4 Days 'Til Spain!

Well, I'm on my 3rd day of class today. We go by A days and B days, so today is day A2. Yeah, we started school on a Sunday...that has thrown all of us off. We all basically gave up on trying to figure out what day it is until with hit land in Spain. Classes are going well though. It is taking me awhile to get use to not having desks or tables, and also rocking while trying to pay attention to the professors. I don't think any of my classes are going to be too hard, but they require a lot of reading. Everyone knows I'm not a fan of reading as it is...try reading while the ship is rocking back and forth.
Tomorrow morning is the first time we will be able to see land since we left Canada on Friday. We are going to be passing the Azores Islands. We are passing them between 5-7am tomorrow morning. I’m not sure I can get myself out of bed before then, but I have to be at work by 8, so maybe.
8am has never felt so awful. We are all in the stages of getting to know everyone, so everyone wants to stay up, play games, and hang out. It’s all fun until my alarm clock goes off at 6:40am. It wouldn’t be so bad, but I have already lost 5 hours since I left home.
I have met so many people already. It is kind of hard to not meet them considering we have crammed 700+ students into a fairly small ship. My floor is all really cool. Many of the people I met before coming live close to me. I have also started going to get-togethers for all the independent trips I will be doing in the ports coming up. Tonight we are planning out the details for our Spain trip, and also getting to know everyone who will be camel trekking through the Sahara Desert.
One of the most popular icebreakers so far has been to talk about what trips we will all be taking. I set up most of mine on Facebook, so a lot of the people I have met haven’t even heard of the trips I am doing. I have already had countless numbers of people ready to join me shark diving, sleeping on the great wall, etc. I’m a bad influence, but I love it. It’s a once in a lifetime trip; no one wants to miss out.
So…we were looking at our academic calendar yesterday. We have 4 more days of class, including today, until September 15th. We all love our lives right now. We only have to go to each class 22 times, so only 44 days of class all semester. We aren’t quite sure how that works out academically, but none of us are complaining.
Work-study is going well. My schedule sucks, but it is only 2 hours a day. I learned how to run the computers yesterday so I can check people out now. All I do is make sure the supplies store is stocked and clean, fold clothes, and check people out. I say that’s a pretty good deal for what they paid me. But speaking of the campus store, I need to head to work.
Take care! Also, my phone doesn’t work well on the ship, so I have shut it off. I will be turning it on once I hit each port. If you need to contact me, use my SAS email. Gmnagaki@semesteratsea.net.

On my way!

I finally made! These first few days have been insane! Between getting to Canada, moving onto the ship, and meeting what seems like a million new people, I have been swamped. It is taking me awhile to get use to this all, but it is going to be an awesome semester.
First of all, Canada was awesome. I really liked Halifax. It was a really cool city with a lot of culture. I didn’t get to spend much time there, but what I saw, I liked. Once my parents and I finally made it to Halifax, we checked into the Sheraton Four Points. It was a really nice hotel…kinda out of the way, but it worked. It was insane how many people already knew my name and yelled at me while I was walking around the hotel. I had met so many on Facebook that they recognized me. Everywhere we walked in Halifax, we saw SAS kids.
After we checked in, we went and ate at Saltys. I had looked it up online before we went and it had pretty good reviews. It was right on the port in a historical section of town. I had my first lobster dinner, and it was awesome. We ended dinner with 2 amazing deserts. We had homemade apple crisp and a blueberry grunt.
After dinner, we made our way to Walmart. It was an interesting trip to say the least. We took a cab there, and managed to find our way back on one of their bus lines. Walmart Canada is not like the ones we have at home. It was surprisingly very expensive. I got what I needed though.
Once I got back from Walmart I headed to the Argyle. It is a local bar/nightclub. One of the kids going on the trip set up a meet and greet for us to get together before we all board the ship. It was pretty fun. I got to meet a bunch of other kids that I had talked to on Facebook as well. I didn’t stay all that long because I had to board the next day for work-study.
The next morning I finally got to board. There weren’t many of us that got a work-study position, so it didn’t take that long to board. I finally found out my room and ended up getting a quad. I have 3 roommates. We actually have 2 rooms that are connected and we share a bathroom. It is pretty nice. I spent the first night by myself because none of the other 3 had work-study. I ended up going out with a few people I had met before so I didn’t spend much time on the ship anyways.
My roommates are Jason, Drew, and Anthony. Jason is originally from Nepal, but goes to school in New Orleans. Drew was born and raised in San Diego, and goes to school at San Diego State. Anthony is originally from Montreal, but goes to school in Georgia now. I get along with them all pretty well.
On Friday, I had to help board everyone else onto the ship. It took foreverrrrr. We had to be in the Union at 7am and didn’t get done working until about 3pm. All I had to do was direct traffic so it was a lot of standing around. It sucked, but it was cool to see literally every student come on the ship.
After everyone got on board, we had our lifeboat training. Once the siren went off, we had to all file out to the 5th deck on the sides with our lifejackets on. They had to go through and name off every room on the ship to make sure we made it. It took forever as well.
Yesterday was orientation. I can’t tell you how many times I fell asleep in our union. We had 2 or 3 meetings in there with all 700+ of us. They would have 2-3 hour sessions with no breaks. The lighting is really dim in there and the rocking of the ship put about 50% of us to sleep. I think the only part that all of us were energetic about was when Desmond Tutu walked in. Yep, that’s right. I have already eaten breakfast next to him and listened to him address the whole ship. It is so cool to have him on here. He absolutely loves kids. That was about the only exciting part of orientation, however. The rest of the day we just got a group together and played Egyptian rat screw and catch phrase. I have a feeling we are going to be playing a lot of games on the ship.
I’m not sure if anyone has been following the weather, but we entered into a northern Atlantic storm last night. The swells are INSANE. We hit it at about 11pm last night. We all ran out to the top deck at the front of the boat. It was so cool to see the boat crash into the waves. We got kicked off though because the wind got so bad. The swells are actually much worse right now though. It is making me dizzy as I type this. It felt like I was riding a rollercoaster when I was trying to sleep last night. It’s actually pretty fun, and I haven’t gotten sick at all yet.
Well I am off to my first day of class and work! I can’t wait till we get to Spain in a few days. How is everyone back home? Take care.

WHAT?! 8 More Days in America.

Welcome to my blog! This is where you will be able to find out what I have been up to through out this whole next semester. My itinerary is posted above, and you will be able to find all my pictures to the left and my videos at the bottom by the map. I hope to post at least every other day. It all depends on how much time I have, where I am in the world, and how much has gone on at the time. I look forward to sharing my experiences with you all. Don't forget to click "Follow" on the right to keep updated.

I started the process of packing today. Let's just say...I hate packing. I spend hours trying to pack when all I have to do is throw it all in my car and drive to school. It is a little different story this time as I only have 2 rolling duffel bags and 1 backpack to fit all my stuff in. I bought a gigantic suitcase, but I am trying to avoid using it if at all possible. I will pretty much be living in a cubical, so any saved room will be appreciated.

I will be heading off to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada next Wednesday. I get the first night to relax, enjoy a lobster dinner with my parents, and then meet a few of my future shipmates at a local bar. I have to board on the 26th, a day early, for my work-study position. We have some training to do, and we also are helping out with the Parents' Reception and the boarding of the rest of the students.

I'm getting extremely excited and can't wait to start this voyage. Keep tuned for my regular posts to start when I reach Canada! Until then...