"Through travel I first became aware of the outside world." -Eudora Welty

I am now writing from the MV Explorer, straight from the bumpy bunk bed of my cabin! The past few days have been filled with introductions and orientations, greetings and meetings, and unfortunately, an undesirable amount of fog. But all is well, despite the occasional queasiness (which I’m determined to believe is a result of my own mind thinking I should feel sick rather than the sea actually causing it). With that said, I still wear my sea wrist bands proudly and I am actually thinking of seeking out some ginger. I suppose I should start from the start, when I first embarked on Sunday. Upon entering the ship, I was a tad taken off guard by everything…it seemed like a maze getting to my room! I must confess, when I opened the door to the cabin, I was shocked by the small size of the super economy triple I had signed up for. Compared to the normal rooms, our cabin is pretty tiny (and also much closer to the front of the ship…not good for seasickness). However, now that we’ve been settled for a couple of days, the room has taken on somewhat of a cozy feel…and personally, I think it’s kind of romantic in a sense to have a smaller room. There’s something wonderful about living in a bit austere and plain quarters when most everyone else has nicer rooms. More than that, it feels more adventurous and exciting to be in a setting that is not very luxurious, like staying in a hostel versus a hotel. More liberating, I think.
So after I got settled in, my lovely mother came on the ship for visiting hours and we walked around, observing as much as we could. After she left (and made her long journey back to Addison, Maine…thank you again for coming ! J ) we had a lifeboat drill which was kind of dull….as most drills tend to be. What else did we do? It’s kind of hard to remember…so many things have happened. Oh yes, my roommate Helena reminds me (isn’t that funny…we basically have the same name) that when we finally departed everyone went outside on the decks to wave to, well…random people in Halifax I suppose…actually, it was probably some parents who stayed behind for an extra two hours (we departed late). But by the time I got out, there was only some sailboats to wave to. Afterwards we all had an orientation in the union, which is the main auditorium in the ship (also where the mandatory Global studies course takes place) and then a “seas”orientation…I’m in the “yellow seas.”To my understanding, this will be important when we have sea olympics, basically a big competition between all the seas. The first night was pretty difficult to get to sleep…there was a lot of vibrations and I had trouble getting used to that. Yesterday the entire day was filled with more orientations, whether it was about the field office, safety on the ship, or our global studies course, among other things. All in all, a pretty monotonous day, but necessary. Today was the day I had been looking forward to…the first day of classes! I had global studies this morning as well as ritual and belief, and then women in cross cultural perspectives in the afternoon. My professor for both anthropology courses did her fieldwork in India which is perfect! Overall, I enjoyed the classes…there is a lot of reading, but it gives me something to do (there isn’t much on the ship). The food is good…but I’ve taken on some new eating habits…similar to being a vegan…so I’m in a way limiting myself to what’s available. We just found out that we’re allowed to go to Sweden and Serbia as well (and we had found out earlier that we’ll be allowed to go to the Netherlands and Luxembourg) so that pretty much made my day yesterday. So nice! I can’t wait until we cross this Atlantic…we’ll be in Norway in a week. We’ve already moved two hours ahead of Eastern time, and tonight we’re moving ahead a third. I bet now that classes have started things will go quickly. And we have Saturday off…so happy about that!!! I hope the sun comes out soon, we haven’t been seeing her for the past couple days. Well, that’s it for now, I’m off to dinner soon. Talk soon!
-your maritime maiden Elena