The first few days

Last Saturday, the 15th of October, I boarded the Regina Maris. We had from 3 to 5 p.m. to hand over our stuff to the teachers and crew. All the baggage was piled onto the dock and everyone walked around the ship. I took a bunch of photos, which I'll upload asap. When the parents left we were told what we're going to do in the coming week. First thing on the list: loading the bagage into the huts: chaos. Two people per hut did it, whilst the other two helped in the kitchen and with sorting the presents. When we were finally done it was time for dinner, which was suprprisingly good and all vegetarian. My cabin (number 2, towards the bow) volunteerd for kitchen duty. Not much later we went to bed.

The following morning we were moken up at 8 a.m. with two minutes to get dressed. We did it in about five. Kitchen duty was pretty ok. The eggs took long to boil though. And well, washing up for 42 people... you get the picture. After breakfast we had a safety tour of the ship, and practised opening watertight doors with blindfolds on. Next up was lunch. And washing up. Then we got a few basic sailing instructions (which I missed, due to the washing up), and learned how to tie basic knots. Someone knew how to tie a noose, and well, now everyone does. Dinner was quite something. The preparation, fine. The eating of it, fine. But the washig up... Let's just say that the drains got more than slightly blocked. Like, really blocked. We finished at around 11 p.m. But we stayed up pretty late anyway, and slept really well after that.

Yesterday the stores came. Most of them. And let me tell you something, that means a lot. Everything needed to be counted and put somewhere. It took almost all day. Luckily the Regina has an audio system, and my iPod was connected to it for quite some time. That made everything a lot better. Better still was that we were allowed to climb the mast (which I'd done a year ago, at SAIL, but still). Amelia and I went up last, and we sat up there till dinner. It's so cool, seeing Amsterdam in the dark, from above. Oh, and two other tall ships moored next to ours in the last two days.

Today we went to the Conservatorium of Amsterdam, where we were told about food (mostly how not to get fat on board) and filled in a questionnaire for a study about the effects of SaS. Now I'm in the central library, where we looked up info about the places we're going. In about half an hour we'll be getting a small tour of Amsterdam. Which is funny, as I've lived here, but well.

I need to go now, and hopefully will be updating soon. Bye!