Ship Life 101: 14 daze at Sea

I recently realized a huge part of this experience is life on board the MV and I have not really documented anything about that – besides my great pleasure at finding it the last days of port.  So, during these 14 days at sea – which have so far been incredibly and surprisingly fun- I figured I’d give you a little insight into what makes Semester at Sea so special.

Typical Day on the MV

Every day is a bit different, but they generally consist of a few activities – as there are not endless possibilities on an 8-floor cruise ship.

Working Out:  The fitness room is small – 2 treadmills, 2 Stairmasters, a few ellipticals and some bikes – we have to sign up to use the machines a day ahead and we are technically only allowed 30 minutes on a machine.  I never sign up and just go for the mystery box workout- taking whatever machine is open.  Although sometimes running on a treadmill while there are 15 degree waves is not the best idea if you are worried about personal safety.  Other times I do fitness workout movies with friends.  I workout almost every day – as long as I still have clean clothes.  We also have an area of free weights on 7^th deck (Top Deck) that are decent as well.

These are shots of the Fitness Room and top deck weights.

Playing Soccer/Volleyball/Basketball:  I really just play soccer.  We have a SAS FC -Semester at Sea Football Club – that organized a 3 on 3 World Cup for the 14 days and my team, Yugoslavia, is currently top in our group!  The court is small, but games are really tiring because they are so fast paced.

Here’s a shot of our court:

Laying out:  This comprises the majority of my free time and maybe some class time…. Sorry mom!.. but this is one of the most amazing parts of the ship.  Here it is entirely acceptable to pull on a dress over your bikini and head downstairs for your hour of class, then come back up outside to your chair where you left all of your stuff.  The SAS dress code is basically as long as you’re mostly clothed, its good.  Makeup is optional, sweats are encouraged and slippers are more than appropriate.

This is a typical school day for us.

Games: We can checkout various cards and board games from the activities desk and a number of kids brought Cards Against Humanity.  Though, I’d recommend not playing Cards Against Humanity every single day because it gets old really quickly and you start to memorize the cards. Insider tip: they have an entire set of poker chips at the Activities Desk.  Although if you don’t like loosing money, I wouldn’t advise that as some kids are pretty serious about Hold ‘Em.

This is the Piano Lounge, where we hang out whenever it’s not warm enough to be outside.

Eating:  The best praise we give a meal is “This isn’t horrible.”  I think that should give you a general idea about the quality of food.  If you love pasta, starches, potatoes and mystery meat – then you’d feel right at home eating on board the MV.  I’ve started to view Balsamic, Tabasco, and A1 as food groups.  Sometimes for a change of pace, I buy food at the Top Deck bar, which is actually decent, but that can add up really fast.  Sorry wallet.

 

Our dining halls… rough life I know.

Snack Bar: I tend to hang out at the snack bar by the piano lounge, because I made friends with the crew when I had all my dock time.  It’s great to know the crew because they are really cool and can hook you up with certain things.  Sometimes I even get free hot chocolate!  ALSO: Snack Time at 10:00pm is a daily staple, as staying full with the horrid food is difficult.  Never underestimate a good PB&J sandwich.  Although I am not sure if I will ever be able to eat one again after this.

 

Hard Drive Sex: Exactly what you’re thinking.  Well… maybe not actually.  Movies and TV shows are a currency on the ship.  If you have a hard drive filled with good films, your value to the shipboard community goes up exponentially.  Who knows? It could even help you find SAS love.  Bringing ample supply is quite recommended.

Work:  I am a work-study student, so I have 2hr daily shifts in our computer lab doing IT Desk duty.  For the first few shifts, this entailed setting up people’s emails, but now it mostly is a mandatory study hour and social time.  It’s quite a chill job and I’d definitely recommend applying for it if possible to future SASers!

 

Oh and I almost forgot: Class! For that, I’d recommend downloading some iBooks – I have all of Harry Potter – or the game Peggle, which is the latest craze for students to pass time in class.  Classes are really hit or miss on the ship. Some professors require unreasonable amounts of work and some don’t give any.  No one really knows until the semester is underway.  Mine are right in the middle.  The hardest part is making myself go and actually doing the readings.

 

We also have loads of activities and events:

Movies & World Cafes:  Every night in the Union, which is the main theater/meeting room, there are ship-wide movie screenings and various talks about current events, interesting ideas, new ways of thinking, and unique cultures.

Neptune Day: When we cross the equator there is a huge celebration.  It’s totally a mystery though.  I’ll keep you posted on that – its tomorrow!

Halloween: Everyone dressed up in surprisingly clever costumes and we had a Halloween dance.  Unfortunately, it isn’t your typical raucous Halloween college party because students are limited on the amount of alcohol they can buy per night.  To combat this, a number of kids started hording wine in their water bottles so they could get a buzz going for Halloween.  Honestly I would say it wouldn’t be worth it because the dance was an hour and a half and there was no room to dance, but whatever floats your boat – hehe get it?

