Alright, update time.
So, here I am, 8:30 at night, chilling on the ghost boat in Brazil. I was out for a decent amount of time earlier, and the only reason I'm not out is because I've got a trip that I'm waking up for at 7:30. More on that later.
Now, back to where I left off.
Classes are interesting, for lack of a better way to put them. Global studies is a pain, as it is currently a class that everyone has to take every day that we're at see, and it's broadcast all around the boat via satellite TV. Not only is it incredibly boring, it's proven to be much more difficult than a 101 class should be. So it goes though.
My Poetry course is also quite interesting. The professor is a very...vibrant....old guy that does a good job of speaking VERY loudly. He's incredibly enthusiastic, and has the tendency to have an "in your face" style of teaching. Some people consider him senile. The ruling is still out on that one.
My geological hazards course should prove to be good. My computer skills have come in handy on the boat as a previous situation went as follows:
Professor: "Why is the screen on my mac all screwed up?"
Me: "Looks like your computer has taken on the resolution of the projector"
Professor: "I have no idea what you just said, but it's the smartest suggestion I've heard so far. Fix it"
So with a resolution change, it was fixed, and she now loves me. Go figure.
My Spirit possession course should prove to be a bit of a culture shock. Although considering the subject that's hardly surprising. I've technically only had one course, so I can't provide too many details.
Anyway, so, life on the ship. As one of the professors put it, "We're circumnavigating the globe at 20 mph!"
Food is good. Usually. Sometimes. If we're lucky. It's been terribly fickle lately. Some nights (like tonight) you can get some nice things such as salmon, and whatnot. Other nights, half the stuff I haven't heard of, and upon trying it, I wish I hadn't. Luckily, there's a snack bar by the pool that has VERY reasonable prices. I'm talking like, two bucks for a hamburger, which is pretty big. So it's nice to have that as backup when the main meals are a bit iffy.
The pool is weird. The way it works is that there's the mai pool, and on either side are little pools that you can put your feet in. When the ship rocks, it empties some of the water from the pool to one of the smaller ones on either side. It's pretty neat, and an excellent way to keep the water from shooting out the sides. The water was crazy warm a few days ago. Huzzah for the equator.
So, I signed up for two groups on the ship, although neither have contacted anyone yet. Yoga and chorus. Chorus got to sing in front of everyone at a pre-port briefing last night, which was awkward, as there was about 10 of us and it was on malaria and diarrhea. So yeah. Awkward. People found it hilarious though, so I suppose that's a plus. Least it wasn't a total embarassment.
Moving off of the other stuff since this is still fresh in my head, I wandered through Salvador today with a few of my friends. We're in the middle of carnaval, which is huge. There are a few million people here because of it, and it's one giant party. I've gotten the first taste of not being able to speak the native language, although fingers tend to work quite well when it comes to buying things.
They were right about the 1$ bills, they're like gold around here. Just have to be careful that you can do the conversions correctly on the fly, else you're likely to get ripped off. That happened to me a few times, although I usually let it go because it was still cheaper, if not the same price then I would have paid in the US. (1$ for a gatorade, not worth crying about). I've got a Bahia by day trip tomorrow that's gonna take me though a bunch of things, so I'll probably be taking pictures then. They highly suggested, since it's carnival, not to bring anything you're not willing to part with, so I left my camera at my room today. So many people around it's easy to see stuff get snatched. Nobody lost anything though, so that was a plus. Yes, people do grab your arms around here trying to sell you stuff, it's annoying after a while, but you just gotta deal.
Yes, I'm planning on bringing home something completely random and exotic.
Maybe an alligator.
Anyway.
I've learned that, no matter when my classes are, I'm never going to be able to break out of my regular schedule. As it stands, I get up, go to class, come back, nap until about 12 or so, then continue my day.
I've found somebody who works at a Hannafords in Vermont, and oddly enough, in the deli department. We ranted about a few things, such as particular meats that shouldn't exist, and how certain turkies fall apart, and how a customer once wanted him to cook up 64 chicken tenders. It was amusing.
I've met a ton of people on the ship, and I think a good majority of us are suffering from a sensory overload where we can't remember names for the life of us.
Oh, the mystery about my "accent" has been solved. After being asked if I were british or canadian by almost everyone on the entire ship, we've found that it's because I actually pronounce the words I'm speaking and I use proper english while talking. I don't quite know where it came from, as I usually had a laid-back speech when back home, but it works for me. For all I know it's how I could have always talked. Go figure.
Few shoutouts to people in particular:
@Parents: Love ya, I'm doing well. Hope to talk to you soon.
@Jackie: You have the most random music ever. I looked in your misc folder. Nuff said.
@Jeff/Steve/Brandon: I want e-mail updates on how things are going in-game.
@Everyone else: It's 90+ degrees here, ha!
Alright, I'm going to be bold and try to upload a few pics from Atlantis and whatnot onto here. I'm only going to upload a few at a time, seeing as our internet is sucko courtesy of satellite. I might not even get them up. Let's see...

