Embarkation

May 21, 2012

Today has been a busy day!!! After passing out at 8 (barely managed to stay awake that long!) and 11 hours of sleep, I woke up at 7 to re-pack my bags and get ready for my 10am shuttle to Puntarenas (it takes 2 hours to get from San Jose, where we were staying). The ride was a bit boring—I was on an aisle seat so I couldn’t see much—but I made more friends on the way so it can’t be too bad, right? :)

Bus ride from San Jose to Puntarenas

This trip has been a whirlwind of meeting new people from ALL over and making friends. So far, it’s been awesome and we haven’t gone anywhere yet! Well, except out to sea!!!

Picture taken by Joe, my new friend from lunch

To be honest, when we got to San Jose, I was getting kinda nervous about how much I had packed. I had two big bags, and most people had one with a small carry-on (it looked like I had more because of my camera bag, but I am NOT trusting that to checked baggage). But, as it turns out, economy class was the right choice for me! I wound up in a room with three roommates (we call our room “the quad” because we are the only 4-person room in our sea [more about seas later] as far as we can tell). Our room is actually split into two rooms of two beds each, and the room I’m in has extra drawer space! Perfect! My baggage fits under the bed perfectly as well.

We had our orientation today in the big classroom right before we embarked, where they explained about our classes, our trips, the rules, and our deck groups, which are called “seas” (the equivalent of a floor in a dorm—we have RD’s instead of RA’s). I actually already know a bunch of people in my sea already, and I’m happy with how it all turned out.

In addition to our seas, I also got seasick!!! The Union is the BIG classroom in the forward of the ship (also on the 6^th deck, so it’s pretty high up as well!). It holds all the students on the voyage (not to be mistaken for “cruise”), and it was where we held our sea meeting! Turns out that was a mistake, since we ALL had to run for the free seasickness pills as soon as it was over! And here I thought I didn’t get seasick…but once the pills were in me, it was much better!

And trust me, it’s totally worth it.

Roommates from the Quad: Julie, Corrina, Me, Jacqui