Day 2 and 3

It's amazing how you can lose track of time so quickly. It was a rocky night entering Halifax, waves crashing pretty loud and the night was spent rocking, however it was soothing nonetheless. I made it through my first night on water and when we arrived in Halifax we walked around downtown. I found a vietnamese pho restaurant and the group ate there for lunch. It wasn't the best, they used dried noddles rather than fresh ones but knowing that I wasn't going to be having access to my favorite comfort foods and spices I needed one last kick. After doing a bit of shopping, I come across my favorite but addictive past time: a casino. I tried not to but I couldn't resist the temptation so I went but only for about an hour. I lost some money decided that I wasn't going to gamble for the rest of the trip and focus on seeing the city. Oops I need to back track a little. During our walk of downtown Halifax, we stopped by the Halifax Citidale which was really cool. But we didn't go in! After doing what I love to do best, negotiating with the cashier to consider us a group, he kindly offered the group price, but the interest wasn't there. I saw pictures of it and recommend it to others. Moving back, before entering the casino, we stopped by a coffee shop that had a really good raisin scone so I had some afternoon tea to prep me for the gaming that would happen right after that.

We returned to the ship to eat dinner and meet up with the others that didn't go on to the casino. Afterwards, we wandered back into the city, and had drinks at a local bar, listened to some live music, and ate pizza with ranch dressing. The night ended with me moving to my permanent room and unpacking all my belongings.

Today (wednesday) was the night that I had a somewhat decent schedule until the intercom in our room went off at 8am to inform us that we were to not smoke on the deck while they were refuling the ship. But one message was not enough, a second one came about an hour later and no more sleep was to be had by dpe. I decided that I needed to change up my routine given that these next 2.5 months would offer me time to do some reflecting...so the first thing I decided I would do was the run along the harbor. The morning jog was really nice, serene, calming, but cold. Since i haven't run outdoors in a while, it was pretty hard on my lungs, but i hope to do it a few times a week or when i'm in port at the different countries. this way I could say I ran my way through Europe.

Tonight after our orientation meeting and dinner, we decided to take a stroll along the harbor to get ice cream at "COW's" a pretty neat place, but prior to arriving, we saw a bunch of younger kids running on what was a wave, it's hard to decribe, i'll put pictures up. So all of us decided to run up, I barely made it, but I did but getting down was the hardest. I decided I would pretend it was a slide and slide down only to find my face biting the dirt. Again, pictures to follow! Decided to pay one last visit to the casino since others were interested in playing and walked away with being up 40 dollars! go wheel of fortune, I got a spin.

Okay so you're like David thanks for the play by play...really how is it. It's definately been long, I feel like each day is like a week passing by. The RDs and now we've looped the TAs into our social group have been spending time socializing and getting to know each other. I think knowing that our time is physically capped at these next 72 days, we want to cherish the moments and experiences. I'm still me and have been me with them...my humor continues to bring on punches and reminders of what I said later in conversations so I guess they remember what I say!

Anyhoo...we have training all day tomorrow, not sure how much to report. I think we're going to eat at one of the local restaurants (seafood yum) tomorrow night so I will definately post pictures up.

I'm struggling to select my favorite picture so i'll put a few but you gotta have facebook in order to see it :)

dpe