Brianna's Voyage of Discovery

Between two worlds

brianna_kathleen — Tue, 6 Feb 2007 05:49:00 GMT

I’ve never felt so cut off from the world and at the same time so close to it. I realized this when I spent an hour trying to check my email. The reception is not entirely reliable, making it extremely difficult to utilize the internet at my will. Instead, I am at the mercy of the location of the ship, the weather, and various other things when it comes to communicating with home. And the internet was something of my last resort, since my cell phone has not worked since I left Atlanta. I have no real easy way of getting in touch with you all back home, and at some instances I feel very depressed. I want to know what my family is up to, what my friends are doing. I want to know if they’ve left me text messages or voicemails for me to read and listen to so that I might feel closer to them. I’m desperate for a line from my Mom, or the email from Facebook that says “’so and so’ has written something on your wall” and yet, I cannot know. I feel isolated, withdrawn, lost out there in the world somewhere. I know where you all are, relatively. But you have no way to pinpoint my exact location. You can only guess at my whereabouts on the sea and what I am doing because I could be anywhere, doing anything! Knowing this inspires me all the more to go out and make the absolute most of this experience. When I would normally have chosen to lie in bed and read, I go out and hang out in the Piano Lounge and see what comes of it. In doing so, I can report back to you all about how we got a huge game of Catch Phrase going, how twelve of us sat in an oval and passed around the little plastic toy, how we yelled and jumped out of our chairs together. I am pushing myself, but everyone back at home is pushing me too. I am closer to them in that way, even though I cannot get in touch with them. Ironic, being cut off from my world, but at the same time feeling closer to it. And not only do I feel closer to my world in that regard, I am moving away from it and closer to the physical world out there as I travel the seas to see it, our planet, with my own eyes. It confuses me, it overwhelms me, it delights me. I cannot see my old world anymore, but I feel it more than before. I cannot touch either world yet, but I can listen to the road that carries me away and towards them. I miss the people of my old world, but I never want this journey of exploration to end. I mean, how homesick can I get when I’m lying on a lounge chair, feeling the rumble of the propellers beneath me, listening to the waves crash up against the back of the boat as we steam through the night under the stars? I look out and I see a black horizon. I look down and I see black water dusted with white foam from the waves. I look up and I see a black sky speckled with twinkling dots. I pick out one star and stare at it, and I giggle as I realize that I feel like I am in a snow globe, watching the star move back and forth and all around in the sky as the ship rocks. And nowhere do I see land. I remember talking to my Mom once about how if I ever went into the armed services I would choose the Army rather than the Navy because I was scared of the water. I hated the idea that if something ever happened, if I got lost on land at least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting tangled in seaweed or think about what creatures could be swimming underneath me (I had, and still do, a real phobia of feeling seaweed underneath my feet as I played in the ocean). My Mom disagreed. She said didn’t worry about what she couldn’t see. But I’ve definitely changed my mind. I’d choose the Navy any day of the week. On the off chance that something did happen, I’d sacrifice feeling a little seaweed on my toes for the exhilaration of the sea. There is absolutely nothing like this. Even cruising for pleasure, with bottles of champagne at my fingertips and our own private veranda right outside of our room, it didn’t evoke the feeling of joy I am filled with right now. I really think I just had an out of body experience. It feels like this life isn’t even mine, like it couldn’t even be possible to feel this way. It’s my damn-near perfect existence. I am able to read and write and feel the wind on my face and listen to the water and know that soon I will be in exotic places. And even though I do not have my family here with me, I know that in a way they are with me, and that they are waiting at home for me, waiting for my stories and loving me, wishing me well. I am making friends and they’re wonderful. My roommate and I get along incredibly well. I am making friends I will know for the rest of my life. And to think, I haven’t even arrived at my first destination yet. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to have an experience like this, a semester of wonder and awe and amazement? I’ve fallen in love, begun a love affair with this world. In the words of Jane Bennett after she gets engaged to Mr. Bingley, “Can you die of happiness?”

