The last few days on the ship were filled with a mixture of sadness, fear, anxiety, happiness, excitement and pretty much every other emotion. People wanted to get home, but didn’t want to have to deal with packing or lugging everything off the ship themselves. Our last night on the ship we spent the night swapping pictures and eating the last of our snacks that we couldn’t get through customs. Kelsey, Jennifer, Mackenzie, Rosario, Katie and I all goofed off in the room and eventually had to say goodnight. Due to some roommate drama and the fact that her room is the size a cardboard box, Kelsey spent the night on our third bed. We ended up staying up until about 0330 watching videos from China and reminiscing about all of our adventures.

WE all had to be up at 6 the next morning to finish getting our stuff together and because breakfast was only being served from 6-7. After grabbing breakfast we all went up to 7^th deck to watch us come into San Diego. Talk about a surreal experience. We were all so close to our parents, but we still had to wait hours to get off the ship. Mackenzie pretty much broke down on the top. She was just blubbering as she walked around. Nobody wanted to go home. Mackenzie was able to help distract us from our own emotions. She had also won a drawing to be one of the first 14 off the ship. We went down to her room and helped bring all of her 392847 bags to the gangway. It was pretty sad. It was finally hitting us that this is over. No more countries. No more ports. No more pasta and potatoes or boxed lunches.

People started getting off the ship around 10 and people gathered on the 5^th and 7^th deck to yell and wave at people as they left. That is the part that got to me. I realized that all of these people were never going to be together again. That there are going to be people that I never see again. I really lost it when Dr. Aimee and Kara got off the ship. It was terrible watching everyone say goodbye to each other. Bryan and Jeremy were a mess. Mackenzie was hysterical. Everyone is crying and people are stalling to get off the ship.

Before I knew it, it was my turn. I grabbed my stuff and said goodbye to cabin 4167 and the best cabin steward Don. What sucked the most was that I didn’t even get to swipe my card one last time. They took it from me and swiped it for me and then I didn’t even get it back. Stupid security. Once I got off the ship and into the port I saw the madhouse that was our luggage. Luckily, I was able to find all of mine, but a lot of people were missing bags. Then there were only so many porters and clearly no one was able to carry all of their bags. Rosario and I teamed up with Katie and got a porter, who was an ass, and found our way outside to the parents. I collapsed in Mom’s arms and just started crying. She asked if they were happy tears and I responded with I don’t know what they are. I was an emotional wreck. I happy to be with Mom, sad to be leaving the ship, worried about going home, scared to be back in the US, and pretty much everything else. It was an interesting scene. Parents trying to find their kids, who hadn’t gotten their bags yet and people crying and hugging and laughing and yelling.

We moved our stuff over with Mackenzie and I finally got to meet her mom and Max! Max is her foreign exchange student from Germany. He is pretty much the cutest thing ever. I told mom we need to look into getting a foreign exchange student. We shared a cab and went to the hotel. We met Katie and her mom there and then we all had lunch together. It was neat for all the Moms to finally meet. We had a great lunch and then we spotted Dr. Aimee by the pool so we went our and chatted with her for a little while.

This is really weird. I don’t feel like SAS is over. It is just another port and it happens to be parents weekend. Especially, since we are staying in San Diego for a little while and we constantly running into other SASers. It was a really emotionally draining day and we took it easy.