Location: Tarragona, Spain
This morning, we woke up to the warm smell of French toast for breakfast. We were then briefed on what our MTE (Basic seamanship) classes would look like and include. Although it was a lot of information to take in, I noticed a spark in all my shipmates’ eyes as we began to wrap our heads around just what we were getting ready for. Following the briefing, we then ventured into the old city of Tarragona, where we were lucky enough to bear whiteness to the Santa Tecla festival and the Xiquets de Tarragona competition that made this 2200-year-old city famous. Basically, a human tower, the locals and natives of the surrounding towns and villages get together to stack each other up to nine human lengths high! Starting in 1885, the festival essentially shuts down the whole city, and it floods with people gathered to watch this truly amazing sight. Once we got back onboard mid-afternoon, we had our first scheduling session, which, after a slightly chaotic start, ended in a totally unanimous conclusion to dictate the next week of our lives. Dinner followed, and we enjoyed a lovely tortilla chip soup. This evening, we are to be briefed on our science classes, which I am deeply looking forward to. Tomorrow, we fuel up and finally get to see what Argo can do with a little breeze between the knees. I’m still truly astonished this is how I’ll be spending the next three months, and I look forward to an epic journey with some awesome people.