2 days and 15.75 hours until Cadiz!!!

Since I'm not really doing anything new and exciting and I was really curious about the ship when Sarah and Kate were on S@S, this post is pretty much entirely about how the ship works.

My schedule is pretty nice. I have 0800 class (which sucks... i've only been on time once) which is Oceanography. Right after that class gets out at 0915 I walk briskly (aka run) to the Union to get a good seat for Global Studies. This class continues to be fantastic and is actually making me reconsider my vendetta against history classes (though it is pretty long and i generally have a hard time staying awake by the end of it). After Global Studies (there is generally a huge traffic jam to get out of the Union) I have my unofficial nap time which unfortunately only lasts about 45 minutes.

At 1130 i head up to the dining room (the 5th deck official dinning room. The servers are nicer there. Unless of course its nice out in which case we eat on the deck) and meet some of my friends for lunch which is always potatoes (they try to cut them in different ways to make them seem new and exciting), salad (they have daily failed attempts to spice that up too), some kind of fish (i tried it once... be proud natalia!), some kind of meat, plain vegetables, and bread. There is normally a soup option and a vegetarian option too (I've been eating the vegetarian option a lot because the meat is sketch). They always have peanut butter and jelly along with a vegan sandwich option and dessert in the corner.

Normally in the middle of lunch Dia (the dean of students) makes the Noon Bridge report that goes something like "Today at Noon the explorers position was ________..." It includes the date, position, distance to Cadiz, temperature of the air and water, and any explore seminars or special events for the day. The explore seminars range from weird ("So You're Thinking of Owning a Motorcycle") to cultural (Shabat dinner... i think that might be spelled right) to the ones that everyone goes to and are really cool ("Spain: It Might Surprise You" with David Gies). Normally we see dolphins surfing in the ships wake during lunch too.

After lunch I either do homework, go to the gym, take another nap, or hang out in my neighbor's room until I either go play with Ryder or go to dinner. Dinner is the exact same thing as lunch but it generally has better dessert and more meat. After dinner I do homework or hang out in my neighbors room until the explore seminars. After the explore seminars I generally either walk around the boat until I find someone I know or I do homework. Then at night I either go to pub night or snack time (yay free food!) and then either play cards and hang out or go to bed.

Out of the 5 days i've been on the ship we have had to roll our clocks back 1 hour every day which means that we have been living on 23 hour days. This is what I dislike most about S@S. I know that its necessary but the lack of sleep is making everyone crabby and I'm not a fan.

Some other cool things about the ship is...
- We are all broken into seas by floor. I'm in the Red Sea and on Monday we are going to have a Red Sea block party to get to know our neighbors.
- We have some other social events such as pub night and tonight's Rock the Boat dance (some people are actually mad that student life called it a boat... get over it people its close enough)
- They have bridge tours that you can sign up for 3 times a day. You get to go up to the Bridge (where they steer the boat from) and sit in the captain's chair and see how everything works. I'm going on the 22nd (I can't remember what day of the week that is. Monday maybe?)

Alrighty. I'm off do to some more homework before dinner and then I'm off to the Rock the Boat dance...

ps. they give ridiculous amounts of homework here! We are expected to read a chapter a night in every class. That comes out to about 150 pages a day for me.

pps. I got an A on my first u.s. history quiz! so proud : )