Hello from Sea!

Day 5 on the ship and everything is great!
I started off in the Bahamas for 2 days, which were absolutely great. The weather was amazing, and we met LOTS of other Semester at Sea kids everywhere from the flight down there to the check in at the hotel, to Subway for lunch…we were flocking throughout Nassau. I flew down with Ben, a good friend who also goes to Ithaca, and we met up with another Ithaca student and some other students we were staying with at the hotel. We spent lots of time at the Atlantis and at the beach, and it really was great. Friday was boarding day- which was HOT and LONG. We got on line at 11am I think and didn’t get settled on the ship until about 2 or 3pm. I met my roommate, Dani, who is from the LA area in California and she is great! We get along really well and she is lots of fun, so it is definitely working out. The first two days were orientation meetings and safety drills, and just getting to know everyone on the ship and getting used to sea life. It was a little rough at first because we had to go 75 miles off course to avoid Hurricane Gustav, and in the process got a little caught up in Tropical Storm Hannah. Then we had to go really fast during the night to make up time, so the ship was ROCKING. Lots of sick people for a few days, luckily not me! I have been doing fine with the motion, thankfully! Today is day 3 of classes, and I am already LOADED with work. They expect a lot from us since there aren’t many distractions while on the ship. We are on a two day alternating schedule, so I have one class on Day A, and 3 classes on Day B. My glasses are Global Studies: The Rise of New Great Powers (required class), Survey of World Music, Philosophy of Love, Sex & Friendship, and Race & Ethnicity. They are all very interesting, and tailored towards the different countries that we will be going to. The sociology class will definitely be the most work, but I am really interested in the class material and I think it will be worth it. I have also gotten involved in planning the Sea Olympics…which is a day long event with all the members on the ship. The different decks are divided into seas, and there are a total of 11 seas. I am in the Red Sea, so it is the back starboard side of the 4th deck. It should be a lot of fun, and we will be meeting every other night since it is only in a few weeks! I also am part of the Bible Study group on board…as well as Students for Service, which organizes service projects both on the ship and at port. Also, along with every class, we have to do 3 FDPs (Faculty Directed Practicums) which are trips in each port that relate to our class, such as going to museums, friendship centers, musical performances, etc. I have one scheduled for Brazil, but more importantly, I have a 3 day trip to the Amazon planned! There are 13 of us in the group and we are extremely excited to get there and get started!!
Right now we are somewhat near Venezuela, and we will be crossing the Equator on Friday. Then we port in Salvador, Brazil on Sunday morning!
The weather has been pretty good, when going up to the 7th deck, you would never know we take classes here because everyone is in the pool swimming and just laying out enjoying the sunshine…but we do get our work done! We are still waiting for a good sunset…the clouds have been heavy, but I’m sure we’ll see our fair share…
OH AND EXCITING NEWS: I have free email!!! The account is: aetempleton@semesteratsea.net, but I have my gmail and Ithaca mail forwarded to my account, so arianne.templeton@gmail.com and atemple1@ithaca.edu also work. We only have 120 minutes of actual internet time, but we have free resource sites that are available to us, so we are dealing. OK I think that’s all for now. EMAIL ME!!