Well this is my first post since I’ve been at sea! We set sail the 23^rd a few minutes before 5pm. Since then we’ve travelled quite a distance, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 nautical miles. Some people got sea sick and it’s quite common to see people with the sea band bracelets or a patch behind their ear. I was fortunate enough not to get sea sick at all!! It was funny to watch people in the hall sway back and forth with the rocking of the ship. No one had gotten their sea legs yet.

My roommate is from Hawaii and is very nice and personable. We’re pretty different so we don’t really hang out much outside of the room and neither of us are in the room much so I don’t believe we’ll be that close. He’s a nice guy, but a big partier.

Also let me just say that I LOVE the crew here. Every morning after global studies I come back to the room to find my bed made and fresh linens in the bathroom, all the trash emptied. It’s quite the life. I could get used to this. Also, at meals there are waiters who come around with iced tea, juice, and water and offer it to you! Everyone is always happy and greets you with a smile. The ship is also kept in immaculate condition. Every night when walking around people are vacuuming, disinfecting and polishing various parts of the ship.

Classes have been pretty good. There is a lot more work than I had anticipated. Personally I think its just because it’s the beginning of the term and the professors are used to teaching land based classes and haven’t modified their syllabus enough to accommodate ship life.

Ok onto the important stuff; Puerto Rico!!!!! On the first day there I had a SaS trip to walk around Old San Juan. We checked out the town as well as an old fort called El Morro. It was build to keep people out of the bay where we docked, mainly the English. Aside from the lighthouse, it was all original. The view was absolutely breathtaking. After, we checked out the governors mansion which is the oldest governors mansion in the U.S. still in use. It’s been used for around 400 years. Then we went to this park where there are pigeons everywhere! Just flocks upon flocks of them. There were kids feeding them and they’d fly and land on your arms, head, anywhere they could perch. After, I went back to the ship to take a little nap (I had gotten up at sunrise to watch us pull into port so I was pretty beat). After I woke up to go out with some friends and try to find some live music where we could get a few drinks as well. We found this nice little restaurant which had some live music, and awesome mojitos! We got back to the ship pretty late, around 2.. Then I had a hike in the rain forest which was a bit of a disappointment. There was a paved path the whole way through and the group went pretty fast eliminating a lot of enjoyment. I was pretty sad until we got to the waterfall that we swam under! That part was amazing. After the hike, I went right out to experience the newer less touristy parts of San Juan. Me and another student, Rylie walked around the newer parts and got authentic Puerto Rican food. We found some residential sections of town and saw what some houses looked like. They were surprisingly nice. I believe we were in a better part of town. We got back and showered then went out in search of a club with a few others. We found one called The Noise which is a Regatone club. It didn’t open until midnight, but there was a bar next door so we played some pool and had a drink. There is this drink called Gasolina which comes in a pouch like Capri sun. Its rum tequila and pineapple flavoring but tastes really good. After we went to The Noise and danced for a bit. We decided it was time to go at like 2:15 but the night was not over yet. On our way to another club, we ran into the owner of a bar and checked out that place. It was a lot calmer but we didn’t stay long. We went to this club where a lot of SaS kids were reported to be. This is where the night ended. We took a cab back to the ship and went to bed.

Our last day, Kim and I went to the Bacardi factory. It was simply gorgous, there were palm trees everywhere, it looked like a million bucks. Which it probably was, considering they bottle 400 bottles of rum a minute. That’s a lot of liquor. We got a tour of how rum is made and then some free sample at the end. There was this really good drink which the bartender called a “jolly Rancher” its Bacardi melon, sweet and sour mix, and cranberry juice. It was so delicious! Then we went back and kinda hung around san juan until we departed.

Since then its just been normal classes and ship life. The food is getting pretty old as we get closer to port. My reactions to San Juan and Puerto Rico are what I want to focus on. Puerto Rico is a part of the united states but enjoys a much richer past in some ways. Most of America is only 100, 150, 200 years old where as Puerto Rico was colonized in the 1600’s so some of the buildings in old san juan were extremely old. The governors mansion was 400 years in use. Rarely do i see that kind of history in America. However, It was very much “Americanized” in the sense that every few miles there was a McDonalds, KFC or Burger King. So all in all there wasn’t much of a culture shock at all and I’m excited for Brazil which I’m sure will be a shock especially entering on the day of carnival!

Bryan