Ok so I meant to post this last week but for some reason it didn't work. So read this as if you were reading it last week. I just got back from four days going down the Amazon River and am super tired for this last week's update will come tomorrow. Love you all!

So I started out in Nassau, Bahamas on Wednesday and spent two days on the beach and meeting my classmates around town. Met some cool people, some sucky ones. It was extremely hot and humid but the beaches were amazing. The bugs were not as amazing...

After a long line of check-in I made it onto the boat and into my room. The boat is nice and kept up really well. They feed us buffet style 3 times a day. There's a small pool and an even smaller gym, but lots of room the relax. My room is cute and little, but really not bad. Being at sea really isn't bad, I have yet to get anywhere close to sea-sick, while many others have. Tonight is extremely rocky and my roommate has already gotten pretty sick (luckily, I wasn't there for that...).

My roommate is a sorority girl from a small private college in Virginia, but we somehow get along extremely well and I see us being good friends. She is originally from Maryland and her parents and conservative Catholics, haha. She's a moderate, but I have an entire semester to help her find her way.

The last two days have consisted of a lot of boring meetings about what we can and can't do and how to do the things we can do. We start class tomorrow and have 2 of them every other day and the other 2 the other days. We got to meet the professors and they seemed pretty interesting and/or entertaining. A husband and wife couple are on the trip as professors because their daughter went on SAS last year and they both have PHDs The boat is 25% Californians, which is the largest California population they've ever had (sadly, there are a lot of gross so-cal orange girls). There's a good number from the Bay too. The boat is also 75% girls, 25% boys which I expected to be more intense than it has been so far... Although I'm sure drama will come eventually.

We get into Salvador, Brazil on the 7th and I leave for the Amazon on the 8th. They've been pretty big on warning us about Dengue Fever, which I hear can get pretty bad. The only preventative treatment is to use bug spray.... a little scary. 6 more days at sea (and of class) and then Brazil! I can make it!

With Love,
Falyn

P.S. My free email is fsokol@semesteratsea.net! I will only get 2 hours on the internet, but this email address does not count towards that time, so I can be on it as much as I want!