After losing 4 hours in 4 days (this has been fun!), I am exhausted. My 9:20am class just turned into a 5:20am class which is like still 2 or 3am in Texas. Woohooo. Sucks. The sea got a ton rougher the closer we got to the Med…. Everyone was getting sick, and even I had to take some meds and stay in my room a bit!! It was sick (literally) hahha.

Yesterday we got our first glimpse of land!! We were getting closer to the Strait of Gibraltar, so we could see both Africa on the port side and Europe on the starboard side!! It was so crazy; even though we could only see the outline cause it was foggy. The first and the only day it ever was. Ugh. So pictures were kind of terrible.

We had our first exam in Global Studies, which was quite straightforward and easy. I literally got out of all my classes at 2 (after not paying attention, but watching the land haha), went down to take a shower. By 3, we had stopped moving and were sitting in a harbor getting filled up. It was crazy to go from seeing NO ONE and NO LAND for a week to seeing this absolutely perfect city and like 40 tankers and cargo ships. It was awesome!! The water was perfectly calm so we had no waves and no more flying through the halls trying to not run into the walls. We were in a Spanish harbor for about 9 hours and left in the night.

On a side note, when it was rough a few days ago, I ran into the wall in the middle of the night. There is a pointy wall and a curved wall on either side of the room (sort of like a T shape room, so the corners are right where it opens up). When I got up to go to the restroom in the middle of the night, the toilet flush is outrageously loud (like airplane loud), so it scared me. I TRIED to run from the bathroom to my bed at like 2am with no lights on and ended up with the pointy wall in my forehead. That was fun hahah.

The rock of Gibraltar is different than what I expected. I guess I thought it would be a rock that people could swim up to and jump off or something, but it was definitely an island haha. It was really cute though, we saw the UK side of it (The UK Gibraltar is in Spain, which is the one we were at, and then on the opposite side is Spanish Gibraltar in Africa). So that was real cool. Filling up the boat with fuel took FOREVER. I think they said that a gallon is like $0.80, and we got about $500,000 worth of it, so that is a lot of gas! But now that I think about it…. That sounds a tad unrealistic.

But anyways, we are now traveling along the coast of Spain in the Med reeeeally reeeeally slow to reach Barcelona tomorrow morning. Then it is off to explore and wander around! We have no plans really, so we just going to see where the street takes us! Barcelona is a walking city so most of the places will be pretty close. I am going to Montserrat, a monastery in the mountains) the first afternoon through SAS, and then we are on our own! Last night we had a “cultural preport,” basically how to eat, when to eat, and how to act, and tonight we have a “logistical preport,” which is legal stuff- what to do if you’re mugged/ beat up/ passport is stolen. So this is just so EXCITING!! I think seeing Gibraltar last night made this trip hit me. I can almost believe that I will be in a foreign European city tomorrow at this time. So surreal.

No class for 2 weeks; between Italy and Spain there is only one day which will be spent doing preports and prepping for the countries! YUSSSS. It will be weird not seeing all these people for a while! It was so true when they said that some of your best friends in the world would be found on this ship. It seems like I’ve known all these guys for years, not just days. I don’t even want to think that once this is over we won’t be living in the same place anymore, or even the same state. It’s so sad :(

Last night we had a sleepover in one of the girl’s rooms. We literally ran through the halls carrying a mattress to bring into their room, trying not to get caught by the scary sailor lady, since transporting furniture is totally against the rules. She is this Philippino officer who is so, so, SO strict. She wears a nasty man’s white sailor outfit and is mean. We successfully avoided her by having a lookout and running through the halls, all while dragging this huge mattress behind us hahha. So we got to the room, rearranged the furniture, nearly passed out from nail polish fumes (and one of the guys almost died hahah) and then went to pub night on the 7th deck (basically you can get 3 drinks, but it’s really just a social thing). We snagged a few friends and went back to started "Talladega Nights." A neighbor got pissed at the noise and the strict lady was sent. I guess she liked us for some reason, cause even though she saw the mattress; she let us continue on with just a warning haha. So we all passed out and woke up at 7 to take the mattress back before the stewards could see. Was quite interesting and a good way to end the first part of the voyage.

I will try to post some pictures in Spain, but no promises! I don’t know how the internet or wifi deal will work out, so we’ll have to see!