Sea life and C4

Sea life
 Today has been a good day. :) Last night I was kind of blah, but today is nice. Looking out the window during class.. the water is so blue. Like, cerulean blue. find a crayon box and look at that colour, that's what colour the water is. :P looking at it makes me want to jump in and go swimming.

This morning Emily and I accidentally slept through global studies. it's just so hard to get up in the morning when we've been losing an hour every night! D:  But I think pretty much everyone is determined to not take a nap today, it's been the thing everyone does because we've all be so tired! But now we have class and about a billion things to read.

I am trying to plan how I'm going to spend my time whe nI'm not on SaS field trips, and that's proving to be complicated without the internet at my fingertips! I don't know how people did things without technology :P it's so convenient, it's ridiculous. I'm finding that I enjoy doing things (for lack of a better term) the "old fashioned way", if you will. Looking through actual travel books like Lonely Planet guides and such is a different experience than browsing the web.

In Spain I think I am going to try to go to Figueres, which is the city in which the amazing Salvador Dali was born! There's a huge museum dedicated to him and many more Dali-esque things, which I would really like to see! Also it's convenient because it's relatively close to Barcelona. It's very unlikely that I would be able to make it to Bilbao for the Guggenheim museum or to Sevilla because they are pretty far away from Barcelona. So, those will have to be next time I travel the globe :P

Speaking of which, it's also looking like Venice will have to wait until the next time I travel the globe. :( It's a distance/time issue though that I just can't get around. Fortunately, there are other cool things to do in Italy that are much closer to Civitavecchia and Naples. Like Capri, which I've heard is a must-see.

I have been looking for sea creatures at every opportunity I can, but I haven't seen any yet. Apparently people have seen some whales, but I never hear about it until the next day! very sad.

It's very cold at sea, btw. well, not verrrry, but it's colder than I would have imagined. I have to wear my zip up sweater pretty much all the time. they keep it like 68 inside the ship. out on deck is generally comfortable, room temperature-ish, unless you're sitting in the wind. then you need pants and a jacket and maybe a blanket, too, depending on the day!

Shout out to Mr Andrew Hutto for sending me an email about what's going on stateside! thanks ^-^

Also if anyone (AHEM HANNAH) has any stories about America's Got Talent, I'd love to know what's going on.

I have a quote from my Energy and Society book that I'd like to share with you. It's from Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman. page 5, from the chapter "Where Birds Don't Fly". He says "...a place where birds don't fly is a place whre people don't mix, ideas don't get sparked, friendships don't get forged, stereotypes don't get broken, collaboration doesn't happen, trust doesn't get built, and freedom doesn't ring."  


The place where birds don't fly is actually referencing the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul. It's so secure, with a huge wall around it, no one really wants to go there. it's like a prison instead of a consulate, and it was said of it that "they don't let birds fly there" because how intense they are about security.  Basically it, and another story in the book, illustrate how the US has become so concerned with security and fighting terrorism, that we have forgotten how to be a happy member of the international community. Because the Consulate, before it was moved and made into a fortress, was apparently a place where people went to learn in the library and mingle with diplomats. Now no one wants to go there.  This chapter really points out how the US (and therefore the international view of the US) has changed, especially since 9/11. Friedman says we have become simply "The United States of Fighting Terrorism" and nothing else, instead of the innovative, leading country that we used to be known as.

Things to think about. agree? disagree? email me.

In other news, we are officially in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We have a little map on our tvs that is linked to the GPS of the ship, and we are smack dab in the middle. We saw some dolphins during dinner today! well, before you get too excited, they were really far away. so we didn't so much see them as their splashing about. because they're visible as little clusters of what looks like white cresting waves because of their jumping. so that's what we saw. and some birds, too. No idea what they're doing out in the middle of the Atlantic. getting eaten, probably.

Guess what! we don't have to change our clocks tonight! Praise Jehovah. But, apparently we're going to be passing by some islands belonging to Portugal at like 6 in the morning, so I GUESSSSS I'm going to have to get up and take pictures of that. :P

Tonight we had a nifty clown performance! I took pictures. And we also had a dance shortly thereafter, which was pretty okay. whoever was picking songs though was not the best at it.

So that's about all! nighty night.


c4
We don't go by dates here, we go by class days. and today is class day four: C4. I have to look at my phone if I want to even know what day it is! and today is Sunday, Father's day! shout out to daddy!

So I didn't get up at 6 this morning to see the islands we were passing (big surprise, I know), but it turned out we could still see them at 8 when we went to breakfast! so I didn't really miss anything :P except the sunrise, I guess. But I'll have plenty of opportunities for that.

For anyone who knows them, there are a few doppelgangers here. There's a guy who looks a lot like Grappler. There's also a guy who looks so much like Jonathan Williams that it startles me every time I see him, except this guy is a little more asian looking. There's also a guy who reminds me of Trevvor! Sorry gals, not seeing many doppelgangers of you.

Man, we have to advance our clocks an hour again tonight. I was so excited to not have to do it yesterday and now they've sprung it on us again. >:(

I saw dolphins today!!!! they briefly came up next to the ship and I ran over to the edge of the deck to try to get a picture, and I did! they're kind of far away, but I got them right when they were leaping out of the water! :D disclaimer: it's kind of blurry because I didn't have a whole lot of time to adjust my settings. :(  but I'll get some better ones, I hope!

It's so weird waiting on people to email me. Everyone in Alabama is like six hours behind me, so I keep having to tell myself, it's okay Hayden, no one over there has even gotten off work yet!  Time change is weird stuff, I tell ya.

Shout out to Miss Alisha Grant and Selena for my cute gifts they gave me before I left! That adorable little fishy notebook thing has come in super handy for leaving people notes on their doors! and they always know who it's from because I'm the only one who's awesome enough to have those! :D

I sat outside today around lunch time, it was so warm and nice and the sunshine was so pretty! I got a little pink on my shoulders. Just preparing for Barcelona, haha.

OH! in other news, I think I've found a way to go to Venice, and possibly Verona? With some luck, I'll be able to make it happen. *Victory dance!*

Today everyone in our sea put on orange facepaint like football players. I think I discovered more people who are in my sea today than I ever had before, haha.

Tomorrow is laundry day. which makes me think of Dr Horrible.

Speaking of movies I brought on the ship, :P  I'm getting to share all my good kiddie movies with the kiddies onboard! an email went out to us students to ask about kid's movies and I was like "yes! I have a bunch!" because, as you all know, I'm a six year old at heart. So now they'll be playing on the ship's movie circuit so I'll even get to watch them on my cabin tv, heheh >:)

In my reading for Global Studies, there is a general named Fabius Cunctator. What a laugh!

We had our first map test today. I aced it, of course. I also got some extra credit points in my Politics class. yay me! It's because I actually did the reading. I don't think I have ever done so much reading for 3 classes. I guess it's because, in reality, there are only 22 days of class on this entire voyage. BALLIN'

anyway I'm exhausted, I'm sorry if I forgot anything.
love and kisses