So last weekend right after move in the lovely Laura McG and I had planned to go check out the MV Explorer (the boat I'll be living on during Semester at Sea) in Norfolk since it was only like 30 min. away... Sooo at around 11 I figured I'd try to print out the reservation form you have to present to get on the ship (I had to register Laura and I like a week beforehand with all kinds of crazy information) so I go to the library to print it out since there is no internet in our rooms yet, but the library says there's no printing until monday... so I go to Jeanine's to try it again on her printer - but as nothing ever seems to go right with me on CNU campus her printer looses it's mind and refuses to print it out... It's also about this time that I realize - oh shit - it doesn't start at 4 like I'd told Laura it had, but rather started at two and ended at four. It was 1:00 when I realized this. So because I'm retarded I call Laura freaking out and I'm sure sounding like I was having a heart attack while leaving messages on her phone over and over because she wasn't picking up.
Meanwhile, J9 found one of her residents with a printer and used her USB and got shit done (Jeanine is like that, haha.) I figure the tour's pretty much a lost cause around 1:20 and figure I'll just go to the library and pick up some of the books I need for classes... While I'm there though, sucking up spending another crazy 100 bucks on textbooks, Laura calls back! It's crazy late considering we need to be there in 20 min. and it's about 40 min. away but we go anyways last minute. I have such good friends that put up with all my ridiculous shit (shout out: thanks guys!)
Soooo, we're driving there listening to John Legend and chatting about our Summer, my chicken scratch and terrible directions, my new cramped single dorm, and Laura's bangin' new apartment off campus when - HOLY CRAP - a seagull flies into a car driving to the right of us on the highway/bridge on the way to industrial Norfolk. This this is screaming and flapping it's enormous wings and I'm looking over horrified and freaked out and the two young black girls driving the car are... laughing. Hahaha. It was awful though really, I figured that seagull was definitely a goner and those girls were not even worried about it. Oh! And all this happened right in front of a huge P.E.T.A. building! Insane.
So we finally get to the check in point for the boat - it's now pretty much 4pm and they're calling people off the boat and Laura and I're like, "Whatever, we got this ish." and walk on. Or rather in my head I said that because Laura would never and I was freaking out and
praying no one called us out and we could pretend to be a part of another tour or something. From there on we pretty much just wandered around the ship aimlessly - ducking in and out of unlocked cabins (one of which definitely had someone living in it and I think in the bathroom while we were in there, haha) and checking out the main spots like the bar (international waters means the drinking age is 18,) the gym, and the health and wellness center which is pretty much a large salon that offers massages, facials, hair stylings, and all that.
It was really, really cool and much larger in person.
I can't wait.