Well, according to my preview it uploaded, but I don't see it. And even running at maximum speed because nobody is on it, it still took about 3 minutes for me to upload one. So I'm afraid all of you picture-holics are going to have to wait until I get back to reasonable internet to upload. I promise I'll toss them all in an album and let you see it.

Alright, that's all folks. Once again, e-mail me if you need anything, I'll probably hook up to an internet cafe where it's like, 50 cents for an hour or so. Those are the times I'll respond to individual e-mails and whatnot. Until then, later guys.
~Chris

Post in a day or two. Internet being unbearably slow. Also, I've got tests 'n stuff.

Buenos noches from Puerto Rico!

Well not yet. I’ll be arriving there about 8 am, our time, or 7 am, your time. That’s right, I’ve officially crossed the first time barrier. Going to take a bit of getting used to. So, as my first post, I’m inclined to tell you about the awesome trip that I had to get here, and what I’ve been doing since I’ve been here. I apologize in advance that this post will be void of pictures, however they haven’t quite configured our laptops on the network so I can access internet yet, so text is going to have to suffice for now. For those of you who don’t read anything I post online, I type as I think of things, and pretty much how I would say them. So yeah, most of the time there isn’t going to be proper sentence structure or grammar.

So, let’s start from the beginning. After leaving my parents from the terminal, I went down to wait for my plane, picking up a quick breakfast/lunch along the way. I sat down for a bit, enjoyed listening to some music, however I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t have the fitting “Snakes on a Plane” theme song in my regular library, as I thought it would be interesting for this trip. However after a bit of searching, I looked at the music that Jackie had given me, and behold! Snakes on a Plane was tucked away in a folder of “Unknown Artists”. So thank you Jackie.

When I got on the plane, it wasn’t long before I found myself between a group of girls that were traveling together, and was asked to move. I did so, and found myself on the other side of the plane, a few rows up. I met a nice couple and their son and the mother and I talked for a decent amount of the plane ride. We found ourselves having massive turbulence about halfway through. Supposedly there were some very high winds that we went through, so high that they wound up making us a little late. But we got their in one piece, and I shared a taxi ride with the couple. The ride was smooth, aside from people driving on the opposite side of the road, which freaked me out at first. I also found it funny that we passed a KFC along the way. Anyway…

We got to Atlantis, and the couple refused to let me pay for the taxi, saying that they wanted a post-card from Japan and some pictures, since their son was very interested in it. I currently have their e-mail and address on my laptop, and will be sending them something when I do get to Japan.

Atlantis = Huge

It’s literally on it’s own island. To be honest, I do not see the Bahamas as a very good vacation spot. You’d be going for Atlantis and that alone, the rest of the Bahamas (from what I saw) wasn’t very tourist-y.

Oh, for the record, Boston drivers have nothing on those in the Bahamas. These people are insane.

Anyway, so I get in (at 83 degree weather mind you), I get to the reception, get my room number, and the directions to my room were: “Go down the hallway, when you get to the sharks, take a right…”

Wait, what?

Atlantis wouldn’t be Atlantis without it’s array of fish and wildlife. There were indeed sharks before my room, and there’s an entire aquarium in one of the restaurants which I’ll post pictures of sometime.

