Well, I’ve made it through the first few days. Some interesting things have happened. The second day on the ship was taken up by the same meeting three times. Safety and such, but the majority of it was centered on drinking on the ship and why that is unsafe. All injuries suffered on Semester at Sea have been alcohol related. Hopefully that means I have good chances of making it out ok! James and I were pretty bored through this part, but it was good for the rest of the ship I’m sure.
Third day started classes! I’m taking three. The first is an International Marketing class. The teacher has been everywhere it seems including China. She’s definitely knowledgeable, but she seems a little terrifying. Our tests are open book so I’m a little nervous. Those are never good. Note that it’s also at 8 am, ALSO never good. I’ll make it though. The material is very interesting.
The second class is called Global Studies. This is basically information about the region that we’re going to. It’s a little more disorganized than I thought it would be, but the teacher is HILARIOUS! Prolly the funniest teacher I have ever had. He’s from Canada, and he’s different for sure, but I love him. Definitely my favorite class so far, though James hates it I think. We have our first test tomorrow for that class on a map of the Mediterranean. He’s not messing around, but it should go well.
My third class is an economics class called International Trade. We really haven’t done much yet. We spent the first day discussing the class and the last two having a question-answer session on China. Very enlightening, but it’ll be interesting to see how the class turns out in terms of organization. James and I are a bit nervous for it to say the least.
Let’s see. Events.
The second night at 3 am, my roommate and I were jostled awake by all of our stuff flying across the room from our countertops. We were hit by some giant waves. And the whole rest of the day the swells were at 6 to 10 feet. Which may not seem like a lot, but trust me, we were doing some SERIOUS rocking. Needless to say, I did not sleep much that night.
On the subject of sleep, something strange! We are experiencing 23 hour days. To stay on track and be on Barcelona time when we get there, we have had to lose an hour every night so far. SO that means we’re basically waking up an hour earlier everyday. Pretty brutal as we’re still rather jet lagged as well. I feel like I’m tired all the time, though it’s getting better for sure.
We’ve been having some interesting lecturers and extra activities too. Our first guest lecturer is sailing with us from Halifax but only to Spain. He’s an expert on España, and he’s even been knighted by the Spanish King (His name is Don David Gies, the Don is the knight part in Spain). Nuts! His presentation was on the art that we can expect to see there. He showed some architectural photos as well and much to my shock, he showed one of the most famous architects of Spain at the moment, Frank Ghery. You prolly don’t know (unless you’re my mother), but this is the man who actually designed my Tiffany’s orchid necklace!!!! I knew he was an architect from Spain, but I didn’t know he was a BIG shot! Small world?
What else, what else.
I’ve bought a semester at sea sweatshirt and I must say it’s super cute! It’s got Sem at Sea on the front, the name of the ship (MV explorer) on the side and the SAS logo on the hood. Bought some sleep shirts too. I somehow neglected to bring more than three of those. Haha.
Laundry is going to be tricky. We only get it 4 times the WHOLE time. SO I may be washing some shirts in the sink. ☺
Yesterday we had a mini lecture from the Spanish teachers on the ship. We learned some of the important Spanish phrases and how the Spanish people treat each other. I guess that they are big kissers. When you greet someone, even someone you don’t know, you kiss them on both cheeks and embrace. Very close contact. They like to eat and drink on the streets. Smoking is everywhere, and staying the night at someone’s house whom you met at a bar that night is really rather common. Very interesting society, but I’m excited to experience it.
Tonight our inter-port lecturer was a clown….ya…Our academic dean is an expert on Circuses, and as such, he brought us a clown. He was pretty good. Pretty funny. It lasted an hour. The rest of the evening was taken up with planning our trips. We took like 3 books out of the library and did a major brain drain. Got some good stuff down! Definitely getting exciting!
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