The day is here! It’s time to get on the boat and say goodbye to my Dad. I was feeling all the emotions on this day too. We woke up and could see the boat from our room. I started to repack everything. We had an English breakfast. I was supposed to be on the boat at 10 but at this point it’s 10:20. My dad was definitely dragging his feet taking me to the boat, but I don’t blame him. There were no tears when we said goodbye but it was sad. We dropped off my bags and security checked my passport and that was it. I was on my way to the boat. As I walked through, I started a conversation with the girl in front of me, Sophie! Sophie and I walked around the boat in awe and got all checked in with the academic and medical offices. We grabbed some lunch and quickly realized that people were not lying about the Semester at Sea food not being very good but we enjoyed it. We walked around some more until we found a group of her friends from Chapman University.
From there, we all kind of just became one big group. We did our room tour so we got to see everyone’s windows. By that time, people started getting back their bags and unpacking so I went to go find mine and that’s where I saw my roommate, Gianna! We had not met before because we chose to do random rooms. We are so like it’s so fun and she’s so nice. We went to dinner and had our mustard drill. Then it was time to leave the dock and of course my dad was there. That was a lot sadder than saying goodbye earlier. It was so sad to see my dad on the beach all by himself, but I will see you all real soon. We had a quick orientation meeting before bed and I only cried twice (happy tears of course). I can’t believe that it’s actually happening. I’m just so excited to be here.