So I get past the “shaks” (Who needs “r’s”?) and I get to my room. I meet my roommate, Eric, who was really cool. Reminded me of myself at times. We hung out for a bit, wandered around the Atlantis, found out that there were signs everywhere pointing to the Casino (hint hint) and that an 18” pizza cost 30 bucks. Needless to say, I went with a sandwich.

So then the big day comes. We get to the port, look, and there is a line. Not just any line. A GINORMOUS line to get on board. We got to wait in the line (in 87 degree weather, heh heh heh) for about an hour and a half before we actually got to get on board the ship. Well, not even on board the ship, through the whole “Are you really who you are?” thing, the checking of luggage, and THEN the ship. Well, this ship is also ginormous. 7 decks of pure awesomeness. So we get on, wander around the ship for a bit, go our separate ways to our rooms. Well, here comes the other fun part…

My roommates are great. The room itself is pretty good, for a quad it’s not too shabby, and I know I won’t be spending a ton of time in there. However, we are all the way in the back of the boat on the lowest floor that houses rooms. That means we are directly above the propellers. It was fine when we were at port. You calculate the rest.

So the first and second day were basically just introductory things. Lots of meetings, food, etc. Oh, speaking of food, all you can eat buffet style, there are waiters (not total traditional waiters, but now and then they’ll take your plates and refill a drink if they catch you before you go do it yourself) and whatnot. Oh, these waiters are ninjas. I went up to refill my drink on more than one occasion and my food was gone when I came back. Sneaky little guys. The food is really good, they usually have salad (which I eat every meal, so HA! @ dad for saying I don’t eat enough vegetables), a meat, various cheeses, pasta and fish. I had something yesterday called a “Captain’s Pot Pie”. Think chicken, but with fish. That was good.

Our captain is British, and is hilarious, which is amazing.

So today was technically the first day of classes. I say technically because I didn’t have any classes other than the one that everyone is required to go to for an hour. Since we hit port tomorrow, we don’t have any classes until we leave. Which means, technically, that I didn’t have any class other then the regular one until February 10th. Which is rather sweet.

Oh, I talked to the professor for the “Spirit Possession and Ethnography” course that I wanted to get into. She’s signing a waiver for me and I’m going to get into that course in exchange for my medieval travel accounts course. Which is nice, as that will count for a 300 level course outside of my major. So that’s one less course I need to take at Quinnipiac.

Apparently I’ve somehow already picked up an accent, because people are surprised when I say I’m from Massachusetts, and ask if I’m from Britain, or somewhere else. ‘Cause I don’t have a Massachusetts accent (which I knew), but I have a hint of something else. Go figure.

Yes the Archbishop Desmond Tutu is on board, and yes I have seen him multiple times. He just wanders around the boat, saying “hi” to everyone. It’s really weird seeing someone so famous walking around in a regular t-shirt and shorts, waving at everyone, waiting in line for food and whatnot. He’s shorter than I had imagined him, but he’s always happy. He reminds me of Yoda, as odd as it sounds.

I haven’t gotten seasick yet, which is a plus.

I fell asleep next to the pool today and roasted for a few hours. My entire body is tanned except for my forehead, which is a little red right now. I’m expecting that to go away tomorrow morning.

This is a huge change from my regular college schedule. I’ve been getting up between 7-9 every day for either class, breakfast, or something else. It’s going to take a bit to get used to.

I can’t think of anything else at the moment, if I do I’ll post it. Again, if anyone wants to get in touch with me, shoot me an e-mail at: Runesinji@gmail.com, or if it is urgent, for whatever reason, toss me one at: Christopher.barnes@quinnipiac.edu

I probably won’t be checking my e-mail that much over the next few days as I’m going to be in port. Rainforest and beach on my birthday too, woo.

Later guys.

Alright, so this is my first post. This is me, more or less, testing out the awesomeness that is blogger. I'll be updating this about once a week if all goes well on my trip, and it will probably account for the entire week in a nice, ordered format of journal-style entries sorted by date. Also, if this is being posted correctly, there should be an awesome image of a boat beneath this text.






<---Boat!






So that's about it. See you soon!

~Chris

Edit: It's apparent that I can't handle changing text sizes without making this implode, so we're going to try to stick to a one-size font throughout each post.