Hawaii

Aloha!!

We have safely reached Hawaii. Right now I am sitting at an internet cafe - which sounds lame, so let me tell you how I got here and my trip leading up to now.

The boat is fabulous! It's basically like a hotel...two cafeterias, a lecture hall, many lounges, at least two bars, I think 9 classrooms, tiny little cabins, people who clean your room, etc. I am happy with the age ranges: not only are there 600+ students, there are family members of professors who are toddlers through teenagers, as well as Life Long Learners (LLL) who are generally a bit older. Of these, my LLL buddy is Dave, though I have also met his wife Lynn and another man named Bob. Dave especially likes me, he's a really nice guy. So he's my surrogate grandparent on this trip. The man who cleans my room is Rey, and my 5th floor dining pal is Joe, and my 6th floor dining pal is Perry. And these guys are phenomenal! They're spoiling me. If I so much as stand up to get some more to drink they're immediately like, "Hilary are you ok? What do you need?!" It's so weird and cute! So that's the boat.

My roommate's name is Lauren, she's from Philly and goes to Pitt. We are fairly different but get along fine. No complaints there. It's hard to tell whether we'll become close friends or whether we're just good roommates. A lot of times though just because we don't know anybody else we will go to meals with each other.

At meals, I basically have been sitting with new people every single meal for the past week and I still feel like I see 50 new faces everyday. There are a lot of kids here. And there are a lot of kids whose goal it is to break the rules, drink at every port, sneak alcohol on the boat, etc. It's pretty pathetic. My stereotypical guess is that those are all the greek kids. Maybe not all, but a lot. It's really strange, I do feel like there is a big divide. I don't talk to any of those kids and they don't talk to me. Things got really cliquey really fast. But, although it's been a slower process, the kids I do talk to and that talk to me are the ones that signed up for trips, that aren't trying to get drunk 24/7, and who laughed at the girls in skanky little shirts and 6" heels going up to the bar to try and get trashed on the first night. The length these kids go to...really it's pretty pathetic and desperate. They'll buy waterbottles, empty them, put alcohol in it. They'll put alchohol containers in empty pringles boxes or hairspray bottles. I've heard of duck taping alcohol to peoples' thighs. Today I heard of somebody putting alcohol in plastic baggies and stuffing it in their bras. ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! Apparently.

Anyway...I found both people that my friends back home told me to find. They're nice but we don't hang out all the time. I definitely don't have a group yet. I have met a number of nice people but I'm trying to keep meeting new people.

OK classes - I am taking Global Studies, Leadership Development, Intro to Comparative Politics, and Cross Cultural Perspectives on the Family. Global Studies is general info about the places we go to. LD is...kind of weird so far. I'm doing a project for that class trying to set up a business networking atmosphere among the SAS alumni. That's the general idea, not too many other details are worked out yet, but the teacher approved the idea, and I presented it to the LLL, and Dave is going to be my "project buddy/mentor"! Politics, I'm worried about...he takes it as a given that we keep up with global politics so...I'm going to learn a lot in that class!! And the psychology class about families should be awesome, I'm hoping. The teachers have worked hard on the curriculum and they're so excited to be here and to teach us! So I'm hoping classes will be good.

I didn't get sea sick at all this last week until I took off my sea sickness patch Friday and started feeling slightly queasy Saturday afternoon. They say the water is going to be 10 times worse between here and Japan though - so I'm terrified!!! Hopefully it will be ok.

Food is good! No complaints there. Plus, every night at 10 we get free snacks!

I've been working out every day on the ship - I'm super proud of myself about that. It feels great.

I'm also going to participate in a program called Vicarious Voyage where I am basically in a team with two other people from Washington and we are pen pals with a 6/7 grade class in Canada. That should be cool!

The ship physican is hilarious...here are some quotes:
"Today at lunch somebody asked me what to do for a sunburn. I said, Flick it. Then Flick it some more and then maybe you'll wear sunscreen next time." ... and,
"Make sure to get your prescriptions filled in Honolulu...I imagine getting birth control will be pretty important for some of you, seeing as to how many of my condoms are missing..."
hahaha so she's pretty blunt with us and is good and making all the stupid or loose people feel stupid or loose. So that's some good entertainment.
One lady on ship sings to us before we get to ports sometimes, that was fun!
Before we got to Hawaii, a guy from Hawaii did a Hawaiian dance for us that was amazing!!! And the music was great.
And one night we listened to / sang along to the national anthems for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. So lots of fun little things going on here and there.

I only have 87 cents left at this internet cafe.

Oh yeah, so this morning I went snorkeling, but the cool animals that I saw were all when I was out of the water! Before we got in, I saw a giant turtle the size of my torso!! While I was in the water I saw some fishies that were cute. The water was suuuper salty, and also beautiful and kind of warm. Then we all got on the little tourist boat for lunch and we saw like a whole herd of probably 10 dolphins just swim on by!! So cute!!

I just met some new people on that snorkeling trip cuz I wasn't feeling settled with the other people I'd met. They're really nice, and I'm with a couple of them now. We're all internet-ing, and then we're gonna find some Hawaiian dinner and take a taxi back to the boat.

So anyway, in the future, I will write out these posts before hand and then sign on to the internet and copy paste, because I thought I had 400 free minutes on ship, but I have 250!!! THAT IS NOTHING! So yeah and the internet is really slow cuz so many people are always trying to get on.

Look for another update after Japan, we'll be crossing the Pacific for I think 9 days, so maybe look for an update in a couple of weeks. Thanks for reading, I miss you all!

Love,
Hilary