Bahamas & Life @ Seaa

I just want to begin by saying that this journal/blog is going to be all over the place because I am just going to write things as I think of them. It might jump back and forth a little but I will try and keep it in as much order as possible. Just try and stay with me J

Bahamas & beginning of S@S 2008!!!
So I finally finished packing at about 11:30 the night before I left. I just about made the two 70 pound bag limit. Trust me; I packed everything I could possibly think of in those bags! THEY WERE FREAKIN’ HEAVYYY! Our flight was on the 21st from NYC. It was a pretty good flight and there a couple of other s@s students and their families on the flight with me and mine. Of course with our luck, when we got to the Bahamas it was pouring rain! We took a cap to the Atlantis where we were staying for the next couple of nights. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Personally, I would rather stay somewhere else. Anyways though, it was a fun two and half days. I got to lie at the pool on Tuesday which I was very happy about! My parents got to go onboard the MV Explorer Tuesday afternoon so Charlie, Henry and I just walked around downtown. We went to dinner with my parents, Ananda and Kyle and then repacked all my stuff and went to sleep.
Wednesday morning we had to wake up way to early! I had to be at the dock and wait in those long lines at 8:20am. They actually went by faster than I thought they would. So I went through, got my bags checked, got to get on board the ship, and got more bags checked. I got my straightener taken awayyyyyy L I know what you’re thinking Kathryn “how is she going to control that hair for 3 and half months without a straightener or bandana?” welllll as I was getting back off the ship that day I asked if I could take my straightener to my parents and they took it out of the box of confiscated items and looked at it again, asked me if it was an automatic shut off, and gave it back to me. I got to take it back upstairs to my room! So no worries, it’s on the ship with me!! After getting back off the ship, Ananda and I went with a couple other girls to meet up with my parents and get some breakfast. We didn’t have to be back on board until 1:30pm when my parents could come with us. Charlie and Henry had rented a moped (yes dumb and dumber could definitely be their new names) that day so they were cruising around and came to say bye to me at 12:30. I got to go on a quick ride with Charlie. It was pretty sweet! After saying bye to them, my parents and I got back on the ship and walked around a little bit. This ship is amazing! It’s pretty much nicer than any hotel or dorm I have ever been in. Yes, the rooms are VERY small and the bathrooms are too but we managed to get everything unpacked and once that is done its really not that bad. It’s just like moving into your dorm freshman year and thinking that was small (only smaller ha-ha). Of course when I was saying goodbye to my parents I cried, but everyone knew that that was going to happen. Once all the parents were back off the ship, we had a mandatory lifeboat drill. I am in B4 and luckily Ananda is in the same lifeboat as me if anything were to ever happen. We’re just going to hope that whenever we have these drills, they are exactly that, drills! We had to stand up on the 5th deck next to our lifeboat for about 45 minutes while the crew member called our names to make sure we were all there. We then had to stand there and wait for the captain and some of his crew members to walk through and check to make sure that we were all quiet and we were all wearing the appropriate clothes. Finally after about an hour, we go to go back inside. FINALLLY we were about to set sail away from Nassau!! It was very exciting watching the dock lines get lowered down and into the back of the ship! We got to wave goodbye to all of the parents that were standing on the dock! Luckily my mom wasn’t the only one that ran off the dock and dove into the water to start swimming after the ship! Haha just kiddinnng! Love you mom!! Actually all the parents moved to the end of the dock when the ship was heading that way so we could wave to each other for just a little bit longer! And no, no one actually jumped into the water and started swimming after the ship! That really would have been pretty funny though as long as it wasn’t one of my parents! Some parents had signs saying bye to their kids and others were just screaming and yelling and LOTS of parents were crying! And that was it; we were off into the open water for the next two days until Puerto Rico! I ate dinner on the back deck and watched the first sunsets of many!! We started right away with meetings after dinner. Ananda and I went to bed pretty early that night since it was such a long night! Falling asleep to the ship rocking is very peaceful and I could definitely see getting used to it. Thursday we woke up early and went to the gym, ate breakfast, and showered all before 9! We had our first meeting in the Union room (the classroom where all the students go every morning at sea for the Global Studies). Since it is in the front of the ship it rocks A LOT! I can honestly say that this was the first time I ever felt seasick. It was a room towards the front of the boat with no fresh air that was moving all over the place. For all those people that said you can’t feel a big cruise ship like this one when it rocks, you guys were wrong! I had to leave the room and go and get the wrist bands AND take sea sickness meds. No worries though, I didn’t throw up like many other people on board! The boat rocking however makes for some pretty interesting run ins with other people. No one walks in straight lines; people fall and walk into walls all the time! So I had Charlie’s SKYLEMAR sweatshirt on and some kid came up to me and asked where I got it! So I told him my brother worked there for the past two years and he asked who. I told him Charlie Domenie and after a sort of awkward look I said Chuck Domenie and he knew exactly who I was talking about! His name was Dan (I think) but I didn’t get much more information since he approached me while I was feeling horrible and just trying to concentrate on not puking everywhere! After the meeting I actually came back to the room and fell asleep for almost two hours. It made me feel better but then we just had to go sit through more and more meetings. It was pretty torturous. At around 5ish that day we got a break until dinner and then more meetings at 8pm (actually 2000 o’clock since this ship runs on military time- that has a lot of getting used to to do!). We took the picture off our wall to see what previous voyagers had written on the back. We were hearing some pretty crazy stories about what was on the back of the pictures, but our notes were pretty boring. They were just about how to have a blast and take lots and lots of pictures, etc. Other people definitely got more interesting notes behind their pictures!
The food isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be but I can definitely see how it will get old really fast. I can see how it is going to be the same thing over and over. Lots of salad and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Breakfast is the best.
We started classes today (Friday) and they weren’t that bad…the global studies class is definitely going to be hard to stay awake. The boat rocking plus comfy chairs plus a boring professor really makes it easy to fall asleep. My weather class and my philosophy classes are pretty interesting also. Thank you so much mom and dad for giving me this amazing opportunity! I haven’t even been to the first port and I already absolutely LOVE it (minus the seasick part)! I’m sure I will be much more excited after Puerto Rico! This weather is awesome too! I love it and I don’t miss the snow in New Hampshire yet! I do miss the people though!!! Alright like I said ill keep you updated I MISS YOU ALL and LOVE YOUUUU!!!!