Day 1: Orientation

brianna_kathleen — Mon, 5 Feb 2007 05:37:00 GMT

As of noon, February fifth, we have gone 357 nautical miles. We have 450 some nautical miles to go before Puerto Rico and we are 46 nautical miles away from land, a small island of the Turks and Caicos Islands. At one of my many nights at Bertolini’s, a man I met, John, told me that while I was at sea, go stand on deck and look at the water all around you. Comprehend the fact that there is no land whatsoever for miles and miles. Then, he said, imagine jumping off of the ship and into the water and having to swim to the next port of call. I haven’t stood outside and imagined it yet, but just looking out the window at the 77 degrees Fahrenheit water with swells of .7 meters, about two feet, stroking my arms and kicking my legs for 350 nautical miles, I’ve already come to the conclusion that I’m keeping my ass on the ship. At orientation yesterday, we heard that the ship is traveling at roughly 20 miles an hour…? And no, he did not say a speed of 20 knots. He said 20 miles per hour, but perhaps he meant knots. If not though, twenty miles seems awfully slow, and a bit impossible to have gotten us 357 in the past 17 hours. But I’m just a passenger. I leave the logistics to the Captain. But working out…working out was the experience of the ship thus far. For one, you have to sign in to use the machines because there are about twelve of them and seven hundred of us students, but the real problem was this. I used the Stair Master, so not only was I walking vertically in place, the movement of the ship was pushing me slightly sideways horizontally. And then, my brilliant self decided to pass the time by reading, so while moving back and forth, up and down, literally, I was looking down at the magazine resting on the screen of the machine. I almost fell off the thing at least three times. And of course, getting off a workout amchine when you’re on land is already a challenge because your body had gotten accustomed to moving, but on a ship you feel like you are tipping and walking a little bit funny when you in fact are tipping because of the ship. Basically, working out is an easy way to completely disorient yourself and your center of gravity. After the workout adventure we had lunch and attended our first class aboard Semester at Sea. Have you ever sat on a couch and watched your professor give a lecture on a television screen? Perhaps at bigger schools you do that, but where I come from, Lake Forest College, it’s unheard of to have a half of the students in the Student Union, the main meeting room for the campus, listening to the lecture and the other half scattered about the ship and gathered in any of the five “satellite classrooms”. This is where I was, perched in an easy chair in the Piano Lounge watching my professor on TV. Coolest. Thing. Ever. And rumor has it, this course, the Global Studies course that all of the students must take as an introduction to all of the countries that we are going to visit, is going to be broadcast in our bedrooms. If this is so, we can simply wake up and turn on the TV and be in class. I can’t imagine that they would actually do this because come on, how easy is that? But I’ve heard it claimed by many, so we will have to see. I’ll definitely keep you updated. But for now, watching class on TV is pretty impressive. It was the highlight of my day. That and playing Catch Phrase in the Piano Lounge with a group of twelve students. You feel pretty special when everyone walking by looks over and asks “What’s going on? Oh, cool!” A lovely way to spend the evening after a long, long day of orientation meetings. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy for classes to start, and I enjoy school and my classes. I love them in fact, but I’ve been orientated to death. So tomorrow morning, I get my wish. Global Studies, Physical and Mental Ideology of the World Traveler, Life on a Blue Planet, and Marxist Philosophy. It's going to be a very long, but very good day.

Finally...on the ship!

