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

Hi, name is Alex, I’m 15 years old and I am from the U.S.A. For the last two days, we have been confined to the boat with the amazing crystal blue water just tantalizing us all. Today for the first time, around four o’clock - we were finally given the privilege to plunge into the crisp but refreshing water. This was a much needed break for everyone from the stuffy cabins. But don’t get the idea that this trip is a bunch of kids messing around on a boat. We have all been chosen to represent our countries and ideals through thought-provoking debates. Today was first day in which we have moved beyond getting to know and trust each other to learning about each other’s opinions and possibly challenging them. Our focus for today was discrimination around the world and how we can prevent and cure it. The way that we go about discussing these topics is not one that you would call conventional but it easily involves everyone and creates creative flow that broadens our range of thinking. Today we started our discussion by making a list of how people are discriminated against around the world and we started to create still-scenes of how we envisioned each act of discrimination. After sharing our scenes of discrimination and some critiquing, we began to make scenes of how we can abolish these atrocities and begin to embrace everyone as an equal human. Even though we did not engage in debates, this activity helped us to wrap our minds around what problems we are going to debate and solutions to those problems. After a quick break to relax the mind and body we dove into a somewhat “heated” discussion over specific scenarios and certain places of the world that are still subjected to major discrimination. Today was an especially good day for me because on top of having a great day swimming, I have a great sense of accomplishment that what we are doing during these two weeks _will_ make a difference and hopefully mark the beginning of a better & brighter world.

Giovanni age 14, Italy: This day I could express in just one word: amusing! Being with the young people gives me a joy never felt in my life! They are all nice and I would dare saying very available but also understanding just like myself! Sometimes problems come back but the solution is one only: to love each other!

This morning we began discussing the environment and global warming. We started with a scavenger hunt to build the English vocabulary of the essential terms. The teens were given a page of definitions – missing the actual term. They were divided into groups and hunted through the ship for the missing words. We watched a segment of "An Inconvenient Truth," which provided a simple yet visual summery of global warming. After that, we discussed the major entities involved in the global dialog on the environment (EU, USA G77, AOSIS, BRIC, NGOs, Business Alliance, etc.) Each group was given a fact sheet on one of the entity’s positions. Tonight we will have an Environmental Summit with the groups each presenting their position. The discussion will bring the youth to an agreement that will ultimately form the YPG8’s official position on Global Warming. This is an issue these young people are passionate about and we are all looking forward to the Nave Italia’s Mini-Summit.

Hello I am Jacob. I am from Canada. Today I climbed the mast. I was uneasy at first, but I did it. I overcame my fear of heights.

Hi my name is Novisa I'm from the United States of America. So far, this expericane has been great. Italy is one of the most beautiful countries I've ever been too. The food so far is very good and the views are amazing. Today I climbed the mast -- that was really cool.

Today is hot and clear. We have arrived at Elba island and are moored far enough from the island to have a beautiful view of the coast facing us. This morning we presented an activity focusing on discrimination. The method is called image theater and required the group to create an image/scene portraying discrimination. Using fellow team mates, the group sculpted the human models into a realistic, but discriminatory image. Once the mental picture was secured in the minds of the group, they re-sculpted the image of discrimination/hate into one of acceptance/equality. The act of physically changing the posture and expressions of others is a powerful reminder of how we must work to change _our_ own views (and even our posture and expression) to stop the message of hate and discrimination existing in our world. Pictured below: 3 images of discrimination and 1 image of acceptance and equality.

I’m Melissa and 16 years old. I live in Rome but I’m Italo-Brazilian and I am very proud to represent Brazil at this grateful project. Today we climbed up over the net to the first seat of the main mast. It is 17 meter high. The view up there was just wonderful. For me it was very impressive that even the disabled got enough power out of the group that they climbed up there. During the morning we had our first discussion about the G8 topics. It was about discrimination. I liked that the educators presented the topic in an unusual way because they made a game out of it. It sounds stupid but with the game it was easier to talk about this topic which is very difficult and complex in the reality. That made it easier to talk about it in the discussion later. Now to the awesome part of the trip with a sailing boot. We stopped today close to the Coast of Elba Island. So we were allowed to swim the first time after the departure in Civitavecchia. I even jumped of the railing of the Bow. IT WAS 5 METER HIGH!!! After that we were lying in the sun and just enjoyed the time on the ship. But the best thing since we departed is the relationship to each other. We are coming from all over the world and just know each other for 2 days but we have the same goal: We want to change the world to a better one.

Ciao! My name is Rachel and I live in the UK. Apologies for the late start (I was in the ‘right part’ of the sea, just waking up at 3.00 in the morning for my flight obviously meant I needed to retire to my Cabin, which I’m sharing with Anna, who is one of the Russian members of the group) First things first: I arrived in Italy around 9 or 10 or 11 maybe…still adjusting to the one hour time difference! The group trickled steadily into the airport over the next few hours, and I decided I might need an Italian phrase book, so bought one from the shop…have not yet opened it and am getting by on my Spanish. Language is a big element of this trip. The Americans, other Brits and I are highly advantaged, and everyone else is amazing at English…why is Britain so behind on language? On the first day, we played a few name games. They were all really great ways to learn people’s names, but admittedly I still have problems pronouncing a few. We also made personal passports… which lead me to learn how many people are ‘Passionate about Cars’. Today was pretty busy too, the press were running around taking many pictures under the sweltering heat! We also played a great game. I got to sit on top of many peoples arms. Okay, so you must be thinking ‘What?!’ But really I did, We all had to fit inside a hula hoop and there are 20 of us. We used trust and balance by everyone having a partner, holding their wrists and leaning far outwards. The only place I (‘a small and light pizza’ according to one of the educators) could fit was sitting on top of everyone’s arm. Another task was leading a partner blindfolded around the boat… much easier said than done, but again the game helped build trust and team skills that we very much need to sail this boat. The boat itself is beautiful and I have so far not experienced much sea-sickness (*Touch Wood* of which there is a lot of, some of which I have polished. Wooop Shiny!) Got to go now

My name is Niklas. I’m 17 and I come from Germany. On the first day, I have already had very strong experiences. In the morning we played a game where we had to trust the people we have known for only one day! After this game we had to use our new knowledge to fit as many people as possible into a hula hoop. I’m proud to say that 14 people fit in there! One girl was on top of all us others! IT WAS CRAZY! But there were volunteers who just stayed outside to balance the mess! It felt that 20 young adults from all over the world became 1 team! This feeling was very intensive! Later that day we were in groups of 2. My team mate was Alexander from USA. I put a band over his eyes so he wasn’t able to see anymore. Then I had to lead him through the ship, upstairs and downstairs, over ropes and through doors. We just met 24 hours ago but he trusted me, in the true way of its meaning. . . blindly. Later, I had to trust him like that and it is definitely not as easy it sounds! Going blind through an unknown ship! I am really looking forward to start talking about the G8 topics because I already talked with many teenagers on board about it and there many good ideas.