Day of Embarkation

This morning I woke up pretty early because I had to get my stuff together and be at the pier by 9:00 am to board the ship. It still didn’t hit me for a while that I was actually going to be on a ship for 68 days, and it really hasn’t sunk in yet. After standing in line at the pier, while toting 2 gigantic bags and an overstuffed backpack, for about an hour I went through a few check-in stations on the boat.

I was preoccupied the whole time because I found out while I was in line at security that you’re not allowed to have hair straighteners on the ship unless they have automatic shut-off and hair dryers were also off limits. I was not about to have 70 bad hair days so I was fully prepared to fabric some explanation for how my straightener would shut itself off. Luckily when it went through the x-ray machine the guy didn’t stop the belt right away so he couldn’t tell which bag it was in. He mentioned something about a straightener, and I just grabbed my bag like I didn’t know what was going on and did a little speed walking to the ship. Haha. Success!

The boat was huge! It looks just like a cruise ship on the inside except the casino was converted into a library (very tragic) and there are a bunch of classrooms throughout the top deck.

I walked in my room and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had a window! I was originally supposed to have an inside room, but somehow I now have this cute little porthole. I thought it was just a mirror when I first walked in, but then I looked up to see the ocean and a lighthouse outside- picture perfect. I’m on the lowest deck so our window is only like 10-15 ft above the waves, and sometimes the waves get so high they splash above the window and make the room dark for a second. I'm going to freak if a whale or something splashes against our window one day. haha! The room is pretty small, like a cruise ship, and the bathroom is tiny! But surprisingly there’s enough storage space for everything that both my roommate and I had crammed in our bags. There’s even a small refrigerator and TV in here.

My roommate is from California, and we get along great, thank goodness. We went up to the deck to watch our ship pull away from the pier. We said goodbye to Halifax, North America, and land as the MV Explored started its route to Cádiz, Spain.

I’ve met a LOT of people so far. It’s so cool because most people came into this not knowing anyone, so we’re all literally “in the same boat” –haha oh puns. Everyone just smiles and says hey or introduces themselves when you walk by, and then you end up hearing people’s life stories. I love it.

Random side note about Canada: Canadians do have accents, and it’s really funny! They say “Eh?” a lot and just pronounce stuff weird- like they pronounce scallops as “skull-ups,” pasta as “past-uh,” and about as “a-boat.” It is really pretty cold up here! And it’s freezing on the deck of the boat! I was definitely not prepared with my wardrobe…time to buy a Semester at Sea hoodie. :)