brianna_kathleen — Sun, 4 Feb 2007 13:55:00 GMT

Tonight I write from the bed that will be mine for the next 100 days. It’s hard to believe that it’s finally arrived. After talking this trip up for nearly two and a half years, I have to remind myself that this is it, it has started. Right now it’s a bit of ecstasy and a bit of nerves, because I’ve discovered for certain the first of many things I will learn about myself. I need my transition period and a time of adjustment. I felt a surge of glee when I saw the MV Explorer in person for the very first time as I drove up to the wharf in the cab, but then I was certainly in a haze throughout the rest of the day up until the point when the captain began to turn the ship around to head out to sea. At that moment, it became utterly real to me. Not getting out of the cab with all of my luggage (which compared to most, was not very much at all), not standing in line for an hour in the humidity waiting to board, not handing over my passport to the SAS crew for safekeeping, not even walking up the gangplank for the very first time. Granted, it was not like boarding the MS Zandaam carrying a case and a half of wine ready to party for a week either. It was exciting, but not the kind of excitement I expected. I wanted it to register right away, I wanted to be overcome with this sense of “this is it”, but none of that came. I smiled and clapped my hands, anxious to get everything, all of the logistics of paperwork and classes and moving in, underway, excited to embark on a new adventure. Of course I was excited. I was boarding the ship that would take me to far away places. I went through the lines of registration then went to find my room. I met the Resident Director right away and he took me to my room, which was quite a thrill. For one it is actually much bigger than I anticipated and I was delighted to learn that I completely under packed, so I will have plenty of room to buy and buy and buy all over the planet. It also made the whole experience seem a little bit more real than the red tape process, because I was finally entering my room, my own bit of this ship to call my home. After checking out the place- a small hallway lined with the closet and a stack of drawers on one side and the bathroom door on the other you come into the room, and the main bedroom area. Two twin beds line the walls and a makeshift bedside table created by the pushing together of two sets of a stack of three drawers sits in between them underneath the rather large porthole. When I read porthole on the papers, I thought, you know, Titanic porthole. You don’t see much more than Leo’s head as you watch the water rise while he remains trapped below, chained to the post. No, this baby is a window, a good three feet by three feet. It drastically opens up the room, and sitting here writing this I love knowing that I can look over and see the waves that I’m listening to crash up against the side of the ship. It truly is amazing, this place. I’m absolutely in love with it, but I still need my period of adjustment. I’m meeting so many amazing and friendly people, but I had a few moments of homesickness. Looking 100 days into the future and realizing that I won’t see anyone I know and love until then, it scared me. I felt like it was too long to spend in this foreign place. But I know pretty soon I’ll feel settled in, so I’m not worried. I just know I need to give myself time and not fret too quickly. But I’m so incredibly excited though to see what kinds of relationships I will form with all of these people. And my roommate is fabulous. I got really lucky. She’s energetic and outgoing, and very sweet. She seems to enjoy going out and having a good time, but from what I can tell so far she’s very neat, so I think we’ll work together well as roommates. So after touring the room for the first time and meeting the roommate, we went to discover the dining room, which was fairly decent food. For both lunch and dinner I had salad and some decent steamed vegetables. And of course, fit for college kids, they have multiple snack and coffee shops available to us, which I am quite excited about. They also have late night snacks in the dining room, which for night owls like me is perfect! I can munch on cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off as I write my blog! Today after lunch we wandered, trying to get acquainted with the ship. I’m surprised at myself though. I spent a week on the MS Zandaam and feel as though I knew my way around it better right away than I know my way around here. Perhaps because it’s also a campus and not just a cruise ship that things are not necessarily set up in a way that I would expect. I’ll learn of course, but as of right now I get confused pretty easily trying to navigate this place. But it was fun getting lost, finding yourself on the same deck seven as you’d just come from. I also discovered where my satellite phone doesn’t work, which as of right now is everywhere. They really meant it when they say that you have to be out in the wide open because even on the highest deck but with the brightly-colored buildings on the island and the large legitimate cruise ship (because SAS is not a cruise ship) next to us, it wouldn’t work. So I had a bit of a panic attack, worried that my parents would board the ship and I’d never find them because there were supposed to be about fourteen hundred extra people on the ship visiting before seeing us off. But luckily as I kept attempting to work the phone, wandering around the deck searching desperately for a signal, I happened to look over the rail and right down at my parents, who were patiently in line to board. They came to find me and I showed them around. Well, my mom with the talent for navigation actually showed me around, and we took some pictures before they left. I was quite surprised that they didn’t stay up until the time they had to disembark, but they were hungry and wanted to go eat. I wasn’t at all put off by it, simply surprised seeing as this will be the longest period we have ever gone without seeing each other. Seeing them get off the ship was a strange experience, realizing as I turned around to walk back in that I would be having innumerable priceless experiences before I saw them again. But as Mimi says, it will be good for me to have this time simply for me, to do with it as I wish, to take to grow and learn and develop a better and in some ways very new sense of myself. Here’s to that. The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting in a large circle of college kids, forming relationships that I hope will continue to build beyond the first day of trying people on until you find your closest friends. We visited and laughed until it was time for the world’s longest lifeboat drill. It certainly passed the time though because as soon as we finished it was time to leave the dock and truly begin our journey. It was at this point that it really hit me, that the overwhelming feeling of joy and excitement and awe washed over me, as I watched the island of the Bahamas remain put as the ship carried me and 701 other students into the Atlantic. It was a beautiful moment, knowing that it was the one I had been waiting for, and knowing that I knew it was what I had been waiting for. The feeling that I didn’t have when I first got on, it surely hit me when we started to sail. I envy no one who chose to go to only one country. For me, this is absolutely perfect. I am going around the globe. I’ve been repeating that to myself all day long and I have yet to register what that really means. After sailing and having dinner, I met up with Katie and Lauren and we played cards in the Piano Lounge, Egyptian Rat Screw, us and four other groups of kids spread about the lounge. It took us a bit but we eventually realized that we were all playing the same game. Humorous, quite humorous. Next came the orientation, learning again the importance of not sitting on the rail, smoking or if you must don’t throw the butts into the ocean because chances are they’ll probably catch some air and come right back on the ship to start a fire, and for God’s sake don’t slide down the rails in the interior of the ship because a few semesters ago a wave hit and threw a girl across the room as she was sliding down the hand rail of the main stairs and she broke her back. Next came our “sea” meetings. We are the Red Sea. I like it, I like being the sea that parted. It’s lovely. It was another opportunity to meet people, and again I was pleased by just how many awesome people are on this ship. People are just so friendly for the most part and willing to put themselves out there and be goofy for the sake of the introductions. The roommate situation I believe has been worked out. Katie and Lauren probably won’t room together, which I feel bad about because it wasn’t their fault. SAS screwed up the paperwork so now they’re split up, but I’m glad they were flexible about it so we could all unpack our stuff. I love having the room put together and not disheveled with suitcases and clothes and toiletries and shoes strewn about it. It makes it feel more like home. I loved coming back from our excursion to get water to a clean room. It’s starting to feel more and more like home with each passing moment. I am supremely happy, and can’t wait to start classes because I looked at my books and I have to say, I just love to learn. I had a thought yesterday, that if I could do anything I’d marry someone rich who could support my want to travel then sit at home and just read books and write. Write the things that come into my head. The silly things, the intimate things, the evocative thoughts. Morrie helped me reconfirm my love of books because with everything new you learn, it changes the way you think and you come up with whole new ideas. What if my contribution to the world is to put together all of these thoughts and help open others to a new way of thinking, as others have done for me? I want to travel and help people, but do that on a voluntary basis and spend the rest of my time reading and writing, contributing my thoughts to the world. But then again, I don’t know if I could do that forever. But Morrie certainly put the idea in my head. But after 100 days on this ship, who knows what I will want to do. I absolutely cannot wait to find out!