Loveee,
Lucyyy <3

help!

The part that I copied and pasted got a little cut off on the previous post. The suggested airmail date for Mauritius is February 16th and for India it is February 26th!

It's Real!!!!

Well....its slowly beginning to hit me that two weeks from tomorrow im leaving for around the world!! Packing has been pretty non existent up until this point and all of a sudden it seems very overwhelming. But obviously necessary. For those of you that don't know what I am doing, I am going around the world on a cruise ship called the MV Explorer with 700 other college students. I am taking four classes on the boat including global studies, world religions, poetry writing, and weather climate & society. We are beginning our trip in the Bahamas and traveling to Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Hawaii, Costa Rica (through the Panama Canal) and finally arriving on May 9th in Miami! I will not have my cell phone or any phone for that matter while I am away for the next 31/2 months. If you want to contact me, you can leave me a comment on here or send me an email just be aware that if you leave a comment on here ANYONE and EVERYONE will be able to read it. So if its important or you dont want the world to know send me an email. It might take me longer to get back to you, but i will! My email is lucy.domenie@gmail.com. If you want to send anything to me while I am gone (cards, letters, pictures, etc) you can follow the information below:

Lucy Domenie
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date
Port Agent Address


arrival dates: Puerto Rico= Jan 26, Brazil=Feb 5, South Africa=Feb 19, Mauritius=Mar 1, India=Mar 11, Malaysia=Mar 19, Vietnam=Mar 27, Hong Kong=Apr 3, China=Apr 7, Japan=Apr 11, Hawaii=Apr 22, Costa Rica=May 3, Miami=May 9!!!!!!!

PORT	ADDRESS OF PORT AGENT	SUGGESTED AIRMAIL DATE
San Juan, PUERTO RICO Phone: 1 787 982 8888 Fax: 1 787 982 8890	Cruise Plus Service & Sales 1760 Fernandez Juncos Avenue San Juan, PUERTO RICO, 00909	January 12
Salvador, BRAZIL Phone: 55 71 3241 4990 Fax: 55 71 3243 5633	Oceanus Agencia Maritima Av. Estados Unidos, 555, Room 712 40015-010 Salvador, BAHIA-BRASIL	January 22
Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA Phone: 27 21 419 8660 Fax: 27 21 421 6984	John T. Rennie & Sons PO Box 702, 1 Thibault Square 8000 Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA	February 5
Port Louis, MAURITIUS Phone: 230 202 70 40 Fax: 230 208 5814	Ireland Blyth Limited Shipping Operations Department No 6 Dr Ferriere Street Port Louis, MAURITIUS	February 16
Chennai, INDIA Phone: 91 44 252 12032 Fax: 91 44 252 43813	J.M. Baxi & Co. 3rd Floor, Clive Battery Complex 4 & 4A, Rajaji Salai Chennai 600 001, INDIA	February 26
Penang, MALAYSIA Phone: 60 4 2623 245 Fax: 60 4 2627 989	Inchcape Shipping Services SDN 4th Floor Unit 4B Wisma Saw Chong Thuah 39-c, Pengkalan Weld 10300 Penang, MALAYSIA	March 5
Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM Phone: 84 8 823 1052 Fax: 84 8 824 2996	General Forwarding Agency 5th Floor Osic Building 8 Nguyen Hue Avenue D. 1, Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM	March 13
HONG KONG Phone: 852 2746 7312 Fax: 852 2744 3240	Inchcape Shipping Services (HK) Ltd. Units 1802-1805, 18th Floor No 3 Lockhart Road Wanchai, HONG KONG - CHINA	March 20
Shanghai, CHINA Phone: 86 21 6323 1350 Fax: 86 21 6329 1519	Penavico Shanghai 3/F 13 Zhong Shan Road (E 1) Shanghai 200002, P.R. CHINA	March 24
Kobe, JAPAN Phone: 81 78 391 3046 Fax: 81 78 391 3105	Inchcape Shipping Services (Japan) Ltd. Kenryu Bldg, Room 502 6, Kaigan-dori, Chuo-ku Kobe-shi, Hygo-ken 650-0024, JAPAN	March 28
Honolulu, HAWAII Phone: 1 808 599 8604 Fax: 1 808 599 1950	Inchcape Shipping Services 521 Ala Moana Blvd. Suite 256 Honolulu, HI 96813	April 8
Puntarenas, COSTA RICA Phone: 506 440 2000 Fax: 506 442 8862	R. Smyth & Co S.A. 500 M. Norte del Super Santiago Rio Segundo Alajuela, COSTA RICA	April 26

If you want to visit the website you can go to www.semesteratsea.com and click on the spring 2008 voyage and see more!

Thats all I have for you today, but as the days dwindle down to my departure I am sure I will be writing more!!! I will update as often as I can as I am traveling! Hope you enjoy my blog and following me around the world!!

Love,
Lucy