STAVANGER, NORWAY day 1

August 22nd

it is day one in stavanger, our first port! I have never been more happy than when we finally got off of the ship. I love our home, but seasickness really fricken sucks and it hasn’t even really started yet… the first part of the day we spent on the ship doing chores and preparing to leave. and at around 2:30 we left the ship and got into tenders to shuttle to a petroleum museum. i didn’t even know that was a thing to be honest. it was downpouring, once again. we had all kind of dressed up a little bit. and by dressed up, i mean wore normal clothes as opposed to our ship work clothes. but, since it was raining so hard we all got soakedddd. we were only in the direct rain for about 20 minutes but after about 5 we were thoroughly drenched down to our skin.

once we got to the museum, and tracked/ dripped in enough water to the point where they had to mop, we took off layers and then split into groups of about four to do an activity they had planned. we went on a little scavenger hunt/ work sheet excursion we got handed a packet of questions and had the next two hours to fill it out. after about the first 30 mins my group was kinda tired of looking for answers so we just wandered around the museum. at the petroleum museum there are tons of escape games. there’s an escape room, an escape chute, an escape pod and so many other group games. the escape room was a pitch black few rooms connected together with all sorts of walls and tunnels and drapes and wind and stuff deterring you from getting to the other side. our group did this about five time and every time one of us got hurt. i got tackled by edvard a few times which was terrifying, and i’m pretty sure i’m a little concussed, sarah kept walking into walls, alex got lost, edvard kept hitting his head on all the low hanging things and i dropped a ring. needless to say, we were a pretty dumb group and the rooms were probably designed for all ages but we struggled through them. there was also an escape chute which was literary just a tube going down two stories that had little platforms and mesh hanging things in it. somehow i ended up going head first down it and ended up hanging by one leg until i fell onto my head. definitely a super fun day but i wouldn’t be surprised if i have a bit concussion to be honest.

after the museum we split back into our watch groups and found a library where we set up a few apps for each student, life 360 to keep track of our watch group, whatsapp to message the teacher on duty, and we got all the important phone numbers and stuff we needed to know put into our phones. everyone spent the next hour on their phone talking with their mom and dad and siblings and friends and everyone else they hadn’t talked to. after we had all finished our calls (and stopped crying) we had a few hours of shore leave. most of us headed to mc donald’s to get some junk food and sweets which apparently we felt deprived of because we all ate so much food. after that we just wandered around the town checking out some shops and stuff. it was nice to decide what we wanted to do, and eat, and wear, even after a pretty short time on the boat. after shopping around for a while we all sat down and rested at a starbucks before heading back to the meeting spot.

we had to be back at the ship by 2100 and though we were so tired from the day we all gathered in the banjer and i taught everyone how to play spoons. actually, we only had pens and we didn’t really end up playing. it started out good but half way through the first round, cards were being thrown and everyone was being drawn on. everyone that played currently has legs, arms and a neck filled with drawings. it was still really fun though. oh, and now everyone calls “pens”, spoons, now haha.