1 Week In 1 Post

We left San Diego by bus and drove to Ensenada, Mexico. When we arrived at port the ship was breath-taking! I still can't believe this is where I live and go to school. My roommate Emily is from Boston, a sophomore at Chapman, and she is the sweetest girl! We're in cabin 4136, on the fourth floor. Every other morning we do sunrise yoga with a good group of people outside on deck 7. I've realized that showering, reading, and working out are extremely difficult to do on a rocking boat but I'm starting to get the hang of it!

Fun fact: Google Semester at Sea in '05. There are videos of a 50ft wave crashing through the front of the boat and breaking all of the windows. Evidently, they even used their radio to say they were going down! Right as I learned this, there was an announcement that we would be hitting rough water the next day. Not what you want to tell a girl who's biggest nightmare is the ship sinking! haha Come hell and high water, eh? We were sitting on chairs up on deck 6 and the waves hitting the boat would rock it to the point of sliding on our chairs from one side of the deck towards the other. They closed the top and front deck because of high winds. Apparently the worst part is from Hawaii to Japan, its a two week stretch of high water that can get three times larger than that! Tylenol PM will definitely be on my side.

On a better note, living on ship is like a dream. After class, everyone goes to lay out on the pool deck. Some people read, listen to music, workout on deck, or journal. Its easy to forget that this is also school for us because its more like paradise! The people I've met are unforgettable, and this trip has only just begun!

I'm finally in Hawaii! We woke up early and watched the ship pull into port, while the sun was rising and our friend Brennan played ukelele! It was perfect. Today we went to Rainbow Falls, the local farmers market, ocean sushi (the best sushi I've ever had) and Black Sand Beach where I swam with enormous turtles!  It was an amazing and beautiful day (:

I also won't be able to post until Japan in two weeks, so check back after that!