One week ago today

Our last day at sea was already a week ago.  I went out on deck about 9:30 until about 3:45.  There was an extremely light shower that lasted literally 15 seconds.  Other than that, nothing but sun.  I spent about half an hour going on the slide on the ship 10 times because I felt the need to do that.  I then spent some time in the hot tub on the serenity deck.  The serenity deck is for adults.  It's an area that is kept quiet.  It was very relaxing to sit in the hot tub and not listen to kids screaming all day.  Later in the day, a guy took a 300 pound block of ice and started carving away.  In 15 minutes, he scraped off about half of the ice and made it into an Indian!  It was pretty sweet to watch it all unfold.  Later in the day I did another sports trivia.  The same 10 or so people ended up doing trivia every time it was offered.  The one guy thought I was going to win since I had my poker face on.  I laughed and said I didn't stand a chance.  Although in each of the trivias, there were a few questions that I knew the answer to that the others did not.  At dinner, the servers sang us a farewell song changing the lyrics to "Leaving on a jet plane".  After that, we packed and then watched the country show where once again, the cruise director showed another talent of his while he played the fiddle.  We went to the two comedy shows again and they were only ok.  The next morning, we were up very early, ate, and waited for our number to be called before we left the ship.  we had a flight from Tampa to Baltimore and then a three hour layover until we went to Albany.  I started having horrible stomach pains right before we left the ship.  I just got over the pains yesterday!  Our flight from Baltimore was supposed to leave at 5:45.  We were on the plane waiting and then they said we had to move planes because the toilet didn't work on this plane.  As we started moving, they told us to stay on the plane and we would leave shortly.  We didn't leave for another 30 minutes.  It was 6:30 by the time we left even though we were due to arrive in Albany at 6:55.  Since I felt absolutely miserable, that didn't help matters!  Our cruise came and went way too quickly.  It was by far some of the best days I've had in my life.  Although vacations are very expensive and I always have a million things going on in my head, I hardly thought of any of that while on the ship.  I really did get my chance to relax.  I have no idea when I will get the opportunity to do that again.  I definitely want to plan another cruise soon.  I have no idea when I will go on one again, though.  Until then, it's back to school next Thursday.  Now that I'm home again, I hope to finish my book by the end of the month!

Yankee Game/more cruise stories

I forgot to tell you about the Yankee game that I went to on Tuesday.  There were four of us going.  Unfortunately we had 2 seats in section 108 and 2 seats in section 430, the last possible row.  Because I'm awesome, I sat in 108, just to the left of the right field foul pole.  The seats were cushioned and very comfortable!  The game started at 7:05 and was very quick.  It finished at about 9:30 and we were home by 12:45, much earlier than expected.  The game itself was a little boring because there weren't many hits or runs.  The Yankees won 2-1 and that's all that matters.

Wednesday, Grand Cayman:

