the largest room on the ship/the theater room).  They are extremely funny guys; however, who really wants to listen to countless hours of rules and introductions.  I then returned to the suite to go to sleep. 

p.s.  One of the things that really surprised me was how nice the ship really is.  Everything looks and feels brand new!  The bathrooms are clean, the furniture is modern, and overall everything is very new looking. 

p.s.s.  I also am very glad that after only a few hours I have already established a good group of friends onboard.  Everyone keeps adding themselves to your group (probably because we look like we are having a blast with how much we are laughing…).  We love adopting people to our family!  We are all going to have a great time together!

p.s.s.s.        SO the boat is definitely rocking!  It is very hard to get accustomed to at first.  You learn to grow sea legs very quickly as we had 10 ft waves as soon as we left the Halifax harbor.  When everyone walks down the hallway, you just see a line of people swaying back and forth.  I guess this is why they say: “Have one had for yourself and one hand for the ship. “   It is not too bad though as I have my bracelets and patch on.  Hopefully all goes well. 

Day 2:  June 16

After a night full of rocking, I woke up for breakfast at 7:30 because we had a full day scheduled out for us.  We heard everything little detail about the honor code, UV’s grading procedure, safety, medical services and preventions, IT, locations of things on the ship, directions  (port, aft, forward, center, etc.) and much much much more.  It was a long day!  We listened to hours of this stuff.  The good thing is that we watched the people talking in a satellite classroom, not the Union with everyone else.  This means that we got to sleep, play tic-tac-toe, and the connect the dot game.  I am sooo happy those things are over though.  I tried to set up my ship email today so I hope it works.  I have not had the opportunity to check my Gmail or have it forwarded…so I guess it will get done tomorrow.  I have been hanging out all day with all of the members of the even larger group we have formed.  Even this weird artsy girl from Chicago keeps tagging along too.  We must look cool (I don’t know)!  Dinner was amazing (We even ate out on the deck!).  We had steak, potatoes, veggies, fresh baked bread/rolls, salad, dessert (tonight was Boston crème cake), as well as a fish, pasta, soup, sandwich station and vegetarian entrée.   I don’t think I will be starving on the ship…  Breakfast included pancakes, omelets, eggs, bacon, sausage, oatmeal, and much more.  Lunch was good too, but it follows the same pattern as dinner (meat, fish, veggie entrée, vegetables, two starches, desert, sandwich station, and soup).  All in all, it has been great!  Yesterday was pretty chilly on deck, but today is much warmer.  They even put water in the pool and they said that was 72 degrees (normally same as the air).   Well I am super tired as we are loosing an hour of sleep tonight and we start classes tomorrow morning at 08:00 hours.  Well it’s bedtime, so sleep tight and dream of bed bugs tonight!