I didn’t wake up this morning until 9:00am, so I completely missed breakfast. I had enough time to get dressed and then head up to the piano lounge for global studies. I really like this ability to watch the lecture while not being in the lecture hall. For some reason, I think it makes me concentrate better and not fall asleep. Not quite sure how that one works. Today's Global Studies lecture was a lot more confusing than the past lectures. Today was about those who have concurred Egypt in the past. That was interesting to hear about, but when he posted the important terms at the end of the lecture, it seemed like he had not covered all of the information. This is one of those times when I wish I had actual internet access so I could look up all these terms and be ready for the test.

Its really great to have drawing after Global Studies because it gets a different part of my brain working and helps wake me up. Today we did some more contour drawing, but this time we were drawing a purse. I got the hardest purse in the hardest angle, which the instructor admitted to me. I think my picture was pretty decent considering. That class is not long enough for me to finish a drawing though. I'm pretty slow at this drawing thing.

Religious studies was interesting. We sat in our groups again, and we came up with a team name. I suggested it as a joke, but we are now officially Team Supreme. It works…. We watched a movie about the Judaism that had a lot of information in it. It was really hard for me to keep up with what was going on because writing by hand is so so so hard for me! For some weird reason, the Professor doesn’t want computers in the room because she is afraid that we will spend our time on the internet. Maybe she doesn’t realize we have such limited amount of internet time, that that isn't really a possibility.  I did my best at keeping up with my slow hands but it didn’t work out the best. I stayed after class and convinced her to let me use my computer in class. Its going to make things much easier for me and my notes for that class will be much better than what they are now.

I sat down for lunch with one of the girls that is in both of my classes and one of her friends. Its always fun to sit with random people while eating because it gives me the chance to get to know some new people. There was pasta for lunch, so I was satisfied. They also had whole pears, which I love, and they were surprisingly good.

My mouth on the right side is even more swollen today. I made and executive decision to go down to the health center, because its really painful. I'm not able to put any pressure on that side of my face including lying down on a pillow. So I worked on homework in my room until the health center was open. I saw both the nurse and the doctor, but they couldn’t tell me affirmatively what was wrong. They said that there was 2 possibilities. Either it could just be swollen, possibly from stress, or I could have an abscess inside my hole that’s infected. So they decided to air on the side of caution and give me antibiotics. So I have only been on the ship for 4 days now and I've already had to go to the health center and get medication, no surprise there…..

After that I headed back to my room to put a warm compress on my cheek. I feel pretty shitty and I'm not really up to socializing right now. And on top of that, 1 cheek is swollen, so I look like a half human half chipmunk.

I did decide to go to dinner with the rest of my "Sea." The boat is broken up into numerous different seas depending on what part of the boat your cabin is located. My sea is the Arabian Sea and our color is light blue. So I sat down with some people that I hadn't met before and had a great time. They even had some food for me to eat. And the desserts were killer. I ate the filling out of 2 different kinds of cake, and then they had mini tarts with custard in them and topped with fresh berries. I took 3 of those just to eat the berries.

Unfortunately that food did not fill me up. I'm pretty darn hungry today! So again I headed up to the pool to get some food at the bar. I got a burger because they are just mouth watering. I sat next to 2 new people again and chatted with them. It was like having a second dinner with a second group of people.

After that it was time for me to retreat to my room and work on my crazy amounts of homework. There were a lot of events taking place tonight on the ship, but because of my stupid mouth, I just don’t have the energy to socialize.

I finally finished my homework around 11:30pm tonight and now I'm writing this. Hopefully tomorrow I will feel better. I got a head start on my homework for tomorrow so hopefully I will feel up to socializing!

I'm going to head to bed now….

Over and out!

So I'm writing this a little late. Yesterday was another day full of classes. I made it to breakfast again which seems to be the best food of the day.

Global Studies is surprisingly an enjoyable class. I like the information that he shares with us. We learned about the different seas, climates, and winds that are present in the Mediterranean. The professor likes to make jokes and they are pretty funny because of the personality of the professor.

Next was time for the drawing class. She gave us a short lecture on contour drawing and then we went outside to draw some shoes. I really am terrible at drawing. Hopefully I can get a little better by the end of the course. 

Religious studies was slow. We broke into our groups and got to know each other for most of the class.

