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Traveling around the world and making money at the same time. Who wouldn't want that? When I first thought about working onboard a cruise ship, I tried to picture how it would be to experience so many countries in such a short time. To live in a huge metal vessel of people packed in tiny sardine can rooms, surrounded by the ocean, sleeping every night as if swinging in a crib, and waking up every morning in a different land. My thirst for the unknown led me into this intense yet rewarding journey, which allowed me to have amazing and challenging moments that would make me feel, cry, laugh, love, suffer and live in such an insane way. I remember my first day in Italy. The ship docked at the grey port of Savona early in the morning. Embark, unpack, and start to work. I was exhausted from my first day overseas, but there was no time for resting. Drained yet excited, I left the ship for a tour in the city. Sunny Savona charmed me with its old buildings, little cafes and a large, stone clock tower. A simple panini was elevated by the fresh saltiness of the prosciutto and the aroma of freshly pulled espresso, and I can still barely believe I ate pizza in its birthplace. But I quickly learned that, as a crewmember, I wouldn’t have much time to explore all the ports fully. You need to hurry and sleep less if you want to have a life besides just work. In the period of seven months we would visit numerous countries: Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, Portugal, Argentina, Uruguay, and finally, my home country Brazil. Life on board is so arduous that just knowing you are in your own country can lighten the mental load and help you bear everything. It's funny how you can be among tons of people and still feel so lonely... And yet at the end of a twelve-hour work day, of a seven-day work week, after balancing heavy trays trying to not spill drinks or let peculiar glasses fall, dealing with grumpy passengers and nasty superiors, the friends you make on board become your family and give you strength to go on. I wasn’t very family-oriented back then, and with so much work and so many distractions you lose yourself and any thoughts of your old life amongst the noise. But when my family finally managed to visit me, I couldn't hold back the tears. They streamed down my cheeks, split and running like the wake of the ship I had tried to make my home. I had gone just 3 months without seeing them but my heart was exploding. It was on one of my hardest days onboard, feeling so empty and lonely, that I experienced the most beautiful sunset of my life. The sky merged tones of orange and yellow against the backdrop of tinted waves stretching endlessly into the horizon. The cold ocean touched the rocks, with frothy laps and salty sprays before it retreated into the orange. Perhaps it was the struggle I had faced that day, but even the view from a mountain in Malaga overlooking the city couldn’t compare. It felt then that everything is worth it and that it's amazing just to live and to feel alive, and I felt in my chest this immense gratitude for the opportunity to experience these emotions. Whenever I would contemplate the vastness of the world I felt so small and at the same time so fulfilled. My dream of traveling around the world was becoming true, and I was going to places I would never have imagined. I made friends I still keep in touch with. I loved like my lovers were the love of my life and I cried like a baby so many times. But more than that: this experience made me grow so much in seven months that all my tiredness and my tears were worth it, and the comfort of land could never have provided me with so much personal growth and awareness of where I belonged in the world.