Ciao! My name is Amy Wipfler, I live in the Californian Silicon Valley, and have recently turned eighteen. After a morning of pastries and strong coffee, we started the day with a rigorous cleaning, which I believe will be one of many more. Having completed our chores, we held a series of meetings, both indoor and outdoors, as we continued to approach Elba Island. As we discussed issues related to diversity, I felt that we began to create closer connections, as previously we had only dealt with superficial facts such as favourite foods and our desired super hero. Because we were finally thinking about and discussing with each other the major problems surrounding discrimination, we were able to actually connect to each others backgrounds and situations at a deeper level. The next activity that defined my day involved a swimming adventure. Many of the other members of the group had been itching for the last thirty-six hours to jump from the very tip of the bow into the Adriatic Sea. However, none of these eager adventurers were able to perform this feat during this swimming session. You may think that this would be the end of all swimming for the day, as did I, and I had noticed music coming from the mid-ship deck, so I went investigate. It turned out that approximately a dozen of the ship’s crew were doing an aerobics workout to music. As I was a fan of the songs being played by the aerobics instructor, and I had little else to do, I convinced Clara to join the other crew members with me for the workout. It was extremely enjoyable, and since we had entered the workout halfway, the instructor offered to extend it for another half-hour. I found at the end of the half-hour, was that the captain had offered to allow all of our group who had performed aerobics to be able to jump off the tip of the bow. Only three of us had joined for the second half, me, Clara, and Antonio. I figured that I may never again have the chance to jump fifty feet safely from a ship ever again, and so I decided to go for it. What an exhilarating feeling! I had never before realized how easy it is for your body to change its form as you drop fifty feet with gravity tugging, and so the landing in the water was much less than perfect. While the back of my knees may sting for the next day or two, I wouldn’t have exchanged that feeling for anything. We then feasted on pasta and chicken for dinner, and it seems that the crew have a surprise for us this evening (I think I know what it might be, but no comments now). All in all a very full and fun day, sure to be followed by many others. Signing off! Amy