After that I had a few hours of homework to do, so I headed back down to my room to get started. I managed to only finish about 3/4 of my homework before I went to dinner. Of course dinner was gross so I went and bought a pizza out by the pool. It was very good and made my tummy feel great.
I went back to my room to work on some more homework.

My right cheek is pretty swollen, which happened out of the blue. So I took a bunch of Advil and got in bed around 7pm. I fell asleep no problem and slept till 12am. Then I woke up to take more Advil, but this time it took me about 2 hours to fall back to sleep. It was pretty loud outside my room, more people drinking tonight...

I woke up this morning to things falling off the shelf and drawers opening and closing. It was very rocky this morning and made for a rough morning. I woke up about 3 hours before I had class so I decided to shower and then make it to breakfast this morning. Breakfast is only severed from 7:00-8:30am which is too bad because it’s the best food of the day.

After breakfast I decided to go to the campus store to pick myself up a sweatshirt. Good thing I got there early because there was already a line and things were going fast. It took about 45 minutes to get through the line and checkout. I got a bright pink sweatshirt and pj pants.

Next was time for Global Studies, the class that everyone on the ship takes. I got myself a nice spot on a couch in the piano lounge so I could watch the lecture on the TV. The professor is pretty funny but I'm not so sure about his lecturing style. It would be much easier with the internet to get and understand the material that he talks about.

After global studies I have my Introduction to Drawing class. It should be a good class and will be really fun having a sketchbook full of pictures of the places that I'm going to see. The homework for this class is drawing, so I don’t think I will try and procrastinate everything. She "lectured" for awhile until her computer died so she let us out early.

I was happy about that because normally I will have class until 12:00pm and then another class at 12:15pm. That means that I wont get a chance to get lunch, but not today. I went in to grab a bite to eat but could not find anything that looked appetizing in the dinning hall. So I made my way to the top deck and bought a hotdog and chips for $2.50. Its surprising how inexpensive the items for sale are.

Finally it was time for my last class, Religious Studies - People of the Book. There is a lot of reading for that class so I really should get started. Other than that, there are projects and a few tests so it doesn’t seem like it will be too bad.

Once I was don’t with class, I knew it was time for a nap. Too bad the sky outside was cloudy and overcast today, so that means nap inside. I passed out pretty fast and didn’t wake up until dinner time.

Dinner's food was even worse than lunch, so again I made my way to the top deck and got a double hamburger for $3.00. It was really good and filled me up.

After dinner I went back to my room to do my homework for religious studies. The internet must have been being used by everyone on the boat because it took me about 1.5 hours to access the server and get my assignment.

The assignment only took about 20 minutes to do, but I still managed to turn it in late because of the internet. Its kind of annoying that this professor wont allow you to bring computer to class, but all of our assignments are to be submitted electronically.

The sun was getting ready to set at this time, so I went to my room and grabbed my camera and headed up to the top deck. The sunset was much nicer than last night, but there were still plenty of clouds in the sky blocking out the full sunset. I took a bunch of pictures and met a few people.

Tonight was the first night of alcohol service, so there were plenty of people writing in line to get booze. I cant believe how  many people are obsessed with alcohol on this ship.  They give you the smallest amount of wine possible or a can of beer. Its $3.50 per drink. I don’t think I will be getting any alcohol on the ship. I would rater wait for quality stuff when we get to shore.

Finally, I headed back to my cabin to do a little bit more homework and watch a movie. We will be loosing another hour tonight so I will be going to bed early.

More tomorrow….

I went out to watch the sunset today because I missed it yesterday, but there were clouds blocking the view. Im going to be out there every night until I see a beautiful sunset.

Not much else to say, classes start tomorrow and we loose and hour of sleep.

There really isn't much to say about today, it was full of orientations to attend. They lasted all day starting at 9:00am and ending around 10:00pm with a break for lunch and a break for dinner. These different orientations were basically just the voyagers handbook, the honor code, and field program instructions read out loud to the entire ship.  I left during the middle of the morning orientations and went back to my room to take a nap. Best decision ever, however I should have not gone to more of the orientations.

So today was the big day! The start of the adventure of a lifetime. My loading time was scheduled for 8:00am because my last name starts with 'B.' I woke up early to make sure I had everything packed and ready to go. I had the bell boy scheduled to pick up my bags at 7:30 and had a taxi waiting for me. It was an easy check out and I headed to the port.

