Night of day 1, day 2, and day 3: karaoke, random phone calls, and meetings.

So basically to sum this up: I'm writing in a journal every single night stuff that I don't write on my blog, so if it takes a few days for me to update, there is no chance in hell that you're actually missing out on any part of this adventure. I heard that if you don't journal, you WILL forget things. So far I've only been here 3 days and I'm already looking back and thinking "When did that happen?" because there's constantly SO much going on.

As of my last update:

night of day 1:
I went and hung out in Sams room for a bit, then we grabbed dinner and got ready to head out to Montreal with Farrah, Jimmy, and Julie. We all left around 20:30 and walked to the metro station which was a few blocks away. on the way we saw a snipper of a real mariachi band singing to someone at dinner, which was awesome. Farrah had never been on public transportation or a real underground train before, so that was exciting for her. We took the metro two stops and walked a few blocks to McKibbons Irish Pub, which is where one of the SAS kids had set up a VIP room for all of us. It was completely packed and most people were already drunk because it started at 18:00 and we didn't arrive until 21:00ish. When Sam and I FINALLY got to the front of the bar, we eac had a jager bomb and then I grabbed a vodka-sprite (shocking, right?) Sam and I shared celebrity status, everyone kept on saying "You're from facebook! You're the girl with the passport!" and other such things, which was really awesome because all of these people who I've never met were telling me how excited they were that everything worked out and that I was here. We mingled for a while and met a bunch of people. At 22:00 karaoke started with Ashvin and someone else doing "Don't Stop Believing" so I of course had to join. Shortly after that Sam and I sang "Proud Mary" because I knew that tomorrow we would, in fact, be rolling on a river. We left the bar around 21:15 and took the metro back, and we wound up meeting some other SAS people in the metro station. When we got back to the ship, Sam and I creeped on this wall that they have that has everyone's photograph, name, major, and college. When we went to go to bed, I wound up on the complete wrong side of the ship and I found my way back after about 20 minutes of sheer confusion, because this ship is massive, confusing, and my room isn't even on the map!

Day 2:
Woke up around 6:30 AM to get ready for the day, because we had to be on duty by like 7:15 which was super shitty. Farrah and I left for breakfast around 6:45 and met up with Jimmy, Marek, and a few other people. I didn't eat much because breakfast makes me sick and I was just so fucking excited.

People started boarding at 8ish, but I didn't have anything to do until 10, so I hung around and met a few people. I decided to start working at 9 instead, and I just had to make sure everyone had all of their paperwork in and ask them about international cell phone plans. It was pretty boring, but it was nice to meet a bunch of people.

I ran into Ali and we left to go get lunch. We grabbed a big table in hopes that people would join, and they did! I met a bunch of new people, including Evan who I'm madly in love with. he's studying acting at NYU so we're going to be pals. A group of us went exploring around the ship, up to deck seven to see the pool and basketball court and all of those fun things, and as I was exploring I was asked to report back to duty. I was directing people from the staircase to the Union, which is the biggest meeting room that we have on our ship. A pretty large group wound up forming around me and I met a bunch more people. Kevin and I were talking about rooms, and Farrah, Jimmy and I decided to show him what a real economy room looked like. After that, we went over to his room which is on the same deck (because deck 3 is the place to be) We took down the picture to read the tips that past SAS students write on the back, the best one being "don't get bled on by a ghanaian hooker". We all chatted for a bit and then went back out to explore a bit more. A group of us toured each others rooms and I went to hang out with farrah and Causey in his room, which was cool because his room has an actual porthole window.

We left for our room to figure out where to go for the lifeboat emergency drill training. Turns out if there's an emergency, we have to walk up two flights of stairs and go to the complete opposite side of the ship. basically, we're completely fucked. (hi mom!) It was pretty fun though, because we had a sassy old man in our group.

After that, it was time to leave! A bunch of us went up to deck seven to watch the skyline slowly fade. It was amazing to actually begin the voyage. It was so overwhelming to reflect on everything that it took to get here and watch it all disappear. We laid on the lounging chairs for a bit and then headed down to deck six for dinner.

Evan, Andrew, and I sat at a super crowded table outside and met some amazing people. I met someone named Alex who studies film acting at Champman but is originally from San Francisco, and we talked a lot about San Francisco and acting and we discussed potential for films to do while on the ship, which I'm really excited about because Kevin is a director and he brought all of his film equipment.

After dinner, Evan and I went to mingle more and stumbled upon a massive game of apples to apples which Ryan brought. It was super fun! There were so many people who had never played, including some of the life-long learners so it was fun explaining it to them. I won the word "extreme", which is very fitting. This kid Skyler challenged me to know every single persons name in a week, sooooo fingers crossed that happens.

We went to the rails to watch our very first sunset, which was beautiful. I can't wait to be on open ocean and watch it disappear completely into the horizon. We went to the Union for a meeting, where they said a lot of inspirational things about the trip, including ubuntu, which basically means that I'm who I am because of you, and you're who you are because of me. This really resonates with me, because it's something that I've noticed in life and something that I think is so true. We were then introduced to all of our professors. After that, we broke into our "seas", which is kind of like teams or villages, and did introductions and played a few ice breaker games.

After that, I went to Sams room for entertainment and met his room mate, Kevin (there's a lot of people with the same names on this ship...) We have phones in our cabins which we can use to make phone calls to other cabins, so we decided to start dialing random numbers and inviting people over to come hang out. It actually worked! Luke, Woody, and Natasa all came over and we played a few card games including kings in the corner and slaps. Slaps got super intense, as it usually does and Woody was way too good at it. We went to the snack bar so Sam could get something, then we ventured up to the view deck, which was awesome. It was really cold, so Sam and I ran down to grab sweatshirts and while we were down we ran into Ali, Evan, and this other girl who's name I currently can't remember. We went back up and ran into everyone else who we were with leaving, but that was fine, we still went up. There were a few more people there, Emma, Rachel, and Sarah (I think Sarah) and we talked about constellations and other things that prove how close everyone on this ship is going to get. Emma told us "never trust a guy with shorts past his knees", which I thought was really hilarious life advice. We left around 00:15 and I came back to shower, which was absolutely ridiculous because my shower is tiny and the curtain kept on sticking to me.

Day 3:

Woke up at 7:23 because it seemed like a solid time to set an alarm for. We grabbed breakfast at 8 on deck five, which was good because there was a huge rush really quickly after that. Today was relatively boring, we've been pretty much sitting in the Union all day at meetings hearing logistical stuff. We got a two hour break, which I used to take a nap and then have lunch. The second half of our meetings was even more boring, but I saw with Luke and he kept me fairly entertained. We concluded the  meetings by having a meet and greet with our teachers. I AM SO EXCITED TO START CLASSES. My acting teacher runs the Opera house of Cape Town and he's super nice, and for our history of musical theater class he said we're going to be COMPOSING OUR OWN MUSICAL. UMMMMMMM HELLLLOOOOOOOOOOOO LIFE. They're also putting together a play in his acting 1 class to perform in South Africa, which I'm going to try to get in on. I am SO excited.

Now I'm going to call Sam and see what he's up to, and perhaps go get dinner. Either way, it's time to get out of the room and go be social!