We were at that port from 8-3.  We got off the ship at around 8:45.  We did a lot of shopping a few feet from the port.  You had no walk at all once you got off the tender to all of the gift shops.  Since Grand Cayman is a small port, we had to get off our big boat and get on a small boat to take a 5 minute ride to the port.  Our excursion didn't start until 10:30.  That gave us over an hour to walk around.  I bought yet another Hawaiian shirt.  I'm starting to build quite the collection.  While shopping, I ran into a picture that I had to buy.  You can see it above.  We took a short bus ride over to the beach for our excursion.  The guy gave us a bunch of facts about the Cayman Islands.  Their record low happened in 2010, it was 55.  Poor guys, I feel so bad that it was so cold...NOT.  We went to Tiki beach for a few hours.  I sat in my beach chair and relaxed most of the time.  I also went in the beach (of course) and swam out pretty far.  The fish were right there with you!  There were very few clouds in the sky.  The water was a beautiful blue-green and the sand was as white as snow (but not as cold).  There was a very light breeze that did nothing to cool off my skin, which continued to get darker and darker.  I know it's cliche, but I really do love long walks on the beach.  I took a good half mileish walk, keeping my feet in slightly in the wate.  If I had more time, I would have walked a lot farther.  The one problem with the ocean was that there were big rocks on the bottom that you had to climb over and I scraped my feet on them a few times.  The ship told us that the last tender back was at 2:15.  Our bus didn't take us back until 2.  It was a short bus ride back.  The line to get back on our ship was ridiculously long.  We got in line at about 2:20 and didn't get on a tender until about 2:40.  Needless to say, the boat didn't leave without us.  When we got back on the boat, I did another sports trivia contest.  I was very ashamed of myself when I didn't know the answer to a Kentucky Derby question.  I had no idea that the celebrity section was called Millionaires Row.  After dinner, we watched a show with the cruise director and break dancers.  The cruise director juggled 3 balls, then 4, then 5!  He was phenomenal!  The break dancers had so much energy and were very flexible.  It was an excellent show.  It's amazing how many shows the cruise shows you for free!  Before the show, we watched some kareoke.  For some odd reason, I had a strong urge to go up and sing, but there was not enough time.  We watched the one adult comedy show that took place that night.  After that, I was at the casino until around 1.  Yet another glorious day.

Thursday, Cozumel

We were in Cozumel from 11-8 cruise time.  Cozumel is an hour behind our time, so 10-7.  We didn't change our watch because it would have confused me (what a shock).  Since we had time, we did the sit down (a la carte) breakfast.  After that, we went to the buffet because the sit down breakfast was not filling at all.  At about 10:15, we were all packed and ready to leave the boat.  We went to the top deck and watched our ship pull into port.  There were two ships already docked.  The Carnival Elation and the Royal Carribean Oasis of the Seas.  The Royal Carribean ship was HUGE!!!!!  It made our ship look like a row boat.  It comes complete with a rock climbing wall!  Our excursion was not until 12.  As soon as we docked, we got off and shopped for an hour.  Our excursion was called Isla Pasion by twister.  We took a boat to the beach.  This was no ordinary boat.  This boat went 60 miles per hour!  At the end of the ride to the beach, the guide did 360s which got everyone drenched.  We were on the beach for about 3 hours.  This is the same beach that is featured in Corona commercials!  The beach did not have rocks on the bottom of the ocean.  It had plenty of seaweed, though.  There were no fish either because we were only allowed to go about five feet deep.  They had an inflatable obstacle we were allowed to climb up.  We did a water balloon tossing game which we lost.  We then had to shoot a soccer ball from a long distance into the goal.  I hit the post.  Before we left, there was one more water balloon tossing contest which my friend and I won.  My friend buried me in the sand and random people were taking pictures of me.  On our walk back to our small boat, we saw two iguanas fighting each other.  Naturally, I had to take a picture.  We got back to the ship at about 5:40 and just had enough time to shower and get to dinner for some bacon mac and cheese, mmmmmmmm!  We went to kareoke again.  I was all ready to sing my song, but the teleprompter wasn't working.  We waited for over 50 minutes and it still didn't work.  We watched the gender war trivia, bingo, and passenger talent show after that.  Then I went back and did kareoke because it was without the band this time.  I sang "Piano Man" in front of a huge crowd of about 10 people.  Yes, 10.  It was not a typo.  I'm glad it wasn't more because people would have blown their eardrums from listening to me sing.  There was a deck party going on late that night.  We hung out outside with everyone while relaxing on a nice evening.  Tomorrow, you will read about our last day at sea :(.

Went to the track today

My grandpa is visiting from Florida and my aunt is up from Virginia.  We went with about 15 people to the track today to watch the horses.  This was my third time going this year. Two years ago when the family went, I had two big winners.  Today, everyone was asking me what to bet.  I told them to bet the opposite numbers that I bet because I am not as good as they think I am.  Did they bet with me when I won a $168 exacta today, nope!  That was the only bet I won today.  The rest went down the toilet. 