The port was maybe 6 minutes away but the Canadians have great ways of ripping off visitors such as charging extra for going to the port. So my short cab ride was $25. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

I was there at about 7:40 so the line was still short. I got my space in line and was about 20 people back. Little did I realize how fortunate I was to be there early. By 8:00 the line was already getting pretty long and I couldn’t see the end from where I was standing. They finally opened the doors to the check in process and slowly people began to move.

Once inside the building I continued down the line and got stopped by a lady who was interviewing students. She asked me a few questions and got a picture of me and I continued on my way. As I was getting my ID card and turning in my passport, I come to find that I have no picture on my ID. I guess the pictures that I sent in weren't good enough for them….? Anyways, that meant I would be escorted through security and onto the boat by a staff member so that they could hold my passport.

So first my bags went through the giant screener. They took at least 3 minutes and 3 people looking at each bag. Of course they pull my bags aside to open and search. After about 15 mins of them looking around and finding NOTHING, I continued to the next step. Time to put carry on bags through a scanner as well as walking through a metal detector. Possibly the most stringent metal detector ever. And again, I made the metal detector beep, so they used the hand wand scanner. And then again, it goes off so they did a full pat down. Thanks to the wonders of the underwire in my bra as well as the button on my jeans made the scanner beep. So I finally passed and was able to board the ship and my escort was allowed to leave me. I board and am greeted by numerous people including the executive dean, staff, and students.

Next I was able to take a picture and have my ID card remade. Next I went through the rest of the tables for check in. It was a smooth process and I managed to not have any problems this time. Finally it was time to find my room. My cabin number is 4133 in the Arabian Sea. Each floor is named after a different sea. I really like the location of my room because its right next to the stairs leading up to the rear areas of the ship. It’s a really convenient location.

The rooms are pretty darn small, but it doesn’t really matter since I know I wont be spending much time in the room. The beds were the most shocking, they look like twin size beds, but they are much narrower than twin size beds. My roommate had not arrived yet, so I decided to unpack and get settled into my space. My mom likes to call it "nesting," but I like to call it decorating.

Once I finished I decided it was time to start exploring the ship and meeting people. Everyone on the ship is really friendly and really open to meeting new people. Decks 2, 3, and 4 are all cabin floors. On the 5th deck, there is the main dining hall as well as some classrooms, all located in the back of the ship. In the front, it the main lobby and other cabins. Deck 6 is the most busy floor with the most places to go and see. In the front is the Union, which holds about 350 people. Along with that is the campus store, library, computer room, piano lounge, a second dining room, and a great deck to sit on outside. And finally on the 7th deck in the front is a deck to walk around on and the faculty lounge. In the back is the pool, gym, wellness center, and a netted basketball court.

Around 11:30 lunch was served and I had my first meal on the ship. They had some sandwiches, salad, soup, beef casserole, mashed potatoes, and veggies. It was a pretty good meal and I have hope for survival on this ship!  The afternoon consisted of more wandering as well as meeting more people.

It took until 3:00pm to load everyone on the ship. The plan was to have everyone on by12:00pm, but that definitely did not happen. The fire/lifeboat drill was at 4:00pm and was that an experience. Everyone in the ship had to return to their room and change their clothing into pants, long sleeves, and closed toed shoes. Then everyone grabbed their bright orange life vests and headed to their muster station. My station is located in the main dining room, so I was getting over heated being dressed like this since its very warm on the ship. They made us stand in straight lines with women and children in the front of the lines and the men in the back. Then we had to stand their in silence while they read everyone's name to make sure we were all there. Then we stood there more and then some more. After 45 minutes of standing, the captain came in to check the room and make sure it was appropriate. Finally they did a demo on how to put on your life vest even though everyone already had their life vests on….

Once that was over it was time for the ship to leave Halifax. So I ran back to my room and got my camera and then headed to the front of the ship to the observation deck. It had great views and they blew the horn numerous times trying to scare away pirates! (not really but there were small boats around with fake pirate flags)

Next was dinner time where I sat with my roommate and a few of her friends. My roommate's name is Lindsay and she's from Colorado. Its been really amazing already to meet people from so many different places. Its kind of what you imagine when you go to college, meeting all sorts of people. (not at all like what I experienced at UC Santa Cruz)

After dinner was time to relax and just hang out. I went up to the spa to get the price list and then went to the computer room to get my e-mail and internet set up. It didn’t take me long to do once I was able to get a Wi-Fi connection.

