SAS Remembered

Today I went to a presentation given by one of the professors/directors of Freshman engineering at Pitt. It was directed at the parents of incoming freshman, but his opening lines about packing them off the first day they arrive got me to thinking about one of the greatest college experiences of my life: Semester at Sea.

Tomorrow, June 16, will mark one year since the day that I boarded the MV Explorer and began my journey around the Mediterranean. I remember the first time I saw the ship in the dock the first day that I arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I thought it was huge!! (Until I got a glimpse of some of the luxury cruise ships that could eat the MV Explorer as a snack)

But anyway, I don't want to make this a list of things that I did since that is already covered in the rest of this blog. I want to make this about the feelings and emotions involved in the whole trip and what has remained engraved in my mind.

I remember the way my room rocked in the waves and just the overall feeling of being in my cabin. Those late-night chats I had with my roomie. The feeling of the breeze on my face and through my hair as we sat on Deck 7 at night and played cards or just talked and stared at the ocean. Cramming the whole student body into the union for pre port meetings and waving our green sheets! Or better yet cramming into Nate and Eric's room for LOTR.Walking along the harbor in Pireaus on our way to the beach the first night and just taking in the sunset and expensive yachts and all of those other amazing views and feelings and moments that are forever ingrained in my brain. [Stumbling back to the ship after that first night on the beach and a bottle of Champagne...]

I think that I took the trip for granted. I didn't do as much as I should have. Called it a night a little to early. Woke up a little too late. Passed on experiences that I shouldn't have.

But you know what, I had the time of my life. I made so many friends that I hope to stay close with throughout my entire life. I had many firsts of my life on that trip. I changed so much on and became more of the person that I want to be. I realized that certain things that I did or ways that I acted before leaving, were childish and weren't getting me anywhere or closer to who I want to become as I grow. I feel that Semester at Sea is a life changing experience and I'm glad that I chose to use it as such.

And no matter how much I dwell on how amazing it was and how I won't ever be able to have that experience again, I have my "new" self. And this annoying need to see the world. Yes, a NEED not a WANT, a NEED. And soon.

But for now, I'm going to just look through my pictures, read my journal, watch all of the Real Sasers of Genius videos, and watch the voyage video and think about all the amazing things that I had a chance to encounter those 67 days. I hope those that just left for the Summer 2010 Voyage have just as an amazing time as I did.

GOOD LUCK AND BON VOYAGE SUMMER 2010!

and to those of you that find this somehow,

I MISS AND LOVE YOU SUMMER 2009 SASERS!

Sunsets, Sunrises, and Sad Goodbyes

I know that it's a little late for me to be entering something from the actual voyage, but I didn't realize until today that I never wrote anything about the trip back from Morocco!

I'm going to need a little help from my Journal....

OK.. nevermind then.... I guess I didn't have time to write about anything after Morocco....

So from memory:

We had a finals week, but it wasn't too bad. Definitely a lot easier than being at Pitt! Then again that may have been because I only had 3 classes AND they weren't engineering classes.

Tim, Nate, Rachel and I played a LOT of pinochle. I know that we definitely played 2 games to 1000 points. It was fun. There really wasn't much else to do, so we all congregated in rooms and on deck 7 and 6 to just enjoy the rest of the voyage and to play some cards. We had some pretty intense games!

August 19th was our Ambassadors Ball. We all got all dressed up and went down to deck 5 for the fancy meal and then to the union for the dance part. The food was OK, but the rest was really fun! We had a chance to get a photo with the captain and his wife (they are Croatian).

The 21st was spent packing. We had an entire day completely devoted to packing and getting our suitcases to a certain area of the ship. It was a very sad day.

On the 22nd, we were awoken at 5:30 by Dia. We were headed into Norfolk. We all had breakfast and then headed up to the deck to check out the coast of the US. My clearest memory from that day was the humidity. We were used to walking onto the deck at 8am and being a little chilly. Not the case at 5:30am in Virginia in the end of August. We were automatically hit by this wall of humidity. Kids retreated back to rooms to throw on shorts and tank tops and shed their sweatpants and sweatshirts we thought we would need.

The ship took forever to pull into the port and then departure times were delayed. Instead of getting off the ship by noon or 1, we didn't get to leave the ship until around 3 or 4. We screamed across the small section of water at our parents touring the war ship next the our ship. It was a long wait. Erin and I were the last to leave. We sat and watched the rest of our friends from the deck as they joined the throng of students through Norfolk's Port.

And that was the end of a pretty awesome voyage.