Hey ya’ll,
Day 1: So we finally made it aboard the MV Explorer (a SHIP, not a BOAT). Hope you enjoyed our last installment. We have received our new email addresses, kiah at kcshapiro@semesteratsea.net and Rachael at rlmorkunas@semesteratsea.net. Feel free to email at anytime, we’d love to hear from you! The boarding process went as smoothly as possible expect Kiah decided to try and bring a knife on board and naturally, it was confiscated. Other than that, everyone who greeted us were friendly and helpful and we were lucky enough not to be caught in super long check-in lines. Once we got to our room, our bags had already been delivered which was nice that we didn’t have to try and lug 200 lbs collectively down a narrow corridor. The first task we undertook was unpacking and decorating our room. We successfully completed within two hours. We were effective in changing our room from a drab, beige box into a home-y scarf/picture filled sanctuary (we will post pictures as soon as we can). We then decided take our sea sick medicine so we both have funny looking beige patches behind our ears and are wearing grey wristbands. After that, we explored the ship a little, trying to orientate ourselves as best we could (we are still working on that). Then we went to the top decks to watch as the boat pulled out of harbor as bag pipers and drummers bid us adieu. Then we ate our first meal which was not too bad. Then we had to attended a few general meetings where faculty, staff and captain were introduced. We turned in early, watched a movie and were rocked to sleep by the sea.
Day 2: Today was orientation day. There were meetings from 9am continuing through 9:30pm tonight, yet such extensive meetings didn’t answer all the questions we still have. We got the chance to meet our teachers and talk to them a little about what there classes are going to be like, etc. Between the sea sickness patches which make us drowsy, the sway of the ocean and us not having sea legs yet, we tend to walk like we are intoxicated. It is quite humorous to watch 700 other people stumbling around the halls looking drunk. Standing outside is nuts! The water looks computer generated due to the unimaginable vastness of the ocean. We are something like 350 miles from the nearest shore line and our average speed is 19 knots (not too sure what that is in miles per hour, but it seems slow). Tonight they will be moving the clocks forward 1 hour in order to adjust to the changing time zones. Well we are off to another meeting to learn about what extra curriculars the ship offers and another one for our halls. That’s about it for now, but be sure to check in again to hear about our first day of classes.
Love you all and miss you,
Rachael and Kiah