Tuesday August 21: our first full day at sea

My friend set his alarm so that he could call his mom in the morning.  If he didn't call, his mom would have been freaking out.  I, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with my cell phone until Saturday morning, and even then I didn't want to touch it.  We woke up about 7:30, ate breakfast, and were outside on deck laying in the sun by 9:30.  I was looking in my small bag that I bring up on deck before we left the room and noticed my iPod was not there.  I looked everywhere in the room for it and could not find it.  My thought is that on Monday, I took it out of the bag on deck and did not put it back in and somebody must have stolen it.  That's the only thing I can come up with.  Anyways, I go to guest services and they did not have it in their lost and found.  They told me to come back later that day and I could fill out a missing item report.  While on deck, I just stood for several minutes looking in front of me, to the right, and to the left.  There is something about looking at absolutely nothing but water every way you look that is so relaxing.  I could have stared at nothing for hours.  Some people might freak out when they don't see land.  It had the opposite effect on me.  I had no worries in the world while looking at the light waves coming off the water.  I eventually walked away and sat on my chair and relaxed.  One annoying part about being so high up was that it was extremely windy.  I was very happy to have my kindle because I didn't have to worry about the nonexistent pages blowing everywhere.  At 12 o'clock I did a blackjack tournament.  I didn't last long and went right back outside to catch some more sun.  On the highest possible deck later in the afternoon, my friend and I played mini golf.  That was challenging because the wind blew the ball everywhere.  The 9 holes took us forever because there were so many people in front of us,  It was ok though because we didn't have anywhere that we had to be.  They had a sports trivia contest at around 4.  They asked 20 questions.  You had to write down the answers and not shout them out.  Some of the questions were very easy and others I had no clue.  I only got 10/20 right.  Oh well.  At about 5:15, I decided to go down to guest services again and fill out the missing item report.  I cannot begin to tell you how many times they asked me the same exact questions!  They offered to do a room search.  I said that they could.  I told them I had to get going and asked if they could do the search without me.  They said that they could not and that if I left, I would have to do the paperwork all over again.  At that point, it was 5:50.  I told my friend I would be back in the room at 5:30 to get ready for our formal dinner.  I still had to shower and get my nice clothes on.  I finally left them and sprinted down to my room.  I got to the room at 5:52 with my friend freaking out because he almost walked out of the room looking for me.  I showered and got dressed and we got to dinner at 6:03.  I was quite impressed with the time I made.  I had prime rib, mmmmmmm.  I decided against the lobster tail, ew.  I love eating anything I want on the ship for free! 

Although I put sunscreen on all day, I noticed I was starting to get a burn.  It hurt to put a shirt on my shoulders.  The back of my neck was feeling raw, too.  Right after dinner I went back to ask for the room search.  He made me fill out a report of where I last saw my iPod and stating that I give them permission to tear apart my room.  Once again, he asked me the same questions over and over again.  He searched my room and found nothing.  The reason I had him search was because then I felt like I did everything that I could do to find my iPod.  We wanted to go to the show that started at 8:45.  We got there at 9 because of the hoopla.  The show was pretty good.  It was singing and dancing throughout the decades.  We went to both adult comedy shows at 10 and 11.  Both of them were hysterical.  Once again, I still think comedy can be very funny without swearing, but whatever.  Naturally, we got food somewhere in there just because we could.  After the comedy I ended up playing poker until around 1 and walked away with a little bit of extra dough.  I accomplished a lot that first full day at sea.  Tomorrow, you will get to hear all of the adventures that took place at Grand Cayman.

Insanely busy

Sorry, no reflection of my second day on the cruise right now.  I went back to work today even though I had no idea what I was supposed to do.  We didn't finish up what we needed to in one school before we both took a vacation last week.  They told us just to get our school ready and run the updates on our lab computers.  I started to do that, and it wasn't working.  I called again and they said wait until someone comes to check it out.  So then I hooked up all of the computers.  That shockingly took a long time because I had to tie wires and ethernet cords and stuff like that.  Several teachers were there today that needed my assistance too.  Tomorrow, I'm going back to continue to put up bulletin boards and make my room all pretty (haha).  After that, I'm going to the Yankee game!  So once again, I might have no blog post tomorrow night since I won't get home until at least 1AM.  The rest of my cruise reflection will be up eventually, I promise!

