Welcome aboard!

I thought leaving home for college was nerve-racking/exciting, that seems like a whole different level than the experience I had today. We registered and boarded the ship at 9am this morning. We were greeted and showed to our rooms and had about an hour to explore before our work study meeting. After we went through the overall expectations and such, we were introduced to our bosses and co-workers.

After getting acquainted, we had some free time and then prepared for the parent's reception which consisted of speakers who basically said, "Don't worry. For the next two months your kids are in great hands. They're going to have the time of their life and learn a whole bunch."

The ship is amazing and we're anticipating a great voyage. One of the very few downsides, though, is that we are allotted a mere 2 hours total of free internet time. And I don't mean to complain, well, maybe I do. But do they not realize that's equivalent to a whole two minutes a day? Any student in our generation who can limit themselves to that amount is either very efficient or has not yet succumb to the internet-crazed society we now live in.

I complain now but I think having limited communication with the outside world may actually be a nice change. It leaves more time for getting to know people on a face-to-face level and forces us to do activities that don't involve our phones, ipods, laptops, and such. It's a positive outlook, something I know I'll need for this experience. I'm excited and I'm ready to embark on this amazing journey. If I haven't thanked my parents yet, I hope they know how grateful I am for them allowing me to have this opportunity!

Oh Canada...

We arrived a day late, but we made it. We're in Halifax, Nova Scotia and it is amazing! It's a small, quiet town, where the people are friendly, the amount of restaurants outweighs the people, and the drinking/gambling age is 19. (Not that, that has any interest to me)

Fortunately, we got in on one of its sunniest days and walked the pier where the view was spectacular. We had lunch at a nice cafe, one of the many that lined the streets, and dinner at a restaurant/bar across the street named The Keg. The food and drinks here are so tasty!

Although we're enjoying the town, we had to go shopping and pack for my big day tomorrow, boarding the ship I'll be living on for the next 67 days.

Journey to the East Coast

It was a five hour flight from California to New York. After having slept for about an hour and a half, I awoke to the, very hard-to-ignore, flashes of lighning out, not my window, but the woman behind me's window. Apparently, she didn't mind allowing the other passengers to become aware of the uncomforting weather right below us. I attempted to fall asleep and met success after an hour or so passed. We reached New York at 8am only to find that our flight to Nova Scotia had been cancelled due to weather. What now? Well, we ventured to the city, found a hotel nearby, which was actually pretty nice, and then figured out what to do during my one day here.

We decided to take a night tour where we bused through Manhattan, Brooklyn, SoHo, Times Square, Greenwich Valley, Rockefeller, China Town, and more. Our sightseeing was accompanied by a very knowledgable, yet sometimes odd, tour guide, who insisted on commenting on every building's architecture, regardless of the fact that we had seen 50 made of the same thing. Aside from that, the tour was a great way to get a glimpse of a little bit of everything.