Friends and me on Halloween in our typical dysfunctional fashion.  I was riffraff… the rapper.  Yeah we didn’t have many resources stuck on a ship in the Atlantic, so I went with what I had.

Another thing we have to look forward to after Brazil is the Sea Olympics!  This is a day wide competition between halls with tons of invents including: hula hoop contest, tug of war, knockout, twister, relays, and much, much more.  I got elected to be a Captain of my sea (halls = seas) so I have been already working on our plan of attack with my co-captains.  Spoiler Alert: we are planning on winning.

So that’s a little insight into some of the activities that take up my time onboard the MV.  It doesn’t seem like much, but I love every minute.  One of the best parts is really just the amount of time I get to spend with all of my friends.  I found some amazing people on the ship and I keep meeting more every day.  We stay up way to late talking for no reason and find silly ways to occupy our time.  On the ship, we have danced in the rain, played improve games, made music, gambled, learned origami, played mafia, slept under the stars, stated clubs, held grape eating contests and many, many other things.  Some people on board complain about boredom, but my parents always told me “smart people never get bored,” (to which I always responded – “Well I guess I’m dumb”) But I thus developed the ability to continually find ways to entertain myself and everyone else seems to have done the same.

After all, we’re all in the same boat here.  🙂

The port that wasn’t: Ireland

Well long story short, I did not get to spend as much time in Ireland as I originally would have liked. Due to a series of misunderstandings and unfortunate events and maybe a bit of poor judgment on my part, I landed myself with some dock time.

To make this a learning experience for all, don’t skip dock time. Ever. EVER. Even if you think you have moved it…

What even is dock time you ask? Well, let me tell you! It is mandatory on ship time during port stays as punishment for a variety of offenses. You can get dock time for trying to sneak things on the ship, being late to re-board the ship, skipping too many classes, missing Field Labs, basically anything that you really shouldn’t be doing. The lesson here is: you are the rule, not the exception. Unless you are 100% sure you are the exception. Here I most certainly was not. Whoops.

So during my slightly truncated time in the Land of Ire, here’s the scoop.

Highlights:

Trinity College, my very own bar, Guinness Brewery, CHIPOTLE OMG (or its European cousin), Dublin Oktoberfest

The details:

I spent most of my time wandering the city with my friend Matt, exploring small stores, pubs, and seeing the sites. We strolled through Trinity College, but didn’t feel up to spending hours waiting in line to see the Book of Kells, so we just enjoyed the college vibes that I did not realize I had missed from good old SC. I loved the lush green grass quads and towering historic school buildings. For those of you that are unaware, Trinity College is the Harvard of Dublin and another fun tidbit, one of our cab driver’s sons actually just started school there. Yay cabbie. Here’s a shot of the college quad and the line we opted out of

The next stop on our journey was a bar called Kehoe’s aka MY BAR. Here it is in all its glory:

We made a pilgrimage to my namesake (not really) and had a nice chat with the bartender there. He informed us that I pronounce Kehoe wrong and it is actually pronounced Keo, with an alternative spelling being Keögh. So thanks mom and dad for that one. He was actually incredibly kind and told us a couple of stores we should head to for shopping.

Another treat of the day was a quick pit stop in Starbucks for a white girl’s Fall fantasy – pumpkin spice latte. I was ecstatic to learn they make it just as good in Ireland!

As we headed to the Guinness Storehouse, we passed through St Patrick’s Cathedral, which was another beautiful site in Dublin.

Then of course it was off to the mandatory Dublin attraction: The Guinness Storehouse.

It paled a little bit in comparison with the Heineken Experience from Amsterdam, but it was still a good time. We toured five floors exhibiting Ireland’s favorite dark beer and ended up at the best part of the place, the Sky Bar. With 360 degree views of Dublin and a bar with unlimited Guinness, it definitely made up for the less than exciting rest of the museum. Here’s a horrible panorama of the bar and a better shot of just the view.

To satisfy our empty stomachs, we headed to a place that we only knew through other SAS students’ rumors: Tolteca – apparently a mock chipotle. My childish exuberance for any semblance of Chipotle in Europe is rather embarrassing, but Tolteca did not disappoint! Take a look and you can see exactly how similar it is to Chipotle:

I love Tolteca. We actually sat exclaiming our unadulterated joy over having found such a magical place for a good 5 minutes after scarfing our burrito bowls. Also, sorry world for skipping out on Irish cooking – not really my cup of tea anyway.

The last stop during my time in Ireland was a mini Oktoberfest right by the ship. We reunited with a number of friends and tried some other Irish beers, while enjoying a semblance of the festival we missed by about a week in Germany.

Overall Ireland was short and sweet, but still a learning experience. I just figure that I will have to return to get the full experience and perhaps go to Galway or the Cliffs and explore the nightlife more. Until that day, I can look forward to an almost dock-time free Portugal and Spain!

This is Keögh, signing off.

All aboard the MV

As I write, we zoom towards Russia, the first destination of this adventure. In the past 5 days I have learned so much, met hundreds of new people, and enjoyed every minute!

