Sorlandet

Just for all of you that are concerned with the boat sinking, it will not! The Sorlandet is built like a tank and is the oldest fully-rigged ship in the world (it was built in 1927) so I think that it can handle me! I've been having a great time so far. Everyone on board is really friendly and nice. It's been really busy though! It will take a bit of getting used too.

On Wednesday we did a ton of icebreaker activities. It was really fun and a great way to get to know everyone. On Thursday and Friday we did our sail training. That was exciting! I got to climb aloft! It was a little scary at first because you're only clipped in when you're actually standing on the yards to unfurl sails, the rest of the time you're really high up with nothing to hold you in place. When I finally relaxed though it was great! You get amazing views from so high up. We also did a scavenger hunt in our watch groups all around town last night which was great. There's as boy who started the 100 push up club. Obviously I joined. Every night anyone who wants to meets on deck and together we do 100 push ups. They're not in a row though. You do 1, then 2, then 3 etc until you got to 10, then go back down. I'm quite sore today :) There's going to be other clubs starting up too. I've been talking with a girl from New Zealand and we want to start a baking club/birthday cake club. Someone else is going to do a knitting club. And we celebrate Halloween, Christmas and really any other holiday and sometimes make up our own events just for fun! I talked with a girl from Amsterdam and we're going to get people to celebrate St. Nicolas day (Dutch Christmas).

I should probably talk a bit about how everything works. We're divided  into 6 watch groups. I'm in watch group 2. You do a lot of activities with your watch group. It's also the people that you're awake with in the middle of the night for night watch. We start night watch tomorrow. Each shift is 2 hours long. My group has the 10:00 - 12:00 watch which is lucky, it's one of the better ones. Sure beats the 2:00 - 4:00 watch! Night watch starts at 8:00pm and goes till 8:00am. We have night watch everyday unless we're on galley watch that day. Galley watch is when we help out in the kitchen. We also have to put in 2 hours of day watch (unless you're on galleys). That fits in somewhere in your class schedule. We have 3 hours of class a day. We also have PE every other day at 7:00 in the morning. We then have a cleaning duty from 8:00-9:00. So there's a lot of work that needs to get done on a ship this big! It's not too hard though and there's still quite a bit of free time.

The boat has 3 showers and 3 toilets for 38 girls! It's crazy! We're also only aloud to push the button for water in the showers 3 times everyday (or 6 times every 2 days) because of limited storage space. But because of the free time people end up taking showers whenever there's a break so it's worked out so far. We also are going to have to remove bedding and take down our bunks everyday because the bunks become benches and all the bunk areas will be class rooms and common space. It's a bit of a pain.

That's enough complaining though! The boat is beautiful and Norway is amazing, though a bit cold. I'm having so much fun and have already gotten to know tons of people. I can tell that I have a great year ahead. I leave for France tomorrow and the sail is about 6 days. So I won't have internet for about a week. So until then bye! And hope that I don't get too sea sick!

Packing the Class Afloat sausage

The Sorlandet!

Me and dad and my pirate ship (and if you notice the yards or big stick things coming off the mast, I climbed out onto the lowest one)

Finally unpacking the battering ram!

My bunk! (with tie dyed sheets)