Here is a quick synopsis of my last two weeks. August 13th was my last night of work at the rodeo; it was bittersweet because I absolutely love working there, but on the other hand it was exciting because it meant I left the next day. So bright and early Sunday morning dad and I woke up and hitched up the trailer (in the pouring rain) and left New Jersey. We drove up to Maine and got a hotel room. Mom, Tim, and Ben boarded a train that night and we picked them up the next day after we had set up the camper in Bar Harbor. We spent 2 ½ days there visiting Acadia National Park and celebrating my 21st birthday! Then we went inland to Greenville near Moosehead Lake. There we went on a moose safari and saw 2 moose! We were really lucky because we saw both a bull and a cow! After days 2 ½ we drove up to Quebec City and spent 3 ½ days there. We got to see a free Cirque de Soleil show (it was a little sketchy sounding because it was performed underneath an overpass) but it was really awesome! We got to tour the citadel and we did TONS of walking. Then it was down to Montreal we went; we found a campground that was right on the St. Lawrence River which is the river that the MV Explorer had to travel down in order to get to Montreal. We spent 3 ½ days there and the first order of business was to go check Pier Alexandra to see if the ship was there yet or not. As soon as we saw the empty port we decided to take a double-decker bus tour of the city which was really cool. We also spent a lot of time walking in Montreal and in my opinion it is easier to get around in Quebec City than Montreal, but people speak more English in Montreal than Quebec. Finally August 25th came and early in the morning Ben woke up to go to the bathroom and saw the Explorer passing by! (Dad seriously thought they had changed the port because the ship wasn’t there yet). That night the whole family (except me) got to go on the ship to an info session and tour. I stayed at the campground, did some final packing, got a shower, and washed all my laundry.
Now the best day of all, August 26th! We left the campground early in case of traffic (we encountered more traffic in Montreal alone than the rest of our vacation combined) and got to the port an hour early but went up anyway and were able to unload, check my bags and get me through security in what I can only call record time. I believe it was only about 15 minutes between arriving at the port and walking onto the ship (at least that’s how fast it felt). I then had to go through a check-in process which was really fast and smooth and then I was set free to find my room. When I got to my room my luggage was waiting right outside the door so I dragged it in. My roommates luggage was already there and semi unpacked but she wasn’t in the room so I assumed (and I was right) that she was a work-study student that got to board the day before and therefore gets to help with the check-in processes. We then pretty much had time to explore around the ship until 1600 (4pm…gotta get used to military time now) when we had a lifeboat drill. So when the alarm went off we grabbed our life jackets and headed up to our assigned lifeboat, then they did roll call and we stood there very close together for a half hour until Captain Jeremy gave the all clear and we were allowed to take our life jackets back to our rooms. We left port at 1700 (do the math….that’s 5 pm) and were well on our way up the St. Lawrence and out to sea! We had an orientation meeting in the Union at 2000 and after that we had “Sea Meetings” we are split up into seas based on where our dorm is, so the sea meetings are kind of like hall meetings. After that my roommate and I came back to our rooms and cleared off our beds and went to sleep.
Today (day 2) we had to wake up and start a full day of orientation (last night was just the intro session). Orientation started at 0900 and we stopped for lunch at 1200-1330 we then resumed until 1600 when we were introduced to the professors and got a chance to meet with them and start to get to know them. Then it was dinner and next at 1930 we will basically have an activities fair and following that we have another sea meeting. Then tomorrow classes start (lucky me at 0800) and even better news tonight we lose an hour of sleep! Again lucky us; apparently we are going to have 23 hour days for almost the next week as we cross the Atlantic going from Montreal to Casablanca.
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