IM ON A BOAT!

Finally!  I have begun my journey around the world.  I arrived 5 days ago on the ship that I will call home for the next for months. 

After spending a couple of days in San Diego with my mom in a beautiful hotel overlooking the marina, the buses were loaded to send us away on what is expected to be the trip of a lifetime.  I kissed my mom goodbye and filed in not knowing how I was going going to be changed by this voyage, when on the voyage I would be changed, why I would be changed, or where I would experience the change, but knowing that I would come back a different person.  I knew this from the stories of alumnae voyagers and from the desire I had to be changed by the people I would soon encounter around the world. 

We drove 2.5 hours to Ensanada, Mexico to get on the ship.  On the way there conversation flowed easily on the bus as kids were eager to make friends and share the enthusiasm with their fellow adventurers.  We came to realize that they must have split the buses up by region since everyone was either from New York or New Jersey.  We had trouble at the boarder with a petite blonde girl who apparently had sent in her passport copy that was too light and had to be rephotocopied.  We were there for about 45 min and were entertained my a Mexican who came to play La Bamba on the guitar on the bus.  He had us all clapping until he was done and asked for tips.  Once we finally crossed the boarder we took a nice scenic route to the ship.  Everyone cheered as we pulled up to the MV Explorer's Semester at Sea ship.

We lined up and waited anxiously to board.  Our global studies teacher greeted us all.  He is a professor from Penn State and will be teaching the core required class.  He saw my Penn State jacket and told me I had to work hard to make Joe Pa proud.  Once we got on the ship we had to go through about 8 stations to check-in.  Then I headed to my room.  I saw that most people had 2 in a room but I had four.  I walked in to see the bathroom on the right and two beds.  It seemed really small and I was trying to look up to see if there was some kind of pop out bunk.  I then realized there was a connecting door to another room with two beds and dressers and closets.  It is a lot bigger than I expected.  The girl I share my room with is Abbie.  She is from upstate and goes go SUNY Ferdonia. Courtney is in the other room and is from Georgia and goes to University of GA.  Caitlin is the third roommate and is from the Philly area and goes to Pitt.  They are all easy to get along with and I do not think we will have any problems. 

The first day we all just tried to meet as many people as possible.  We all gathered on the back of the ship during dinner to watch the ship pull out and cheered to be finally on our way to our first destination: Hawaii.

The next day was a long boring orientation.  We had to learn about safety on the ship and the honor code.  The day was packed with boring lectures that most students slept through.  Our global studies teacher was the only interesting speaker.  He had us all memorize the top 10 most populated countries in about 10 minutes.  He told us to think of a bat as a single unit, think of a Chinese person doing something crazy with a bat - they are the 1st most populated country in the world.  Think of a plug with the two things that go into wall, now think of someone from India plugging something in and getting electracuted and the turban flying off - India is the second most populated country.  And he went on and one until we were picturing geishas and sumo wrestlers in Japan bowling. 

After the one interesting speech and all the boring speeches of the day we were able to head to dinner.  It is hard to get used to having such set times for meals.  After dinner they had a club sign up.  I of course wanted to sign up for everything.  I am going to be partaking in something called the Vicarious Voyage.  Basically you get assigned an elementary school class in the US and send them emails and photos and packages that the teacher will incorporate into the classroom lessons.  I also signed up for the Catholic Sunday service.   There are a lot of kids on board with us.  They are children of professors or some of the life long learner's kids.  I signed up to help babysit them.  The life long learners are mostly older people out of college who signed up for the trip just for the experience.   Many of them are very well traveled and have had many experiences I am eager to learn about as the trip progresses.  I signed up for the extended family to take advantage of having such knowledgeable people on board.  In this you get a group of students and life long learners together and they are your family for your trip.  Basically you have dinner once in a while to just talk and learn from each other.  It was the one club that everyone signed up to do. 

The next day classes started.  We have A days and B days.  I only have global studies on A days so most of my day was spent just hanging around.  The ship is pretty ruff and many people have already been sick.  Unlike the many cruises I have been on, you constantly feel the movement.  It looks like a Saturday night in State College in the hall way with everyone walking back and forth trying to get their sea legs.  I have luckily not been sick.  My first day of global studies was exciting.  He is a very good teacher and keeps you engaged.  We learned about why the theme of our trip is sustainability and he told us a piece of advice that I thought was great.  He told us to never let your age exceed the number of countries you have visited.  I have been lucky enough to have been able to say that since I was 12 and hope to live by it for the rest of my life. 

The rest of the day was pretty chill and it was the first night we were able to drink.  My first $52 was spent of alcohol.  Shocking.  We have to buy a voucher for 15 drinks.  They only serve beer and wine and you are limited to 2 drinks at dinner and 3 at night.  No one really drinks at dinner and they only have a couple at night.  We are waiting for the ports where it will be much cheeper and better.  Nevertheless, it was the first night and packed.  Almost everyone was on the top deck socializing and many having their first legal sips of alcohol.  It was pretty crazy to think we were having this fun somewhat of a party in the middle of the ocean with nothing else remotely in sight. 

Yesterday was my first B day of classes.  I started off with global studies again and loved it just as much.  The ship has been rocky but is getting to be normal.  Holding on to plates as they slide across the table is common.  Last night we woke up to see everything that was on our night stands flown across the room and you constantly hear the drawers opening and closing.  One girl even fell over in her seat during our class.  I had my other three classes yesterday too.  My global studies class is pretty awesome.  Unlike many of the other teachers, it is his first time doing this trip and you can tell he is just as excited as we are.  He took us out on deck for about a half hour.  I some how managed to get burned and now have a ridiculous necklace tan line.  I had my art class shortly after.  It is a drawing class and that is all we did.  The teacher is really sweet and the class seems pretty easy.  Astronomy shortly followed and seemed like the hardest class.  It was a bit dry but should pick up soon.  We were told that the captain may turn off all the lights one night so we can do observations from the top deck which seems really neat. 

They have nightly seminars on ship and I attended for the first time last night.  It was about the hula and reminded me so much of working in the Polynesian.  I was impressed with how much I actually knew just from teaching the little kids and from things my Hawaiian friends taught me.  I knew the difference in Tahitian and Hawaiian dancing, and the movements for parts of the story in the hula, and that pow meant done, even if we usually used pow to mean I was done drinking instead of a bow in a dance. 

It is finally seeming less surreal to be on this trip.  I still stare at the ocean and get lost in my thoughts about what an amazing trip this is going to be.  In some ways I am going to be so in touch with the world and be immersed in cultures that are so foreign and in other ways I feel so cut off from the world.  I will come home not knowing the latest celebrity gossip, or who is in a relationship on facebook, or what is the new hit song.  So please keep me updated with life at home and I will keep you updated with life around the globe.  My email is now cmmcconeghy@semesteratsea.net.  I do not have access to my other emails, facebook, skype, or basically anything other than this email, wikipedia, and cnn.com.  I would love to hear from you all.