The world is a book. If you don’t travel you only read one page.

AHHHH!!! Hello everyone. This is my third day on the ship (we were told to not call it a boat) and I have a plethora of things to say.
        I got into Halifax, Nova Scotia this past Sunday with Barrett and Abbie. Almost our entire plane was filled with college students traveling to Semester at Sea. I met the boy who stole my librarian job that I applied for, his name was Alex and he has a huge head of curly black hair. We took a taxi from the airport and to our hotel and explored the city for the rest of the day and ate at a pub named “Your Father’s Mustache.” On Monday we woke up and Barrett put her hair in the hands of a hotel salon and came back a platinum blonde. When the window opened that morning, our room had a full view of our ship. This created mad excitement.  We walked around and shopped at a lot of their consignment stores, ate at McDonalds (yes Barrett wants to eat McDonalds at every country). Halifax reminded me of San Francisco with its slanted streets and unpredictable weather. In the sun you sweat, in the shade your chilly. That night we went to dinner with 6 UVA girls and went to bar called Argile, a fellow student had rented it out for the semester at sea kids to congregate. We then all migrated to a bar called cheers where Barrett abide and I sang karaoke with the uva girls. Celine Dion “its all coming back to me” I already labeled myself as one of the girls who was the first SAS person to get on stage.
        On June 15, as we lugged our bags, we stood in a 2 hour line to aboard the ship. Barrett soon became “that girl” who had two HUMONGOUS bags that she could barely pull through the line and so a girls father had to help her out. Finally after much anticipation, we walked up 52 stairs and reached the entrance to the MV Explorer.
        The first few days were a blast of overwhelming amazingly fantastic moments, (except for everyone being sea sick.. and walking around the ship trying not to fall over) I met a bunch of new and interesting people. It was as if we are all freshman again. People long to meet one another. Every meal is spent with different students or even faculty. Even our room is like a dorm. We have a good amount of storage space along with our own bathroom. There are two dining halls and a pool deck and a bar (where you can purchase glasses of wine that look like a Barbie could drink from them) The faculty exudes enthusiasm for this voyage. My theatre teacher, Mr. Gillespie, and drawing teacher, Mrs. Campbell, seem to care about our learning experience throughout the voyage rather than forcing our education down our throats. I am extremely excited for my theatre class, we are analyzing West Side Story tomorrow. I also signed up to be in an “extended family” where you are pretty much adopted by the life long learners and faculty. You have a chance to go to their cabin and eat dinner with them and their family or travel with them on port. The ages on this voyage range from 1 ½ to 90.
        Tonight was the first night of serving wine and beer, and although we are limited to a 3 itty bitty glasses… there were multitudes of people on the pool deck. I felt like I was at a college mixer. But meeting new people each day is an adventure on its own. There are so many people from across the u.s and world. All states are represented in the USA except for one, which the dean failed to share with us. Tomorrow we are supposed to have even higher swells than we did today, which was 10 footers. Hopefully our entire room doesn’t go to shambles.
        I miss all of you all, but am having a great time. Write me at cmkosse@semesteratsea.net…