Bahamas and 1st couple days!

I got to the Bahamas about 1ish on Sunday and a lot of people were on my flight from North Carolina going to SAS. I talked to the lady sitting next to me on the plane who lived in the Bahamas. She was telling me about how she met her husband. They met while traveling on a boat of about 15 people who were all around the age of 16. She was representing England (where she was originally from) and he was representing the Bahamas. He ended up doing some studying in England and they eventually moved to the Bahamas. She has lived there for 50 years now and he died 5 years ago. She lives with a group of widows and their children. So now I feel like I will meet the love of my life, he just might die. But anyway, she asked me what hotel I was staying in and I said the Quality Inn and she just stared blankly at me! I was like is that bad?? She said it was downtown and that I was not to go anywhere alone!!
This guy I met, Win, and I sat in the airport waiting for the girl I was staying with to get in an hour after our flight. We then got a taxi and he was not happy with the huge amount of luggage we all had and then made everyone sit up front to even out the weight! He showed us a few places on the way to the hotel. He pointed out Bob Marley’s house/store that his wife and he had. We saw the church that Anna Nicole had her funeral in and a couple others that I can’t remember now!
Our hotel was definitely the beginning of a culture shock for us! The people had to buzz you in the hotel and they had a guard with a huge bullet proof vest on and a huge gun standing in the front! There was tons of trash in the hallway outside our room and didn’t look like it had been cleaned in a month! Our bathroom had huge chips off of the toilet and sink and then when I got back from Senor Frogs I went to my bathroom and found ants crawling all over the counter, my makeup and straighter. I think they were bed bugs because they were gone in the morning and they weren’t there when I got there when we first got there. It was sickkkkkk
It’s the second full day on the ship and I am already so sick of it! Everyone walks around like they are drunk because the ship is so rocky. It is funny watching everyone move from one side to the other all together. I still have not even put a swim suit on even though it has been really nice. We had meetings all day on Tuesday except when we got to watch the inauguration, which I fell asleep through because I am so exhausted. We lost our first hour last night and we lose an hour everyday for the next 6 days. We still have 7 days until we get to Spain…ahhh!
My roommate’s name is Jess and she is from Minnesota. She is really cool and we have a lot of fun together! We met some boys across the hall from us that we are always with too! I am also really close to Megan, who goes to K-State. We hang out with her roommate named Kelsea as well. Kelsea is from Maui!!! The first day on the ship I had not met Jess yet and Megan and I were sitting on the deck by the pool and she saw Kelsea walking on the deck and she introduced me. Kelsea was with a girl that she had just met on the stairs and it happened to be my roommate! It was really weird!
It is actually really hard to meet people. There is not like a club or anything and no one else congregates anywhere else besides the pool which is an awkward situation to meet someone! Haha Today was the 1st day of classes and it was AWFUL!! Everyone has class at 9:20, it is for Global Studies, it turns out the class is more like a biology class than an actual class where we learn about the ports we are going too. That class ends at 10:45 and I have a break until 12:15. My 12:15 class seems like it will be interesting, it is Comparative Educational Systems, and my teacher seems really nice as well. My next class is Sociology of Every Day Life, my teacher is really nice and I think that he was one of the teachers from South Africa. He got really emotional and even cried today when we talked about Obama. He said that it was so amazing for someone like Obama to get elected, not only because he is African American, but because he seems very intelligent. Anyway, that teacher was also on the Spring of 05’ trip where the boat crashed. He said they were on the boat for a few days and then they were sent to Hawaii in life boats and the boat was towed in. They spent a total of 10 days in Hawaii and were then supposed to fly to Hong Kong. They had tickets for everyone and they were at the airport when they realized that the pilots didn’t have visas to get into Hong Kong! They ended up flying to San Francisco and then they left from there to fly to Hong Kong or Singapore. But, anyway my last class is some class on Chinese Literature and is SOOO boring. I could not pay attention what so ever! I think I will do TONS better in classes this semester cause I don’t have a phone to text on! =)
Our class’s rooms are mostly just comfy swivel chairs and couches. That seems nice except that we don’t have desks or tables. Also, my last two classes are in the Union which is located on the top front of the boat so it is extra rocky. I felt so sick the whole time and couldn’t really pay attention because my stomach kept dropping like I was on a roller coaster. When we were looking out the window earlier we would watch the waves then the boat would rock so bad that we couldn’t see the ocean until it came back down. I felt sick the first day so I put on one of the patches and it has definitely helped. Today was bad too but our room isn’t nearly as rocky as anywhere else so we have been hanging out in here! We aren’t allowed to prop our doors open for safety or whatever and it sucks because you can’t just walk in someone’s room and talk or meet people that way.
Ohhh the food! I can’t stand it! We have had the same kind of potatoes everyday for lunch and dinner. They always have pasta, bread, potatoes and some kind of non ripe fruits! I don’t even think that I have had a full meal since I have been on the boat! But it is so weird and I feel so spoiled because when we are done with our food the crew will pick it up from the table! They get really antsy when you try to put your food away yourself and take it from you! It is really nice eating outside, the wind is good and it hasn’t been to hot yet! Tomorrow it may be a little cooler because we will be in the middle of the Atlantic, so we’ll see! They said we have gone about 800 miles and have 3,000 left!
Unlike this post sounds I really have been having an awesome time! The people are all really cool and I am glad that I got a good group of girls to always hang out with! All the guys that we have met so far are all really funny and cool to be around. I keep using my weird voices that Erin and I do and they all think it’s hilarious, but I really can’t control it because I have been doing it every day for the past month with Erin! It is so weird that I am living on a boat and actually going around the world! It is kind of scary going through all the safety stuff but hopefully we will never have to actually experience it!
We got to sign up for clubs and things like that today. Megan and I signed up for some kind of a counseling and mental health thing with the counselors on the boat. I’m not sure what we will be doing but it seems interesting. We also signed up for a group that does fundraisers on the boat and then we decide where the money should go. I think we give a little to each country, mostly in orphanages, and hang out with the people that we give the money to! I want to do a lot of service projects but we’ll see if I have time. A lot of them are in the countries that I already have signed up for. Which, by the way, the trip I booked in China to camp on the Great Wall that cost about $850 was strongly encouraged not to do! They were talking about independent trips and said the one place not to do an independent trip was in China! Haha I really hope I didn’t lose that money, it was through paypal so if something does go wrong I think I am guaranteed to get it back!
Well this is really long but I had a lot to talk about! They say the four months on the boat is like a year! But I miss and love you all! My e-mail is kkparker@semesteratsea.net so e-mail me! I feel special sometimes =) byeee