Finally Here! 1st Blog

Halifax, NS (LAT 44.640270 LONG 63.624436)

Whew! After riding in planes all day, I am finally in Halifax! The plane ride from Detroit to Halifax comprised of almost all college students and some parents. I sat next to a student from the University of Colorado that almost could not make it. A man rear ended her in April, totaling her car and sending her to the hospital. She had to back out of her spring semester because of her injuries. To make matters worse, errors on UC's transcript gave her 2 Fs instead of Incompletes! Fortunately, her doctor cleared her to board the MV Explorer and UC worked everything out with the Institute of Shipboard Education (ISE).

I arrived at 9:30 pm Atlantic Time, just in time for the sunset. Halifax is hidden by huge green forests. None of us had ever seen so many trees! It was also cold and a little rainy last night at ~50 F. Sad to say, I did not expect such cold weather in June!

Customs in Canada was just as friendly as the last time I crossed over from Michigan, just a few more regulations. Everything here is in English and French. By the time I handed the customs official my letter, he had already read it enough times to know what it said at the sight of the ISE letterhead.

I then attempted to take the shuttle to my airport, but the shuttle did not go that far. The woman at the ticket window advised me to take the shuttle for $20 to the last stop then have a cab take me the rest of the way. She looked at me with a serious face and said, "That will be MUCH cheaper than taking a cab all the way from the airport." She was right as I later found out.

We had to drive almost 15 minutes through unlit forest. Finally, we reached the city, which was more spread out than we all expected. The city is almost the size of Austin with a little under a million people, but the shuttle driver mentioned Halifax spreading out over multiple counties or something like that...so the city did not look that big. The guy next to me (also from UC Boulder) visited with me until his stop for the hostel toward the end of the route. He was in shock to see the speed limit posted at 100 and other signs in metric. I'll add, both students from UC Boulder were not happy with their move to the Pac 10 conference :).

My stop to the furthest hotel came dead last and I was the only passenger left. I told the driver my plans and he graciously told me he would go ahead and just take me to my hotel! I tipped him well and went up to my room to meet two of my seahort members: one from Old Dominion in VA and the other from Clemson in SC. I found out then the cab ride to the hotel was $60 CAD!! Oh, FYI, that's about $55.

That's about it for now. My sleep schedule is already thrown off since I'm now 2 hours later, but I'll adjust :). We are staying on chocolate lake and the fog is intensely heavy. We board the ship at 1pm then it sounds like we are free to wonder around some more...no orientation? Oh well, at least near the pier we should not be so dependent on a taxi!

Holly.