Then I went to find a place to sit and work on this blog! So I moved to the piano lounge on the 6th floor. At 8:00 they were going to be starting the orientation meeting. This was a meeting that everyone on the ship had to attend. The main room for these types of events is the union, but it only holds about 350 students. So students are allowed to sit  in the classrooms as well to watch the broadcast of the meeting. The piano lounge counts as one of these places so I didn’t have to move from where I was sitting.

The executive dean made some announcements and went through some statistics about this voyage. I listed them below, or at least the things that I thought were interesting. Then there was some rambling on about things that really aren't important.

This whole meeting went on and on introducing faculty and staff and the captain and his crew. Finally the meeting ended at about 9:15 just to go straight into our hall meetings. Luckily my meeting was in the same room that I was already sitting in so I didn’t have to get up and move. It was the most pointless meeting ever and reminded me of freshman year. They made us play a weird ice breaker game where we had to take a shoe off and someone else would get a shoe and come over to meet you. This lasted until 10pm when they finally release us for the night.

I got myself a snack of some chips and a ginger ale because the ship sure is a rockin. Im probably going to call it a early night just because tomorrow is full of meetings and lectures that we have to attend all day long.

Over and out!



708 undergraduates - largest number ever on a SAS voyage
        23 countries
        49 states
                21% from California
        280 different universities
28 graduates
105 faculty staff and dependents
1.5 -90 years old on the ship
191 crew members
1047 people on the ship total.

75% female
25% male

 11764 miles

"Most of you are friendless" -Executive Dean
        Great quote from the dean during his speech. He later went on to talk about how we were all going to make so many new friends!

Today was another day to explore Halifax. I decided to get out my guide book and see what else there was to do in Halifax. I had highlighted a few different places in the book that I had wanted to see a few weeks ago. It turns out that I had visited the majority of the places that I wanted to see.

 So I decided I would go check out Pier 21, which is the Canadian version of Ellis Island. I went to Ellis Island when I was in New York a few years back and thought it was an amazing experience. Turns out that Pier 21 is not as great as you would think. It was a 2 story building down on the harbor, and downstairs was a research center and a store and upstairs in 1 room was the "museum." It really didn’t have much to look at, just a lot of writing about things happening at the time.

They had a few cool displays such as a model of what the terminal use to look like for immigrants, old baby strollers, and a fake train car that shook to simulate a real train. After looking around for as long as I could, I went down stairs to the research center to see what I could discover about my family.

I have family from the 1800's who caught Cod in Newfoundland. Turns out the name "John Day" is very common and I would need a little bit more information to try and find him. Ancestry.ca is the website that they use to do the research, so I hope that once I get some more information I will be able to use that site to find my family.

The MV Explorer had finally arrived in port and I got a couple of pictures. It’s a pretty large ship, although not as big as some of those cruise ships out there. Seeing the boat in sight made me even more excited for the adventure ahead.

I then decided to go to the store and pick up a few snacks and goodies. It turns out the store was in a square that was like a mini mall. It reminded me of the Woodland mall, but busier. I was able to get what I needed and found a food court to get a snack.

I decided that I would make it an early night because I wanted to be rested from the day ahead of me. I took a nice hot shower, ordered some great room service, and watched HGTV for the last time for at least 66 days!

Overall it was a great day in Halifax and I cant wait for tomorrow to begin. Setting the alarm clock for 6:45 and planning on leaving for the port at 7:30!!

I woke up this morning at 11:00am which means that I managed to sleep soundly for 7 hours! It was the perfect time to wake up since shops in Halifax are not open until 12:00pm on Sundays. So I took my time getting dressed and then headed downstairs to talk to the concierge.

He was able to give me a map and point out a few places that I could go and check out. So I headed out for the afternoon to walk the city of Halifax. I walked down the street and just started seeing lots of historical sites.

My first stop was at the Grand Parade, which seemed to be a small square with a statue and also a mask of a sail of a boat. And from here you could see the town clock tower. So I walked up that way and next to the clock tower is the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site. Its an old fort from the 1800's that the British use to occupy. They had the guards out front so I was able to take pictures of them.

As I was standing there I find out from one of the staff members that work at the site that they would be launching off their 12pm noon cannon. It was a historical 12lb cannon that they loaded with 1lb of gun powder. They shot it off and it scarred me so badly I jumped. It was really cool to see.

I crossed the street to seem some more historical military sites including The Cambridge Military Library. There were also some cannons and old buildings.

