Cruise Journal 5

Cruise Journal 5: 12/9/07

Its only 9:00pm but I’m already back from the teen lounge. Everything is already starting to get old; it’s amazing how fast you can loose interest in a cruise ship. Pretty much only the two girls and Isaac speak English in the teen center, and since all the girls talk about are the “hot” Puerto Rican boys and Isaac isn’t actually that interesting (I mean the other Isaac; I’m amazing). Hence why I’m back in my room watching that RV movie with Robin Williams starring.

Anyway, this morning was a lot more relaxing then how tonight is turning out. I woke up at about 11:00am and grabbed some breakfast with my parents. After eating we disembarked onto St. Thomas, which is a small US territory… somewhere. We took a tram-thing up to the top of a high mountain that overlooked our cruise ship and the beach that we were headed towards and then continued down to that beach to relax for a while.

What amazes me continuously about cruises is the strange phenomenon that everybody gets nice, automatically it seems. You can talk to anybody! My parents and I spent at least a half-hour talking to a random couple we ran into (quite literally) while swimming in the ocean. Another amazing thing is how people drive! I took a picture of how close the tram was to the side of the road at some points, I swear there wasn’t more than an inch between us and the parked cars on the side of the road!

About pictures; internet costs a lot here, and there really isn’t enough time to upload the photos. Unless I can find a faster way then I will have to wait until I get home to show all of you how everything looks. Email me if you have suggestions, I should have enough time to check short Emails while on this cruise.

Anyway, at about the second paragraph I decided to walk back up to the teen lounge. While I’m writing right now we are all watching the 5^th Harry Potter movie on a big screen. Right now there are 4 other guys in the room, and they all speak Spanish, which is making for an uncomfortable atmosphere at least. Trust me when I say that Spanish class doesn’t prepare you for this at all! We were supposed to do some sort of girls vs. boys trivia game, but there are only boys up here. In fact, there are pretty much only those two girls I mentioned before on this entire cruise.

Well, I don’t want this blog getting too long, so I think I’ll go ahead and hit the road now. Oh, lastly, I am not uploading these blogs when the website says I am, I just have no idea how to change what time zone blogger things I’m in.

I miss all of you, especially Brittani. The only thing I can do is make sure to have some extra fun for all of you and keep on blogging the experience!

Cruise Journal 4

Cruise Journal 4: 12/9/07

I have a quick half-hour before the Teen activities start up again to write in my journal. By the way, it’s now the 9^th and the ship has long set sail. I should probably start where I left off, last night. The drill was boring, although there were for grown men who came in wearing cheesy wizards hats. I pretty much lounged around until the teen center started up its activities at 10:00pm. It was actually fairly fun, there are 72 teens on this ship but only about 10 of us are in the teen lounge at any given time. Most of the teens are Puerto Ricans, and they just wander the ship in gangs that I can only describe as classic, old-time greaser gangs (that’s right, slicked back hair and everything).

Anyway, I pretty much spent the night up in the teen lounge watching the movie “License to Wed” and playing Guitar Hero (which I suck at, by the way). There are a few cool guys up there who I hung out with. I also met these two girls who I thought were alright; accept that they keep scrutinizing every guy within 5 years of their age who walks by… (Hey bill; both of those girls are 14 and 15, perfect for your “pedophile-ish” ways.) Coincidentally enough, I mostly hang out with a kid I met also named Isaac who pretty much shares my love of specific video games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and the like.

After the teen lounge closed at 1:00am I met up with my dad to wander the ship and go to a buffet that opens from midnight until 2:00am for those of us who want a quick sandwich late at night. We went to a couple really high places on the ship where, no kidding, you had to tilt your body 45 degrees or more into the wind just to keep balance. It was awesome looking over the bow of the boat at the churning waters below while we were literally pushed in different directions by the wind.

I would begin blogging about today’s happenings but it’s nearing time to head up to the Teen lounge for another round of fun. I look forward to chronicling more events for y’all at a later date. By the way, if you’re reading this Brittani, I miss you!

