The ship is a village!

Hello dear fellow human beings,

I know I keep repeating it. Time flies here. Often I don't even know what day of the week it is, let alone the date. On the last day of my departure, Anne gave me a small bag with 19 self-written letters as a gift. I can open one letter every week, and as soon as I can open the last letter, it's time to go back home. Today, I got to open letter number 8. The content of the letters is private. I just wanted to let you know because the letters help me keep track of which week I'm in.

In my previous posts, I told you about my preparation for this journey and the experiences I had on the first day. Now, let's get into the action. Life on the ship is very similar to life in a small village, except that all residents live together in a smaller space. There's village gossip, relationship dramas, village festivals, birthdays, and class trips. Being a citizen of this village for two months now, I have also been briefed on the most important rules.

Firstly, I have to say that the rules on the ship are very clearly stated and must be followed. No alcohol during work, 0.5% alcohol limit during free time, relationships among colleagues are not encouraged, especially not with guests.

Illness cases are not welcome. If you're sick for more than a few days, you will be shipped back home. And when you consider that we work 10-13 hours a day, every day, you might think that it feels like a labor camp. Since I was allowed to live alone in an officers' cabin for the first three days and had to find my way around, I thought that all these rules were followed by the entire crew. After Andy Kusuma (my first buddy here on the ship) briefed me on the unofficial rules, I quickly realized that the world out here at sea ticks a bit differently.

As mentioned earlier, for the first few days, I only had to focus on work and slowly found the ways to get to the most important people.

Crew Mess (our cafeteria), Brauhaus (my workplace), Taylor (where I get my fresh uniform), gym, and my cabin.

In addition, in the first week, every morning I had training on first aid, how to behave when the water-tight doors close, the different alarms on the ship, fire fighting, etc. The first week was very exhausting, there was no time for leisure or for exploring the beautiful beaches that I will get to discover in the further course of my journey.

Furthermore, I had the opportunity to meet many new people and had to gradually memorize their names. Looking back, I just wanted time to pass quickly so that I could be back home soon. In fact, I even thought about simply flying back home. In those moments, I reminded myself of how I ended up here in the first place and that I believe that everything in life happens for a reason. So, I hoped for a turnaround. And that day should come just three days later when I had to change my cabin and got to know my first cabin mate, Fabian.

I'll tell you the rest of the story next time!