Greetings from the MV Explorer!!

I am ON THE SHIP!!! Everything is so crazy here! I met up with Matt (he had
gone to dinner & Senor Frogs with us on our last night in the Bahamas) and his parents the morning of the 12th, and we took a cab together to the ship. His family is from Truckee in Northern California, and they were so nice and helpful on our last day in the Bahamas. They wouldn't let me help pay for the cab, and Mr. Hardy carried some of my luggage all the way to the ship with me (there's a LOT of it). Catherine was working outside, so she came over a couple times while we were waiting in line and took pictures with us. It took about 35 minutes to get through the security line, and when we got out of the building the ship was right in front of us. I took video and pictures of us walking up to the ship. Ok, so somehow I ended up in a huge room on the third floor! I definitely paid for a room on economy or 2nd, so I'm not quite sure why I got it but it's so nice! The room is meant to be for three people, but there are only two of us so we have lots of space. I ate lunch with a couple of guys who live by me, and my roommate came a little after lunch. Her name is Sara and she's from Dallas, Texas and is really nice. Catherine met with the head nurse, and told her about me going into nursing after graduation. She's an ICU nurse at UCLA, and wants me to be introduced to her and I am SO excited. I guess she told Catherine it's too late for me to do work study, but that I might get to do things in ports or something along those lines.

Leaving the port in the Bahamas was so much fun. The parents were going wild down below, and some even ran along the side of the ship as we started moving. I have pictures and video, but I can't send those through the internet so you'll have to wait until I get into a port that has wifi.

The past two days have been filled with orientation meetings. They have been long and pretty brutal. I got seasick last night, but had ginger ale and felt a lot better by the time I went to sleep. We have different activities we do on the ship. The students and passengers are all divided up equally into different seas. Catherine and I are both in the Caribbean Sea. There's a Sea Olympics halfway through the voyage that we'll participate in, and we make cheers and do other fun things together. We were also divided into small groups of about ten people that we will meet with every once in a while and talk about experiences in ports. We have a professor, a field trip coordinator and a lifelong learner leading our group.

We arrive in Dominica on Sunday the 16th, a lot sooner than I thought. I'm excited to start getting into the regular schedule tomorrow. I have Global Studies tomorrow from 9:20-10:35, and then I'm done for the day. So much has happened since we got on the ship, and I'm probably forgetting to write a lot of it, but I'll update soon-

Miss all of you~
Bridget