Just up the street from there was the Public Gardens. It is a huge garden that covers a whole city block. It had fountains, plants, walking paths, and a pond. It was lovely to walk through and really relaxed me.

Across the street from the public gardens is Victoria Park. Just a small grassy area with a  few monuments. There was a huge monument for Robert Burns. So I took lots of pictures of that to share with my family.

From there I went to Holy Cross Cemetery founded in 1843. It was quite large and I walked around looking for my relatives grave stones. Unfortunately you weren't allowed to leave the paths because the tombstones were all very fragile. But my guess if that I do have at least 1 relative buried there.

Next I found the Catholic Cathedral, but I didn’t go in because it was a Sunday so there was mass happening. But there was another cemetery next to that so I walked around that. It was even older than the previous cemetery.

Lastly I decided to walk down to the waterfront and walk around the boardwalk. It was lovely and a great walk. I grabbed some lunch and sat down on the pier overlooking the water to eat.

At around 2:30pm I decided to head back to the hotel. I was getting tired and wanted to rest. Now I need to read my travel books to see what I should do tomorrow!!!

So I left my house this morning at about 9am for my delayed flight to Chicago. It was supposed to be an hour late due to weather in Chicago. Not such great news for me since I only had planned to have 1 hour and 15 mins to get to my next gate. Trying to work with United Airlines was ridiculous and I swear to never fly United again.

I board the plane to be surprised by the changes made to the airlines. There I no longer any room in between seats. I sat down and my knees were touching the seat in front of me and I am only 5’3’’. I would hate to try and fly in this plane and be tall. To make things worse, I had 2 little children sitting behind me kicking my seat the whole flight and a baby in front of me whose mother thought I would be fun to sing to the child for half the flight and let the baby play with the window shade the other half.

Thank the Lord that I had 2 adults next to me who were quite and friendly. The man sitting next to me was in as much shock that I was in to find that half the plane was full of children under 14 years old. It was the loudest flight of my life and that was through my noise blocking ear buds which I had on full volume.

The pilot made a great joke at the beginning of the flight saying that we would get personal back massages throughout the entire flight. And sure enough we did. Turbulence like you have never felt for the entire flight…..

So we finally land and the nice man next to me got out his nifty i-Phone and looked up my flight information for me. I lucked out and my next flight was also delayed, the only way that I could make it on time. When then let us off the plane, my purse strap breaks this is not like a normal purse. It’s carrying my backpack, binders, water bottles, pillow, and jackets. This is a huge purse I’m talking about. So it weighed about 30lbs. So great the strap breaks on the bag and I have to carry it in my arms, which wouldn’t have been too bad if I didn’t have a full duffle bag as well and if I didn’t have to run to the next terminal to make my flight. It was the longest run and the most painful experience of my life. I almost puked before I made it to my gate.

So I make it with 3 minutes to spare and basically collapsed in a seat. Of course 1 minute after I sit down they say the flight is delayed 1 more hour. So I wasted all that work and effort trying to make it to my gate on time.

At least I am going to make my flight…..

……So I made the flight and it was much better than the previous flight. No screaming children. I spent the entire flight watching Star Wars on my computer. There was also more leg room on this plane which was nice. It was a newer and much smaller plane. I had a nice young woman sitting next to me who lived in Halifax and was able to tell me some places to go and see.

We finally landed around 1:30am and then had to go through customs and then baggage claim. It took some time because there were only 2 people working since it was the middle of the night. But I had no problems getting through and both my pieces of luggage were there!

That was a big relief. I had to get a cart to carry all my luggage. And luckily there were cabs waiting there at the curb. I grabbed the first one and told him where I was headed. He sped like crazy. Going about 40km over the speed limit.

When I got to the front of the hostel I had booked a bed in, I saw that the doors were locked and that they office would not be open till 8am. So there I was locked out of the place that I was supposed to stay, with all my luggage, and no cash. I had just spent it all my cab ride. So there I am standing in the middle of Halifax at 2:30am with no where to go. At this point I was getting ready to have a panic attack. It had already been such a long day and nothing seemed to be going right.

I of course resort to the best resource available, my mother. I called her and she spent her time on the internet and making some phone calls. She helped find me a hotel room and a cab that I could pay with a card. So by 3:30 in the morning I had made it to a hotel and got checked in. It was a lovely place and a very comfortable bed.

I took a shower and then hopped into bed  and passed out quite fast. All I could hope was that tomorrow would be a better day.