Well stop one is officially half over, and already my mood has changed about 30 times. 4:30 came early after a night of not much sleep, but we grabbed some breakfast at headed to the airport around 5. I wasn’t quite sure where I’d meet up with Katie (Mt. Lebanon grad, Point Park student, fellow Italy and Greece traveler) but she pulled up at the curb just a minute or two after us. Despite our trip to church yesterday to weigh my bag it came in at 56 pounds… 6 pounds over the limit for a nice little fee of $90. At this point (and even more so after some serious price gouging here at the Bahamas) it seemed like this trip has already cost so much whats another $90, but I managed to get it down to 53 pounds and the guy let me go. Don’t worry Mom, I kept the Bible and I’m pretty sure I’ll be more than with only 3 boxes of Cliff bars. Anyways- we headed in, through security and made it to our gate with plenty of time to spare. When we finally did board, we were greeted by the lovely sight (and smell) of a baby being changed. On our seats. Awesome. It ended up being a quick flight to Atlanta and Katie and I ignored the required reading we had yet to do to talk about the import things in life: the Steelers, the Penguins, and mutual friends (shout out Beth Wallace, Dan Tomko and Socs).
When we got to Atlanta we realized we had to go from our plane at like gate B26 to the connecting flight at T04. Really? Basically as far as they could be away from each other. The bad news was we’re both carrying enough to last about 3 weeks in the wilderness, but the good news was the Starbucks we finally found. When we got to our gate we saw a few other kids we could tell were with SAS (“The Triumph of the City” isn’t exactly on the top ten must reads for the average college kid), but decided against being super social for the moment. We met a few girls when we were boarding, including a girl from Kiski who went to Ohio State. Of course the only person I could think of from Kiski happened to be one of her best friends, Adam Wood. Luckily when she called him right there and said she was with me he knew who I was so I didn’t look like a major creep (I just left out the part where I had a crush on him in elementary school… oops? Guess the secrets out.)
An uneventful ride to the Bahamas was followed by a great sigh of relief when our bags made it onto baggage claim- I packed nothing wearable in my carry on and was having nightmares of living in the same clothes for 2 months. We met one of our teachers in line- she’s from Pitt and teaching “The Poverty and Politics of Development”. Her son and husband were with her too and they seemed really friendly and nice. We got through customs and split a cab with one other girl who we dropped off before getting to the resort. Our room wasn’t ready yet when we got shere, but we met up with Kenzie and decided to go out to the beach and wait. A grilled chicken sandwich, small water and $18- yes eighteen- later we were out by the water, and feeling very intimidated. Not only was the pool/beach full of teenagers, but they
A. all knew each other
B. were all drunk
And C. were busy… well… sucking face.
Needless to say we were all trying to figure out how to nonchalantly ask each other if this was what any of us had in mind, but figured they were SAS kids who had come a few days earlier and hopefully the rest of the students were a little more our style.
We swam till about 4 then checked into our room with an AMAZING porch and view, then went back out to keep exploring. A guy came up to us and asked if we were with SAS, then (much to our relief) explained that we were the first people they’d met and that everyone we’d seen earlier were actually high school seniors here on a graduation trip. Feeling much better (and kind of impressed that they'd talked their parents into agreeing to a week long senior trip to the Bahamas) we hung out with him and his 2 friends for a while, met the infamous “Brody Mark Spencer” (who definitely added all 700+ students on the trip over the last few months)I walked to the Sheraton trying- and failing- to find my friend Gabi who had just come back from the Maymester voyage. We came in and get ready for dinner, met up with Alex (Pitt, fellow Italy and Greece planner), Megan (6 feet tall from CA), Candice (Flyers fan from Philly) and some girls they’ve met and went to find cheaper food at the Sheraton. Again, unsuccessfully. I never thought I’d actually be looking forward to the food on the ship, but at least it wont cost anything!
After dinner we hung out by the beach and met a bunch of fellow SASers- good news is they all seemed friendly and fun, bad news is I only remember like 5 of their names. Awful karaoke, lots of FMR type small talk and some general awkwardness ensued, but it was pretty good and we ended up staying out by the water till about 12:30. Katie and my quick tutorial on Pittsburgh-ese was a little less than successful but entertaining nonetheless. Our 4th roommate here in the Bahamas had arrived during the time outside, so we all headed in and crashed right away.
Today we got up around 9:45 (even though I was up about every 20 minutes starting at 7:30) and decided to forgo the $19 hotel breakfast buffet for some slight less (but still ridiculously too) expensive stuff at the little café from yesterday. We hung out on the beach for a while until it started raining/storming a little, and now Katie and I are using the lobby’s free wi-fi and I’m finishing my other $9 half a sandwich. I think later we’re meeting up with Alex, Megan and Candice when they’re back from a snorkeling trip, then we’ll go into town for dinner and head to this SAS meet up at Senor Frogs (hundreds of hungover college kids during a 4+ hour long check in in the morning sounds like a great way to start the trip, right?) I board at 10:40 tomorrow based on the alphabetical system they’ve worked out, so hopefully I’ll get my rooom, roommate, email address and all that stuff soon after. Don’t know how much computer access I’ll have but I’ll try to keep you posted! (don’t worry, probably not with a short novel like this next time… my bad)
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