At sea

The flight out…

8 hours later we finally made it out of Columbus and back to the great state of California! I really did not remember hoew much I love this place, just the smell alone of eucalyptus and the smog brought back great memories J The flight over was not bad, from Columbus to Denver I initially thought I was sitting next to a small girl (read: more leg room), but then the nice guy in front of us (read: Large…large man) asked if the girl wanted to move up a seat and sit with her family. I suppose that was nice of him, but that took away my ability to move my legs what so ever!. The large man consumed the following on hour 3 hour trip to Denver:

- 1 large bag of Garlic Chex Mix
- 2 bags of pretels
- 1 bag of steak-ums (those smelled delightful…)
- 1 bag of cheez-its
- 1 bag of nuts
- 1 bag of trailmix
- 1 brownie type item
- 4 glasses of red wine

The rest of the flight was uneventful…but I did get to watch the Office from Denver to San Diego!

In San Diego my cousin Jeremy was able to pick us up at the airport and had us stay at his place on the couch…minor detail he forgot to share before he picked us was that his roommate would be hosting an 8 person card party till 3am (read: 7am our time) so we were a little tired getting to the ship!

The ship = AMAZING…I am not gonna lie, I feel a little guilty traveling the world in a first class ship, while yes, there is no casino, we do have a full spa and gym. The room I am in, while might be small for 2 people, is perfect for one. This year the RDs lucked out and were able to get rooms with windows! Honestly I don’t know if I could have handled not having natural light in my living space for 2.5 months! I have so much storage space I could have brought more clothes if I wanted to (the only thing I am afraid I might not have enough of is socks, the ship is SO cold I can’t wear flip flops around!) I literally have to have a sweatshirt on at all times! At one point I had to sit on both my feet in a meeting I was so uncomfortable!

The first few days have been pretty much filled with training, and training and a little more training! Basically we have gotten a chance to learn about all the different functions of the ships and how they can help us do our jobs! So my job, you think I would have figured that out by now J kidding, I am the recreation RD, so apart from the typical RD stuff I will be in charge of pulling together the Sea Olympics…a chance for each “sea” (what we call or floors) to battle it out for the opportunity to be the first floor to exit the ship once we dock back in San Diego in 65 days…I’ll let you know how that goes…any ideas for some fun events we can play on a ship?
The morning of our second day we pulled into Ensenada, Mexico where we will be picking up the students on the 17th. We got a chance to head into town that night for our first taste of another country (while really only really within spitting distance of San Diego!). We pulled into port and the first sight we are welcomed by is literally the largest flag I have ever seen…this Mexican flag is GINORMOUS! The people standing at the bottom of the bowl looked like ants in comparison! We left the ship and headed out to wander the town and somehow ended up in the touristy part of town (of course what part of ensenada isn’t a tourist spot?). Grabbed some dinner at what we thought maybe not a touristy spot, but we found out that yes, the menus we received where in English (booo). I had some tasty Tamales, something I had not had in Columbus yet!

We didn’t really walk around much since all of us were pretty exhausted! We headed back to the ship and I definitely fell asleep by 9:30pm, of course I was planning on getting up at 5:45 to go do Yoga with some folks that were gathering in the ships Union.
Not much to report from the last few nights…tomorrow the students arrive and the real work begins!