Back to reality

I have so much to say about the cruise!  I'm not sure if I will tell you all tonight because I am still not feeling well.  Yesterday morning, before we left the ship, I started getting sharp pains in my stomach on and off.  Unfortunately, I'm still getting them.  Let's start with day one.

I hardly slept at all going into Monday morning.  I set my alarm for 3:30 in the morning.  My friend was going to pick me up at a little after 4AM for our 6:05 flight.  I texted him at 3:30 making sure he had all of his papers.  It turned out that he forgot a room tag to put on his bag.  I printed that out.  We had no problem getting through the check in and security.  Once we got to Tampa, Florida, we went straight to baggage claim.  We got our luggage quickly and took a 15 minute taxi ride to the port area.  We got there before 11:30.  There was no line at all while we got our sail and sign cards.  Each time we walked past more Carnival workers, they had to check our IDs and S and S cards.  Then we got to a huge group of people.  We had zone 8.  We were waiting at that area at around 11:25 until they started calling people starting with zone 1 at 11:40.  We were on the ship by 12:15.  After we ate, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the sun.  Unfortunately, we had to do the mandatory muster drill before we started moving which took over a half hour.  We watched the boat leave the port.  While laying out in the sun, it was extremely windy.  After that we did the sit down dinner where we were in a booth that seats 6.  Only my friend and I were there that night.  We watched a Jeopardy contest once dinner was completed.  Three people went up.  They then had another three people go up and I was one of them.  The questions they asked were song and TV related.  They would play a sound bit and then we would have to answer.  Each question was worth 100 points and the first to 500 won.  I won!  My prize was a bottle of champagne and the famous 24 karat plastic ship on a stick.  Then we stayed in that room for a welcome show.  They showed us a sneak peek of the two comedians and the break dancers.  Then we went to a comedy show for adults only which was hilarious.  I still think comedy can be very funny without swearing.  As we were walking to get more food (yes, you can eat at all times) it was windy and rainy.  That was the only time it rained on the entire cruise.  After the comedy show, I walked around the club and casino but shockingly did not gamble.  I was amazed that I was able to stay up until about 12:30 since I was up at 3.  That's all for day 1.  I will talk about day two tomorrow.

Tomorrow!

The moment I have been waiting for since the end of February is finally here!  4AM will come very fast.  We have a flight at 6:05 going to Baltimore and then a flight to Tampa.  I know you will all be deeply saddened by the fact that you will have no blog to read from Monday to Friday.  I think you will find a way to carry on.  I might not write too much when I get back Saturday.  I will definitely have plenty to say about the cruise sometime when I get back though.  That will be something for you all to look forward to.  Until then, it's time for me to relax and have some fun!  Peace out!

Moody

Have you ever had one of those days where anything and everything just gets you mad?  That was me today.  I have no explanation for it.  I was quite snappy with my mom at times for no reason whatsoever.  People would say hi to me and I'd be like, "What do you want?"  Ok, I wasn't that bad.  Maybe it's just because I need to get away.  The cruise is so close and I just want to get away from my normal life.  It's funny, when I tell people I'm going on a cruise, the first question they ask is, "Are you going alone?"  Why in God's name would I go on a cruise all by myself?  First of all, it would cost me a ridiculous amount of money to do that.  Second of all, I'm not that much of a loser.  Third of all, I'd be too lonely to do that.  It would not be fun at all.  So no, for the record, I am not going on this cruise alone.  I'm going with my friend who I can tolerate and who doesn't make me angry for no apparent reason.  I might grind his gears a lot on the cruise though, who knows?  I have to get up in a few hours to check in for my flight.  Good night.