Greece Insanity

I’m here! I arrived in Piraeus around 3pm on Tuesday and dove right into training - didn’t even have time to change my clothes after traveling all night. Since then we’ve been training 13-16 hours a day. Normally that kind of schedule would be wiping me out but so far my energy level has been surprisingly good.

Let me share my first impressions:

The ship is fairly old – built in 1966. As the hotel manager said, “She is a very old lady”. The fact that she is old is actually kind of good news because she was designed to specifically to cross big oceans. She was built at a time when people still used ships to travel across the Atlantic or Pacific – unlike cruise ships that are built today to zip around the Mediterranean or Caribbean. This ship has a very deep V hull and can hold fuel for 30 days! So all of you that were worried about my last adventure at sea can all breathe easy because this ship is more than ready for our big ocean crossings.

As for looks – I have to admit I was a bit of a snob when I first boarded the ship. The ship felt shabby, dark and a little dated to me. It’s not really fair of me to compare this ship to the one I was on during SAS – that ship was only built in 2002 so of course it is brighter, newer and less dated (but of course we all know how she handled the oceans).

Every day I’m on the ship I’m appreciating her more and more. There is lots of natural wood all over the ship (not allowed on new ships), and my cabin is twice the size of my last one – 5 small closets, 2 twin beds, 2 bunks that pull out of the wall, 2 chairs and a desk/vanity area. The bathroom is equal to a regular bathroom at home and get this – I have a bathtub!! It’ll be great for doing laundry (yes, I’m hand washing a bit) and no bonking my head in the shower constantly like last time. The best part is all of the public space – it’s amazing! We have three gigantic group spaces, loads of lounging spaces, and decent space for classrooms. They are still transforming the ship as we speak – the gift shop, library, academic resource center, counseling center, gym and classrooms are being put together right now around us. I’ll be excited to see it all when it’s done.

The job is going well – I really like everyone so far and my team is frantically busy trying to create and piece together what our daily work will look like. My colleague has described what we are attempting to do as trying to build the plane and fly it at the same time – I’ve never heard a metaphor that is more true. We are trying to create every policy, procedure, process, form and system from complete scratch at the same time as we are learning our onboard booking system and preparing for students to board in just two days. It’s feeling exciting yet crazy at the same time.

Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to see a whole lot of Greece. During training the other day we got to spend the afternoon in Athens doing a scavenger hunt game so I got to see a little bit of Athens but not much. I have gotten off the ship a couple times in Piraeus – walked the streets, shopped in a corner store, ate a meal, saw a procession for a wedding go down the street and simply tried to soak in as much as I could.

Today our whole team is going to Athens for the student dinner and to reconcile all the trips in Athens before we leave Greece. We are hoping to go a little bit early so that we can explore Athens a bit more before we shove off.

Students arrive on the 5th and we set sail that evening. We now have internet in our office so email and blog posting should be ok as long as our ship systems stay up and running. It may be spotty at times though once students arrive because the system gets slllloooowwweeeerrr and slllloooowwwweeeeerrr the more people than are on it. Also I doubt I will have much time to communicate until after Portugal. We only have 8 days to design, create and implement EVERYTHING related to students and staff going ashore and going on trips (Gulp!).

Hope everyone who works in the academic world has had a smooth start to your school year. Take care and I’ll type atcha soon.