HELLO FROM THE MV EXPLORER

Hey everyone!

I am sorry I am a couple days behind in posting. I will explain! Here is what I have been up to !

 

Jan 9^th

The day of departure! Such an amazing day, the excitement was high and everyone was so ready to go. I woke up at around 7 am to go downstairs and wait for the bus to bring me to Mexico (where we would meet the ship). The buses ran a tad late, but at around 9 am I boarded the bus and met my first friend Ivana, a girl from Mexico who goes to the University of San Diego! The energy on the bus was high, people talking, introducing and talking about the adventure to come.

                As we rode on the bus along the shore of the pacific we all kept an eye out for our new home: The MV Explorer! Around 11am, as we came around a corner we saw it, sitting in the bay! It looked relatively small, especially because it was sitting next to a carnival cruise line which is literally 3 times the size of this ship. HUGE. Next came security and boarding. Took about an hour to get through security and t hand in the necessary paperwork. I was the first to my room, I have 2 other roommates, both of which are very sweet! Bridget from NH and Kimberly who is from orange county, CA. The room is set up with a set of bunk beds and a twin. I have the twin J. The room is fairly nice, it has a fridge, TV, 2 closets, and five drawers. After a quick lunch I went and explored the ship with Ivana, came back and met Bridget and spent a good chunk of time just walking around the ship. I decided to try and get internet working but failed. We then had a lifeboat drill, which meant everyone getting a lifejacket on and standing in lines and being prepared in case we ever had to actually get off the boar. After trying a few times, they made the announcement that we were about to leave the port and for everyone that is not sailing to get off. So with that I went out to the back to watch the ship take off! Everyone was out on the deck and we cheered as the engine roared and we began moving. We sat outside for a while and enjoyed the breeze and watched as Mexico disappeared.

                Next came the welcoming ceremony, which crammed most of the ship in 3 rooms to hear a speaker welcome us, introduce teachers and Desmond Tutu our guest aboard the ship! He asked we call him Father, stood up, everyone gave him a standing applause and then he left to head to his room. They didn’t take too long to welcome us since the next day we had 12 hours of orientation to get through. I headed back to my room, me and my roommates unpacked and unpacked and then we headed to dinner. Dinner is buffet style, usually pasta, salad and meat of fish. We sat down with some other students and talked. We stayed long enough that another group of students came by, we each introduced ourselves and then stated an interesting fact. It seemed as though almost everyone had something really cool to say. The first girl to introduce herself set the bar pretty high. Her father takes in inventers and tried to get their products on the market. Her dads  company has the rights to pillow pets! She also told us that she writes the poems for inside the tags of pillow pets. The next guy to introduce himself is a YouTube partner, has over 30,000 followers on his channel and gets paid for the advertisements on his channel. Another girl is a singer and Tyler who is friends with Bridget said he has 2 adapted Asian siblings. After dinner we finished unpacking and headed to bed early because we all weren’t feeling too hot.

 

Jan 10^th

 

Sleep was better than expected on a rocking ship, out room is by the engine so it’s like sleeping on a plane, a constant load noise. I still didn’t feel too great though by the next day, but we headed to orientation, which was just sitting in a room and watching a TV of a man speaking. I fell asleep because I started to feel sick. I skipped lunch and went back to bed to try and feel better. I learned the hard way that I should have taken medication or have brought a sea sickness patch. I have hand bands that are supposed to help, but so far not too much luck. My day wasn’t too exciting, mostly sleeping. I did go to dinner and tried to eat with not too much luck. After spending about an hour outside on the deck with friends after I began to feel better. The cold, wind and fresh air does wonders to sea sickness. I finally headed over to IT which was an hour wait and got my email working.

                I shoot a quick email to mom and dad and went to bed fairly early.

 

Jan 11^th

 

Today I woke up feeling a tad better. I took a shower, did some laundry in the sink and now I am outside on the deck blogging because inside it Is much more rocky and harder to concentrate. I will post later again if something interesting happens. Today is the first day of classes so who knows!

 

Love

Casey