End of 4th Day: The curious case of the hot water

So Achal had been complaining that he couldn’t get hot water in his room. Once again, I woke up early today after losing ANOTHER hour of sleep, ate breakfast, and went to 8 AM class. I heard Achal once more say he didn’t get hot water again. I felt bad for him. I told him they would probably fix it ASAP. After I finished my classes and ate, we went back to his room to chill. He said he would go ahead and check once more. After about a minute, he walked out of the bathroom with a pissed-off look on his face. All he said was “the directions were switched” and I almost died laughing. Apparently, in his room, the hot and cold were switched, so he had hot water the whole time. That really made me laugh, especially the look on his face. The rest of the day we spent at dinner and studying. I went up to the deck to see/photograph the sunset and went to a digital photography group meeting. I also found out that I made it to the SAS Explorer photography group and I am one of 8 of the official student voyage photographers. I am really excited about that. Alright, I am pretty tired and we lose another hour tonight, So this is Yash, signing off for now. END OF DAY 4 of 108.

position report:
Lat. 30 N
Long. 49 W

End of 3rd Day

It feels like ages ago that I was at the Nassau airport, looking for my bags, and later walking around Nassau. It has only been 3 days. These 3 days have been exciting and hectic, fast and slow at the same time. We have done soo much, yet at the same time, we still have such a long way to go. Just a few hours ago I attended the activities fair, where I signed up to be on the ambassador’s committee that helps greet people, VIPs, and special guests. I also signed up for the salsa dancing club, swing dancing club, basketball club, photography group, and an “extended” family, where they pair each student with a lifelong learner (adults traveling with us) and a faculty member. It sounds interesting and rewarding. Hopefully, I will be able to do these activities and it will keep me fairly busy while aboard the ship. I am not looking forward to forwarding my clock one more hour forward tonight, but we have no choice. On a side note, after my classes were over today, we played cards with a bunch of people (Alisha, Achal, Jason, and Nkoyo). Jason had a pretty funny story. Apparently, he got his towel switched with his roommate. So he didn’t know which towel belonged to whom and ended up drying himself with his hairdryer! We laughed about that for a while, and then finished up our game. All in all, a pretty good day. END OF DAY 3 of 108

Position report:
Lat. 28 N
Long. 58 W 

First day of classes: Day 3/108

I just finished my first day of classes! Once again, I had to wake up early so i could get ready and eat breakfast before class started at 8 AM. I had biomedical ethics, global studies, and macroeconomics today. My teachers all seem to be good, but global studies was pretty boring today. Hopefully, it gets more interesting as we study all the countries on our route around the world. So, after finishing classes, Achal and I grabbed some lunch, and I decided to update my blog an check my email. So here I am. Other than that, everything is going well, and all of us are very excited for our next port of call, Cadiz, Spain. 7 days to go!!!

Orientation and Inauguration: Day 2/108

I woke up feeling much better today. No more sea-sickness. I took my meclizine tablets just to make sure. Today was also very LONG and boring. We had orientation the whole day. I swear, if I have to sit through one more meeting...UGH. We had meetings the whole day, interrupted only by meals. They covered everything from the infamous UVA Honor code, to security on the ship. The highlight of the day was, however, the presidential inauguration ceremony. SAS streamed the event on all the ship's TVs, so we all got to be part of history and we watched and cheered for the 43rd President. It was very exciting. I felt his speech to be both moving and inspirational, and I hope he will bring some much-needed change to the US. I wish him all the best!

After all of our meetings, I was thoroughly exhausted and came back to my room, checked my email, and went to sleep by about 11. The ship crossed a time zone today, so the ship's time went forward one hour. So, 1100 became 000, and we all lost an hour of sleep. END OF DAY 2 OF 108

First day at Sea: Day 1/19/09

Today was a LONG day! I woke up at 6 AM and took a shower at the hotel in the Bahamas. The water was cold, so I didn't even get a proper shower. I lugged my bags down the stairs and saw a group of SAS students who also had to arrive at the dock at 8 AM. I joined their group, quickly gulped down some breakfast, and we headed off toward the dock. What seemed like a short walk the day before turned into a 20 minute drag-your-suitcases-while-sweating-profusely walk instead. We finally arrived at the dock to see a long line of people already there. After waiting for about 45 minutes, and going through the check-in process, I walked onto the ship. And I was amazed. The ship was beautiful...everything was clean, and looked brand new. I went through another round of check-in on the ship and made my way down to my room. I was surprised at how nice the room was. It was a little small, but there were lots of drawers and closet space. The bathroom was tiny but was in excellent shape. Basically, the room looked like it was brand new, and I found out we got room service every day. So it was nice, to say the least. I walked around the ship for a minute and then checked out and went to find Achal waiting in line. By now, the line was HUGE! I stayed in line with Achal and met several more people. We finally got on the ship, and walked around. At 1700, our ship left Nassau and we went to the top deck to join all the other passengers in waving goodbye to land for a while. Then we ate dinner, which was pretty good, and there were lots of vegetarian options. After dinner, the ship really started to rock, and I started to feel queasy. It was time for our orientation meeting, so we made our way to the union, a large theater/lecture hall at the fore of deck 6 (yep, gotta start getting used to the nautical terms). After about an hour, i started to feel very sick, and left the meeting to go to my room. I hit the bed, and passed out. That was the end of my first day at sea. END OF DAY 1 of 108

SAS Email!

Hello everyone. My Semester at Sea email address is yjbhatt@semesteratsea.net . Note that messages larger than 50 K, or messages with attachments will not go through, so please limit it to text only. Thanks and I look forward to hear from all of you.

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This is a test to see if i can post via email

Departure and Nassau

Yesterday was a hectic day...long days of traveling are not fun. I woke up at 5 AM, did last minute packing and barely made it to the airport on time for my flight. I got on the plane, and tried to sleep but only did for an hour or so. Then, I finally got to Nassau and met Achal at the airport. The people in the Bahamas are really awesome, and our cab driver was no exception. He asked us if we were doing Semester at Sea and gave us some advice. He said to have fun and not to fall in love with anyone on the ship...lol. We got to our hotel, which was kind of small. But it has such an excellent location! We are minutes from downtown, and the port where I have to go tomorrow. We just relaxed, met a few SAS students who were living in the same hotel, and called it a night.

Today was more walking. We woke up kinda late (ok, not too late ;) ) and ate breakfast. One of the SAS students we met, Jane, wanted to go to the beach, so all 3 of us started walking since it was a nice day. We walked through the Downtown area to the bridge that connects Nassau to Paradise Island...the bridge was really tall. Then we checked out the hotel and chilled at the beach for a while. It was a really nice beach. We were pretty tired from walking there so we took a cab back. And now I am back in the hotel, preparing for an amazing voyage around the world. I still can't believe I am leaving tomorrow. It hasn't hit me yet. I don't know when it will. Well, I really need to go to sleep soon...I need to wake up at 6:30, and get on the ship by 8 AM. I am off to bed! Maybe I will dream about my voyage. Until later, this is Yash signing off.