Day 1: Board/ Set Sail at 5pm—leave Barcelona
We got on board, got to our room, and settled in to “the boat lifestyle.” After a mandatory emergency drill where we stood in a single file line and watched crew members show us how to put on a lifejacket, we toured the 11 different floor of the boat and explored.
There are 2,500 people on the boat, 500 of them American. That leaves plenty of room for plenty of language barriers, but it’s been more entertaining than annoying. The 850 person crew represent over 60 countries and the boarders, over 50 countries. Every announcement made is first in English and then always followed by Spanish and sometime German.
Internet, we found, is hard to come by. And by hard to come by I mean, they take full advantage of charging as much as they want. You can buy packages to make it cheaper, and since I type these up in Word and then just paste them onto my blog, I am barely online for 5 minutes. It’s kinda nice because other than blogging and emails, I remain socially unreachable. My semester continues, huh? January 5th will be quite the culture shock, that’s for sure.
Last night experienced high winds. Austin and I didn’t have a great time—we sat down in the dining room for our 830 seating and after a motion sickness pill and our salads, we were headed back to the room and passed out before 10. Megan, Mom and Dad were fine—Megan and Mom were more nervous about the rockiness, not sick from it. At one point in the night I was awoken from being hurled into the wall. That was fun.
Our room is very spacious for a cruise. We have a sitting area with a TV and couch. Megan, Austin and I share a room (Austin’s bed folds down from the wall) and the parents have a room. We have 2 bathrooms and it plenty of space to store our ungodly amount of luggage.
Last night before we left to see the nightly show before dinner, Mom, Megan and I played Banana scrabble J We had champagne courtesy of Nathan, our travel agent, and had LoTs of fun :)
Day 2: At Sea –Merry Christmas EVE!!! ♥
Today I woke up groggy from close to 11 hours of sleep. Anyone who knows me knows I really can’t take more than 8-9 hours, but that motion sickness pill KNOCKED me out. Austin was right there with me. We woke up starving since eating dinner was just not the in the cards for us last night. We ordered room service, had some delicious French toast and I headed off to my haircut. I haven’t had my hair cut in close to 4 months, needless to say I was due. It feels sooooo nice to have it healthy again, definitely a treat!
Megan and I spent the rest of the morning with our lattes playing Bananagrams outside in one of the sitting areas. We have a ton of British people on our cruise and were having a blast listening to them talk. Haaaa SO funny.
Austin and Dad went to play basketball and put-put golf. I told them to come get me for put-put because I LOVE it, but it was a little windy so hopefully we will play tomorrow.
It’s so weird that it is Christmas Eve. I really does not feel like it. They are playing lots of Christmas music, which makes me happy. Tonight they are showing The Polar Express, Megan and Austin and I are going to go :) We might rope Mom and Dad into it if they end up not going to a show at the same time.
Tonight we are eating at one of the restaurants on board. It’s a steak house and it’s supposed to be yummmyyyy. We are going to get dressed up and celebrate this special time of year. I don’t know when the next time (if ever) our little family of five will have another Christmas where it is just us. It is east to forget the “reason for the season” (--that’s from your blog, Tiffany J) so I try to make a conscious effort to remember. We are so lucky to all be healthy and happy and here. I am thankful. I hope everyone’s Christmas Eve is special and memorable. Merry Christmas from my family to yours♥
I wonder if Santa will find us in the middle of the Mediterranean…
Christmas Day will be at sea, and then the 26th marks our first stop: TURKEY!
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