Halifax

So I arrived in Halifax after a flight on what might be the smallest plane I have ever seen. I was almost scared to get on, because I had to duck my head to get to my seat. The plane was only 16 rows, with 3 seats in each, and I couldn't even bring my carry on on to the plane because they didn't even have space for it. The ride was pretty quick and I got some reading done for one of my classes. When I got off the plane I had to go through customs, and the guy gave me such a hard time, asking me tons of questions about my program, even though Semester at Sea specifically provided us with letters explaining the program. Apparently I look very sketchy so he decided to send me through the random luggage check place, which was way fun. When I finally got out I met Kati and her parents and they drove us back to the hotel to get lunch and stuff. When we got back, we had to take a nap and then we decided to venture in to Halifax for the evening. Little did we know that it was going to be an adventure. The woman at the front desk informed us that we would either have to take 6 buses or 2 buses and a ferry. After about an hour and half we finally got to Halifax and decided to walk around. It was completely not what I expected at all, although I don't think I ever stopped to think about what Halifax would actually be like. We got to meet up with Jessica and we went for a walk to find somewhere to eat. After ordering our dinner, and our first drinks because we are of age in Canada, we hung out at the restaurant on the waterfront which was a bit chilly, but really nice. We had trouble deciding what to do after dinner, but we stopped by the club Taboo because we thought that's where everyone would be, but no one was actually there so we left and went to the casino. After playing the penny slots for about 10 minutes, we each lost our five dollars and decided to get some drinks at the bar. I ordered a girl scout cookie drink which tasted like thin mints, delicious. We left and got back to the hotel to find that our friends had still not arrived :( They had all been traveling all day, and when they finally arrived at around 3 am, about 15 minutes after we had gone to sleep, we learned that they had lost most of their luggage.

Today was quite adventurous however, we got to explore Halifax a bit more, and we met up with some more SAS kids. Colby, Kati, Sara, Kyle and I took the adventure bus ride to the ferry, where we waited for almost an hour we finally hopped in cab and got to the ferry. We grabbed a quick lunch at the Pita Pit because we were all starving, and headed to Keith Alexander's brewery for the tour. We met up with about 10 other kids, which was really fun. The tour was unexpectedly funny and animated, where the people were dressed up in 1800's attire and sang songs and gave us the history of the brewery. I think being with all of these people, the ones who I had just met, it was so funny. I think for the most part, we all got along really well, and had a lot of fun. After the tour we decided to go back to the hotel where most of the other people are staying, and from there we went to a pub called Maxwell's Plum, which is apparently famous for its 60 beers on draft. I had some delicious drinks called liquid caramel, and a sex on the beach, which had banana schnapps in it, was sooo good. I made a new best friend named Thomas, but I think that he's the only one who actually thinks that were best friends. Anywayy, after some drinks we decided to go back to our hotel, with the intention to go see the movie the Hangover. We have a really large retail outlet next to our hotel and right next to it is a movie theater. Its a really cute little location with a bunch of restaurants too. Since the movie didn't work out, we went in the pool that the hotel has, which has an amazing slide, like you would find at an amusement park. It was really fun. We also needed to go to Walmart after, which was about a mile walk, but as always we made it an adventure. Of course there were pictures taken at each location of the day, to be put in an album I will make some day.

This trip has made me even more excited to get on the ship, even though it hasn't hit me that I will really be living on a boat for the next 11 weeks. It also hasn't hit me that I will have to do school. Its crazy to think that after all of this time of waiting, and talking to people on Facebook, that we are finally getting to meet each other. Everyone seems so nice and friendly so far, and I am excited to meet all the other people who are going on the voyage. I'll update soon!