Charleston

The week in Charleston is starting to come to an end. Even though it feels like we’ve been here forever, I know I and many more on the ship are sad to leave. Today has been a day filled with joy, exploring, and new friendships.

As usual, the morning started at 7 a.m. with all students being “purred”, honestly, I feel that I will never get used to getting up that early… Anyways we all had our breakfast, which always makes us less sleepy. And this day was important for us to get up because today we were meeting a high school class at James Island. At 8:30 am all the students in the science program were lined up in front of a yellow school bus that was going to take us to a beautiful beach called Folly, where we met up with all the other students.

In the beginning, it was quite hard for us to socialize, maybe due to the Scandinavian lack of small talk. But after a small period, we all were chatting. On the beach, we were guided by two scientists who told us about the environment and the barrier islands, which always move due to the current. We also got to see and hold a horseshoe crab, which was quite scary (they were huge compared to our beach crabs).

After a few hours on the beach, we got a guided tour of their High School. It was a huge difference compared to Swedish High Schools. I think it seemed truly incredible, especially in how they get to pick what courses they take.

Subsequently, we returned to the boat to continue work as usual. As I said in the beginning, this day was filled with truly amazing experiences. It will be a day to remember.

Noah Essander, Portside 17 april.