It finally feels real, as the ship rolls beneath me and I sit in my newly filled and decorated room, exhausted from my second day of class. I have arrived for my semester at sea and it only gets better from here 🙂

The short:

Friday 22st – Embarkation! Boarding the ship a day early with work study students & going out in Southampton

Saturday 23nd –Working all day for full ship embarkation, opening session

Sunday 24rd – Orientation all day – finding hidden treasure, activity fair

Monday 25th – First day of A day classes

Tuesday 26th – First day of B day classes

The details:

It all felt pretty surreal as I woke up not long before I needed to catch a cab to the airport and head out for the ship. I rushed to cram everything back in my half unpacked suitcases and made my best attempt not to forget anything. I arrived at the Heathrow Hilton quite early and hung out with a number of the students also waiting for shuttle check-in at 12:30. Everyone had great stories to tell and incredibly different backgrounds, so conversation flowed quite easily as we excitedly met the people we’d be living with for the next 4 months. The shuttle to our port in Southampton took about an hour or more – to be honest I had no concept of time because I was so caught up in meeting everyone and talking about where we were all from, what work study we had, where we were over summer, and our plans for various ports. There were around 30-40 students in total, a nice and more intimate group – as we learned the next day when the 600 or so other students joined us.

We got to Southampton, a quaint English town, and arrived at the correct berth shortly after. First we had to get our passports checked, then go through a carry on/backpack security check– similar to TSA – and then on to the gangway to get on board! We could not see the ship until we exited the security building, so a flurry of selfies and photos ensued.

Five floors seemed like a long way to walk up a wiggly gangplank, but I navigated it, gave my SAS ID card – passport for basically anything on the ship – to the security guard to scan and arrived on the MV. I dropped my bags off in my room, 4th floor and quite small, but at least it has a window. I had no roommate yet, so I wandered around the ship with a group of students, exploring every nook and cranny. It felt like a huge ship, though it’s only 8 floors, but it soon became a lot smaller when the rest of the students arrived the day after.

We then attended several orientations for our jobs and I got trained about the IT help desk and computer lab policy. We only have 2 hours of free internet for the entire journey. Yes. The entire journey. 2 hours for 108 days. But we quickly learned several things: 1) the internet is spotty at best 2) there are a number of free sites we can access with the onboard intranet – including our SAS email addresses, but no facebook 3) that is part of the fun.

After blowing though my internet time pretty quickly and accomplishing next to nothing due to slow loading times, I realized I can get by quite fine without it – minus Greys Anatomy, RIP Netflix. On SAS we are all in the same boat, literally, and part of this adventure is figuring out how to get along and entertain ourselves without the aid of much technology. Yes, we have been playing lots of Cards Against Humanity.

The first night on board, SAS permitted us to get off the ship and we took Southampton by storm. We had about 20 people going out, so we broke off into smaller groups to tool around to the number of bars on one of the main streets. These small groups were much more ideal for actual conversations and we all made fast friends. I am so glad I got to board early and meet all of those students.

The next day came far too fast and much too early. I woke up around 6:30 to unpack because I had been so busy the day before I ran out of time. I did not want my roommate coming in to my bags exploded all over the room. After breakfast, I congregated with the rest of the IT student workers and we began the process of helping all the newly boarded students configure their emails to the ships intranet servers, honestly, not that strenuous off a task, but people seem to love us. So far I have been called “genius”, “amazing”, “the best” and, my favorite “IT girl”, one guy even asked if he could tip me… but I guess that’s what I get when I apply for a computer lab work-study. The other workers are really great and the work is not too terribly demanding.

Everyone stayed up way too late meeting other people, playing games and talking, so early morning orientation came far too soon. Fortunately, we figured out the orientation was screened in our rooms and hid out with a group of friends to watch it. The afternoon consisted of more orientation information sessions. That evening we had an activity fair and everyone signed up for way too many clubs, myself included. Again, we stayed up until the wee hours playing card games and talking, but it sure helped us meet cool friends.

The next two days consisted of classes, eating, working, and hanging out. We realized just how much free time we were going to have. My classes and my professors are awesome. I even have a professor from USC! Funny how I came all the way over to a completely different country and I still manage to find a class taught by an SC professor.

Tonight was the first night students had drink vouchers. The incredibly long line of students waiting for a 4$ tiny cup (I swear it was 4 oz tops) of wine was pretty entertaining. It seems people were quire desperate for a drink after 4 days cooped up on board the MV, but quickly learned the maximum 3 was not enough to get anyone remotely close to intoxicated. I opted for $1.50 ice cream instead, which I believe was a much better deal and equally as satisfying on the rocky boat. I still get disoriented when the ship sways a bit too much for my liking or I realize how fast we are moving across the water.

Today we also traversed the Kiel Canal (pictured above), so we saw lots of Danish and German countryside and several tourists waving at us. We’ve traveled over 400 nautical miles so far! I will try to upload pictures with this post, but again – the wifi situation is a doozy. Four more days at sea until our first stop – Russia! I’ll post in a bit about plans and some interesting insider tidbits about the ship. Time for bed now. Goodnight world.