Clear Skies

It has now been 5 days on the ship. On Sunday we stopped at Puerto Rico for most of the day so the ship could refuel. We weren’t allowed to get of the ship though. Sunday was also our first day of class. I am already losing track of the days of the week since we don’t go to class on a Monday – Friday schedule. We just have “A” days and “B” days that alternate while we are at sea. There are a total of 46 class days for our 108-day trip – pretty awesome.

These are the classes I’m taking:
Global Studies – Religion, Politics, and Societies around the world
Plants and People – Explorations in Ethnobotany
Women’s Studies – Sexualities in a Global Context
Women’s Studies – Gender and the Global Economy
Literature – The Nobels (examining literature written by Nobel Prize winning authors from the ports we will visit)

It’s kind of a heavy course load considering this is my semester abroad, but I have until October to drop a class if need be.

Last night Emma and I had dinner outside on the 6th deck, in beautiful weather, as the sun was setting, while we sailed past Barbados. It’s so incredible to have day-to-day experiences that are so special like that. Just about every day we’ve been at sea has been beautiful for laying out and reading on the deck. And I have a ton of reading.

I haven’t met anyone else from Atlanta yet, which is kinda cool. At Wake Forest there are tons of Atlantans, but here the vast majority is from California and Colorado. On the flip side there are a million “Allisons.” Papi – you will be happy to know that 74% of the students on this trip are females.

Tonight we have a little party/reception thing for our “sea.” Each hall is divided into sections with a leader, much like living in a dorm and having an RA, and given the name of a sea. I am part of the Adriatic. Later in the semester we will have the Sea Olympics. I’m pretty excited for that.

Other News – my new email address is ALFuster@semesteratsea.net
Internet on the ship is only free for the first 125 minutes, so they gave us these new email addresses that do not count towards that time.

And Happy Birthday Courtney !!!! (tomorrow)