#7 crossed this blue thing.. u know

Me in Scarborough, the chicken town

The Atlantic

 

Little time ago we arrived after the Atlantic crossing (doesn’t that sound crazy?!?). 20 days school every day (well one full day cleaning the ship and we wrote 6 exams (World History, Mandarin, Art Media and Culture, English, Chemistry and Calculus) in 4 days). I must say everything went very smoothly and there was no great depression or any crazy fights. Some of us were worried that the crossing would be super hard, also because of the night watches that we have every night. However, this stretch was really nice although a bit stressful because of the studying for exams. During the four days exam period the volunteers and teachers took over our day watches so we could be more focused on the exams. For me the exams went really well and I am very satisfied looking back to the effort I put into studying and doing homework.

Some other stuff that happened the last 20 days: One day we had a Swim Call; we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving; another day we had a pool on deck, which was really fun because the ship was rolling; the other day was my birthday (who else could say they turned 18 in the middle of the Atlantic?!?) so they made a huge chocolate cake with Nutella and jam. A really nice present I got was a self-made neckless with a rock from the Swiss Alps and a shell from New Zealand and in the evening the Norwegian volunteers sung the “Norwegian birthday song” for meJ. On the 31^st of October we celebrated Halloween and (almost) everyone dressed up. I was Edward Scissorhands. In the morning during deck rinse of Halloween I was exposed to a water fight, which was fun (but not too convenient if one had class few minutes after…). Because we had read Frankenstein in class we were watching the movie on Halloween. After the Halloween Family Dinner we went trick or treating around the ship. Crew members, volunteers and teachers hid and we had to search for them. After the trick or treating we had the first banjer dance, followed by a scary story circle. All in all it was a super fun day, and most certainly my best Halloween.

Yes, we didn’t have any internet or other connection to the outside world for 20 days. How it was? – Very nice and I realize how distracting the internet sometimes can be. The only “kind of” stressful thing is getting to shore and thinking about all the things I have to do with internet and the overload of messages. Okay honestly, I was excited about all the messages I would get. Without the interconnectedness I had some time thinking about anything and everything. So I spent some time thinking about things I miss and funny things that have happened during my life so far. There’s for sure some food I miss, like Chocolate or Smoothies or even just fresh fruits (for about 10 days we had only apples) of which we ran out 3 days before arrival.

I also miss IKEA, because we were talking about it in class (“Poetry is like putting an IKEA bed together.”) and I do do dooo appreciate everything so so so much more! Seriously, I am throwing back so many awesome memories. Sleepovers with friends, bike tours, school camps, skiing with family/friends, having great chats with family and friends, speaking Swiss German, even classes and teachers… everything here is really different. It started with the language going over to the hammock being my bed and ends with saying goodnight to your teachers.

There are some things changed since Las Palmas (3.Oct.): We got a new awesome cook, Bogdan; and since Morocco (25.Sept) we have only 2h night watch. Night watch was pretty hard in the beginning but now after the 20 days sail there are only few nights where it is hard to stay awake. I had my watch from 00:00 to 2:00 am and lately my watch (Watch #1) rotated to 2:00 to 4:00 am. Sometimes it makes it’s hard to get up in the middle of the night and trying to stay awake, especially when the coffee doesn’t taste too good.

I want to tell you about some field study trips. In Morocco we had a guided 4 days trip. We took two busses to a Berber village in the Atlas Mountains. After 6 hours of driving (including some hot but nice stops) we arrived and had to walk for an hour until we arrived in the lovely Berber house. We go to eat Tajin (we go to eat that every day as well as Berber Salad, consisting of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and olives; and Kafta, which is another main dish. For dessert we got fresh fruits, such as Apples, Melons, Pomegranates and grapes. In the Berber House we sat on the floor in a long stretched room and ate, I really loved that room. One day we hiked to a waterfall in which we took a bath and ate picnic. The picnic was transported by my nice little friend, the horse. In the evening we went to visit a Berber family where we, of course, drunk tea. The other day we went off to the desert. It took us about the whole day to get to the place outside the Sahara Desert. Once arrived we got some tea and rode the camels to our camp in the desert. Some of us (me including) slept under the stars, others in the cabins made of sticks carpets and other material. In the next morning we got up at about 6 o’clock in the morning to climb up a dune and watch the sunrise. It was extremely exhausting and felt like never ending… especially without food in my stomach. The funniest part of all was rolling down the dune.. 😀

In Las Palmas we had a lot of time for ourselves and the only thing assigned for field studies was a one day scavenger hunt, which was a lot of fun because it took us to some really nice places we probably wouldn’t have gone to. Mostly we relaxed at the beach and ate ice cream.

During the short stay in Cabo Verde we went to the place where the first slave trade took place, it was very impressive. Other than that we had to find internet (which was kind of hard) to download some stuff for school. There were a lot of markets and women carrying their belongings on their heads. We met some nice people who showed us around and another dude with whom we made a rap/beatbox video.

So I wrote the text above during the Atlantic crossing. Now we are in Tobago. Having free time to go to the lovely beaches in the Caribbean is really awesome. The vibes here are also super chill. Going to a fast food restaurant and having to wait for 30 minutes… – Super chill. The bananas here are delicious and so is the coconut water. I also found some really cool drinks called peanut punch and sea moss drink. They are like milkshakes 😋.

I would say the long voyage across the Atlantic brought all of us closer together so I feel like we are enjoying our shore leave time much more. Also, we all passed the quarter exams and I even got the best grade in the Chinese exam 😊.

Well well my fellows.. I’m excited for field study trip tomorrow: going a beach at a bay, in the evening we’ll go to a Sunday school, which basically is like a party with music and the famous steel drums. The day after we are going to a waterfall and have a tour in the rainforest of Tobago, which is famous for its birds. Oh and we’ll go snorkelling. – Who’s excited? I am excited!!
Enjoy the colourful leaves in Europe’s autumn. Do it for me 😁

💕💕

 

Las Palmas

Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

Watching dolphins through the portholes/ocean Windows..