The first day in The Bahamas!

brianna_kathleen — Fri, 2 Feb 2007 01:38:00 GMT

The first problem, and really the only problem, with the Bahamas is that it makes my hair about as big as it could possibly be. Seriously, it’s as if I have teased every last hair on my head from the root to the tip after shampooing my hair, twice, with volumizing shampoo and then flipping my head over a couple times to give it even more oomph. I have done none of this, and yet it appears as if I have. But, since that’s really the only complaint I have about the Bahamas, I think we’re doing okay. It’s a lovely place, really, but I feel that growing up in Las Vegas has spoiled its utter appeal. For someone who has not grown up walking by casinos on the way to dinner and walking through the grocery store, it’s quite exciting to have tables and slot machines lining the halls of the casino on the island. It doesn’t impress me. It’s fun but it feels like an island version of home. When I first started exploring the hotel last night, I could not get over the fact that the high stone archways and stone walls felt a little bit over the top, reminiscent of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, and then you walk into the hotel and I feel like Ariel in the Little Mermaid, walking past what seem like miles of fish tanks and huge stone seahorses holding up the ceiling, mixed with Vegas on an island. It’s wild, it really is. But rather than spending my nights at the tables and partying at Senor Frogs (which from what I hear I should have done but because I did not, I showed up on time to board my ship), I spent them in the hotel room and my final day before boarding the MV Explorer by the pool reading Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie, and basking in the glory of a coffee bean exfoliation and massage at the spa. If you ever get the chance and you’re a fan of the smell of coffee and you like to be touched, this luxury pampering session is definitely something you have to try. Being scrubbed with a mixture of rough beans and smooth oils by a pair of soft yet strong hands while enjoying overwhelming smell of the coffee was a little bit of heaven for me, the perfect way to spend an afternoon. Then came a nap (always a plus) and dinner at Nobu. I have to say, I was so proud of my mother for stepping so far outside of her comfort zone it scared me a little bit. I’m a fan of sushi, and the seven-course sampling of the chef’s favorite dishes made me a little bit nervous, but Mom? She dove in with barely a crinkle of her nose. We ate salmon tartar, white fish with ginger sauce and scallions, seared tuna over mixed greens, baked cod (apparently a favorite of Robert De Niro who, because he loved the dish so much initiated the opening of the Nobu in New York), sautéed beef with Japanese and Portobello mushrooms (I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed them because I despise mushrooms), a sushi platter with salmon, fatty tuna, white fish, mackerel, and another fish that I couldn’t identify and yet, Mom ate it anyway. Really, she was a champ. And I must say the drinks were fabulous too. I indulged in two Lychee Mojitos, a mojito with lychee juice and cranberry juice, my favorite drink here so far. Very sweet, but very tasty, after which I headed up to my room. And as I get ready to repack my bags to take them with me to the ship tomorrow, I can say that the majority of my 36-hour stay in the Bahamas has left me relaxed and happy, and absolutely ready to get off the island and on the sea to visit the rest of the world.