So it is day 2 aboard the MV Explorer, although it feels like its been weeks already. Dana and I thoroughly enjoyed our short time in the Bahamas and I managed to sneak aboard the ship during registration with her for last names A-C, allowing us to maneuver the system successfully enough that we did not have to carry our own luggage for more than a few inches. We had more mandatory orientation meetings on the ship today, and I almost made it to all of them, but was not so successful at staying awake during each…. Dana and I even managed to motivate ourselves to get out of bed and keep meeting more new people. Everyone so far is really nice. I also introduced myself to a few of my professors and informed my 8am teacher I am not to be relied upon so early, or really anytime before noon for that matter, and she was very understanding. Our closest friend thus far is Tanya from Toronto, who has struck my fancy simply by her use of the word “eh?” at the end of sentences and her patience with my obsessive desire to whale watch at all times. We were able to watch the Obama inauguration, (also broadcast to our rooms, so of course we enjoyed that from bed), and there was also a little party this evening with cake and champagne. Dinner looked oddly similar to dinner last night, but luckily I discovered we discovered the 7th floor snack bar pizza right after. We met a guy named Jordan who is a college recruiter from Atlanta but has actually been to Villa a bunch for recruiting, he even referred to it as “vdoh”. Small world. But the staff- faculty and ship crew- thus far are all incredibly friendly and are proving to have a wealth of knowledge and stories: we talked to Edu at the snack bar for quite some time- this is his 21st voyage and he even has a wife and 5 kids at home in the Philippines. A lot of faculty brought family, one teacher has his two little girls with him who are ADORABLE, and I keep catching Dana eyeing the 10 month old rather longingly . . .
Tomorrow will be our first day of classes. I’ve already officially lost track of the time and day and seeing as we have to set our clocks forward for like the next 5 nights in a row I can only assume that will get worse- although I would like to thank ally vain for inspiring me a few years ago to change my phone to military time, as that has come in rather useful around here. Around noon we had traveled about 400 nautical miles and still had 3,000 to go before reaching our first port, Cadiz. Crazzyyyyy

Things I learned today:
- we are the first voyage to actually circumnavigate the globe in a long time
- Our lovely cabin stewards’ name is pronounced, Roo-ell, NOT Ra-oool. Rouel takes pleasure in turning our cabin temperature as cold as it can go, but does not like it when we remove cabin decorations from our walls… which leads me to my next point
- paintings bigger than you and your roommate combined are much easier to take down then hang back up
- The advice previous SASers write on the back of the paintings in the rooms are not exactly pearls of wisdom. Comments, for example, include: “you WILL get fat”, and “the poor people in India are faking it”
- The snack bar by the pool always seems to be open and ready to cater to my candy cravings- even when other snackbars remain closed so inconsiderately during my times of need
- aside from initially inducing seasickness, the constant rocking and swaying of the boat creates effects similar to those of alcohol and also seems to make us constantly sleepy
- Canada has a prime minister, not a president, (thank you Tanya for teaching me more about Canada in the 2 hours at dinner than my 14 years of schooling has done)
- people get real desperate fast for activities when cooped up on a ship: sing a longs, apples to apples, and catch phrase have already made numerous appearances.
- There is no hope of saving the free internet minutes: we are down to 2 free hours to start with- not even the original generous 4 we had thought.
- unfortunately, not every shadow or wave break seen in the ocean is a whale surfacing.