Itinerary Change: it's official!

I woke up this morning around 8am with a lot of energy and was really confused why. I don't have class on Friday here at San Diego State University, so Friday is my lazy sleep-all-day day. A few minutes later, I got an email from Semester at Sea titled "Itinerary Change" and after rapidly reading it, we are now going to....

Walvis Bay, Namibia (instead of Ghana)

Casablanca, Morocco (instead of Senegal)

I almost cried tears of joy. We used to have Morocco as one of our ports, but a few months ago, SAS took it off for some reason. This was one of those ports I was looking forward to the most due to various reasons: camel trek through the Sahara desert, camping in tents in the desert, movies like The Prince of Persia was filmed here and tv shows like Game of Thrones was, and Morocco just seems plain cool. I am also excited for Namibia but don't really know what there is to do there, so lots of research is about to go down. 

So I guess somehow my body just knew to casually wake up and be awake right when that email was sent out. I am happy about the itinerary change and glad that SAS is taking a precaution to not go anywhere where ebola could possibly be. Now to just wait until October 8th. Until next time!

First Post!

I never planned to study abroad until I heard about Semester at Sea. My television, film and media studies major & business marketing minor don't require me to study abroad, but there are such similar courses offered so I'm almost positive they will transfer. Semester at Sea is a study abroad program that is on a ship and takes you to different countries for a semester. Classes are centered around the different ports we will be going to, and each class has a "field lab" where the professor picks a place to take the whole class out into a country and see what you are learning about in class firsthand. 

I applied to Semester at Sea after touring its ship, the MV Explorer, when it was docked in San Diego at the beginning of January 2014. I heard about it from a Facebook friend, and since I've been on 5 cruises and they are my favorite thing in the entire world, cruising to multiple countries while taking classes on board is the ideal study abroad program for me. 

The itinerary:

1. San Diego, CA (bus to Mexico)

2. Ensenada, Mexico (embark)

3. Hilo, Hawaii

4. Yokohama, Japan

5. Kobe, Japan

6. Shanghai, China

7. Hong Kong, China

8. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

9. Singapore, Singapore

10.Rangoon, Burma/Myanmar

11. Cochin, India

12. Port Louis, Mauritius

13. Cape Town, South Africa

14. Tema (Accra), Ghana

15. Takoradi, Ghana

16. Dakar, Senegal

17. Southampton (London), England

18. Random European cities/countries I will later decide on

*Because of the Ebola situation, I'm almost positive we will not be going to Ghana or Senegal anymore sadly, but I can't wait to find out where we will go instead! The current voyage is going to Rome and Barcelona instead, so that's very exciting! I'm hoping for Morocco, Portugal, and Spain for my voyage.

The payment deadline is in 1 month on October 15, and I find out what scholarships I got on October 8. I am literally counting down the days until I find out because one of them I could get up to $10,000, and the other is a work study scholarship worth $4,000 where I would work for 2 hours every day we are NOT in port. Wish me luck!

So that’s about it for my intro post. I’ve never blogged before but I am determined to keep this updated and take you (if anyone actually reads this) with me on my amazing journey around the world!