Belated Update (s)

The Bahamas!!!

But first, how to reach me: 1. my gmail emails get forwarded to me so emailing me there is fine but my ship email is mupreston@semesteratsea.net make sure you do .NET!!!

Nassau:
I met up with Ali, a friend of a friend, at the airport and we had arranged for all the same flights. Ali is wonderful. We had a really great time flying together, for example we enjoyed Coronas and fries at the Chili's Margarita Bar in Fort Lauderdale and had a really fun time with this weird touch-screen thing that was supposed to take our orders. When we got to the Bahamas, we explored our craaaazy resort. We stayed at the Atlantis in Nassau, which you might want to look up online because it's ridiculous. It's a Disneyland for grown-ups. There are humongous water slides, some of which are pretty much vertical and mayan-ruins decorated. There are also a few where you ride on innertubes through a hallway made up of aquarium walls. The Aquariums (there's also a restaurant/aquarium) house giant (really huge) sting-rays and medium-sized sharks. It's crazy. Ali and I didn't really test the water slides much, we just looked at them. We each put in a dollar at the casino.. that was weird because we didn't know how to use the slot machine. We had several pina coladas and hung out at the beach. It was weird and overwhelming but mostly really pleasant. I would never ever go there again though. Too decadent and tacky.

The second night in the Bahamas we met up with like, hundreds of semester at sea students at a bar/restaurant called Senor Frog's. This place was bizarre. The walls and ceiling were covered in these tacky signs that said sassy things about alcohol like "Alcoholism may be bad, but I sure love the symptoms" or something. Except one wall was open and looked out on the ocean. So that was nice. There was a DJ who would bring people up on the stage and force them to do weird things like gallop like a horse or sing kareoke. Periodically white confetti would spray out, I'm not sure from where (from whence?). At one point, the random people on the stage apparently pleased the DJ by galloping particularly well and the DJ declared that there would be "free shots" for everyone in the bar. Do you know what that meant? It meant everyone made a conga line that wove all around the bar until it got to this guy who had a bottle of fruity alcohol that he would pour into each person's mouth. Even though it was REALLY loud-too loud to really get to know anyone- Ali and I got the names of TONS of people which made it easier when it was time to check in to the boat.

SO. The next day we checked in to the boat! We got there at like 10:00 or so and had to wait in line for over an hour. They put ALL of EVERYONE'S stuff through an x-ray machine and we had to go through two metal detectors... I guess we're pretty safe. We now all have traveler's insurance cards as well as ID cards. The ship is so tremendously gorgeous you wouldn't believe it. If you look online, it's nice, but in real life it BLOWS your mind. I'm not exaggerating. Right now, looking out the window of my room, I see the rolling sparkling Atlantic. And there's a spa on the ship. And a bar. And a swimming pool. You can get incredible massages or facials or manicures or your hair cut or whatever (expensive, of course). I slept SO well last night and it was big-time because of the rocking. My room mate Kendyll described people's movement through the hallways and rooms on the ship as being like those fish that all move in the same direction at the same time without apparently signaling or whatever. The ship rocks and so do we. It's pretty funny.

Speaking of my room mate, she's great. Ali and I have spent a lot of time with her so far. She's from Reno Nevada and she goes to the University of Nevada there. She's a history major and she's an Obama supporter. THAT brings me to my next point:

We just came back to the room after watching the inauguration in the Union (a big amphitheater type room)! It was incredible. I was tearing up as soon as I saw the little sweet Obama babies. Everyone was asked not to log on to the internet during the inauguration because there was barely enough bandwidth to support it. Everyone cheered and celebrated and the whole while we were rocking in the waves. I'm really excited to be traveling in a time when being American is no longer something to be shy and embarrassed about!

Some other tidbits:

I don't have an "RA" but I basically do. She's called a "Living and Learning Coordinator" and she works I think at UC Santa Cruz..? I think.

The food is not bad but not good.

I put up a ton of pictures on my wall as well as some other decorations (like the crazy banner thing from Lexsea). Our room is all moved-in and tidy.

We're not supposed to call our "Voyage" a "Cruise" but the administrators refer to the "dorms" as the "hotel"... Our beds get made for us and our shower is better than my shower at home. AND I only share it with one person!

My bed is pretty durn comfy but not amazing or anything.

We have a TV in our room that gets several channels: an info channel as well as several that play movies all day (I'm not kidding: we watched Black Hawk Down last night).

Classes start tomorrow.

It's warm on the boat in the sun, even when we're traveling.

Ali's room mate is good too but not as good as mine and we're not really that close with her yet.

My asthma is getting much better since I've been using my inhaler.

Our window is quite large.

LOVE,

Martha