Last night Dad came aboard for the Parent Reception. He got to meet Dr. Strenecky and listened to a presentation from the Dean and Captain. Afterward, we ran to the local grocery store so I could grab some food because I missed dinner because I was helping checking in parents for the reception. I grabbed some lunchables and headed back to the ship. I spent my first night on the ship! I slept like a rock. I was exhausted. It was only about 10:30 but I was out.
I woke this morning at 6:15. I was expecting have a nice hot shower, but it wasn’t – it was freezing! What a lovely way to start the day. I made it to the union by 7 and got my assignment for checking in. I was told to go outside and help give out luggage tags, which go on the bags students check through security so that they end up at the right cabin. I started out going up and down the line, but that took to long so I went back to my table. Then the lines were getting out of hand because SAS decided to post what letters were in what line except for on the front of the table, which seemed a little pointless to me. So I ended up checking last names and directing people to the correct line. Before I knew it the Disney point came back and I felt like I was back there trying to line up little kids who had no idea what was going on.
Dad came by for a bit before he left to go to the airport. I hung out with him for a few minutes and then he hit the road. On his was out another girl called out to him. It turns out her name was Lauren and went to Father Ryan. I had my Preds hoodie on and dad had a Legends Club golf shirt and she recognized the shirts. So there is another person from Nashville.
That afternoon we just hung out with new friends on the ship. I ate lunch with Mackenzie, who is from New York. She is pretty much awesome. I also got to meet my roomie! Her name is Rosario Rico and she is from LA. She is 25 years old and is a Sergeant in National Guard. In 2006 she did a tour in Iraq, where she was a fuel truck driver, but normally she works on Black Hawk helicopters. So pretty much she’s a bad ass. We hung out in the room and she unpacked. We took our picture off the wall to see what pass SAS kids had written, but I felt gypped because there was nothing written on it. So I guess Rosario and are going to christen it.
We had lovely muster station drill aka lifeboat drill. We were instructed to dress in warm clothes (close toed shoes, long pants, long sleeves, and a hat or head covering) and make our way to our muster stations. It all went pretty smoothly. We were supposed to be quiet and it amazes me how challenging that is for some people. On an interesting note, we had to line up in order of how we would board a life raft. They made all the women get to the front and wouldn’t let any of the guys line up until all of the women and children (we have some families on our deck) were accounted for. Thought that was interesting.
We all went up to the deck at 1700 for the send off. We went up on Deck 7 and watched them throw off the bow lines. Its kind of crazy to think that for the next 108 days I am going to be living on this ship and sailing around the world. Classes are going to be a lit difficult because they are in the union which says and it pretty much rocks me to sleep. We had orientation/welcome thing there tonight at 2000. The deans spoke as well as Captain Jeremy. The faculty introduced themselves and it was basically the same thing that I heard at the parents thing. If I hear one more thing about how this is the 100th voyage I might just punch a baby (thanks Jess! Haha)
Tomorrow we have the real orientation. It lasts all day. It is either going to be really exciting or really boring.