Cruise Journal 3

Cruise Journal 3: 12/8/07

I don’t have too long, so this will be short. More like an extension to my previous blog about today then a new blog. It’s about 7:30pm here now, just got back from a fabulous dinner. We were seated with two other great families, no kids but fun adults to talk too. Within a few minutes we were trading stories faster then we traded dinners (we were passing around each other’s plates to sample what we all got).

Next, at 8:00pm, my family and I have to run through the emergency drill with all the other 3000 people, which should take up about an hour or so of boring (but safe) time. After that I’ll probably be uploading these journals and then hanging out somewhere until 10:00pm when the teen activities start. Hopefully it will all go swimmingly.

PS: I forgot to mention it before, but Puerto Rico is very ‘cartoony.’ If there were any more colors or cheesy pictures of hula girls I might go blind.

PPS: You’ll probably read it from all of my blogs over this trip, but I just wanted to, yet again, mention my loneliness caused by the lack of a cell phone (that causes my inability to speak with not only my Girlfriend but my friends also).

Cruise Journal 2

Cruise Journal 2

12/8/07

My first thought as I write this new journal is about Brittani. Not to make this too romantic but I miss her a lot right now. I can’t help but think that, if I were back in Pittsburgh right now I would probably be with her. Anyway, it’s a cloudy Saturday here in San Juan, Puerto Rico at 4:50pm. I am sitting on my laptop in room 722 which, in diameter, probably matches my room at most. For those of you who know my room, you know it’s fairly large, but then again this room is supposed to be a mini-sweet.

The room doesn’t matter much, it’s not like I’ll be spending any of my waking hours sitting in a dull room when there’s so much to do and explore on this ship! So far I’ve just been to the teen lounge and I’m already impressed. I’m also happy that there’s the possibility of internet, even if it’s 75 cents an hour, because I can upload my blogs each night. For my friends keeping up with me by reading these, I doubt I’ll be on Google chat or AIM at all considering the price per minute.

Anyway, this morning I woke up at about 11:00am, nice and late. I spent the morning on my laptop until my parents got home at noon, when we went out to grab overpriced hamburgers for lunch. We ate, relaxed and did a little shopping until two, when we got in line to get on the cruise. I’m not kidding when I say there were six lines we had to wait through just to get on the boat. It took us from two until four just to step aboard. I probably have a lot more to do tonight, but the teen activities don’t begin until 11:00pm tonight and I assume they’ll last for the rest of the night. In fact, I’ll probably upload this just before we start because the teen lounge has my internet access.

I don’t really know what else to write, I’ll probably hop on my laptop and type up the “rest” of this blog after all the events unfold tonight, so you can expect something more exciting tomorrow! I send my love to all my friends back in the burgh, try to have some fun without me and definitely keep checking this blog!

PS: Puerto Rican restaurants don’t care about that whole “rare meat carries lots of bacteria” thing; I ordered a medium rare hamburger and got steak tartar on a bun!

Cruise, day 12/7/07

This morning I awoke at five, in other words, it started badly. I stumbled out of bed and hopped into my normal morning shower routine. The morning began to perk up though, with a call from Brittani, my girlfriend. We would talk a few times, dreading the days to come when I would be stranded without phone service (and without my cell for that matter). Finally she had to go to school, and I had to finish packing, so we said our goodbyes.

The airport was nothing special, although I did get to see our plane deiced. Deicing is done by these guys in personal cranes that look very much like the turrets on Star Wars (episode 2) landing vehicles for the clone army. That’s a fun job! Shooting high-powered cannons filled with some extinguisher-looking liquid all day!

The first flight took us to Charlotte, North Carolina where we switched to our second, longer flight to Puerto Rico. I listened to Techno and Alternative music the entire way there, for some reason I really want to start busting a move, probably “the robot,” whenever I fly. Before I get off the subject, I just want to mention that it’s absolutely beautiful if you look out the window of a plane as it soars through the clouds on a decent, its like you’re traveling through a wispy, soft barrier back to earth with the ocean and coast just barely in view through the pillow like clouds. Anyway, the plane landed without delay and we were taxied to our hotel.

This Sheraton that I’m sitting in now is wonderful. We got a very nice room, with a separated lounge and bedroom (which means I can stay up all night whilst my parents sleep!). I think we get a free movie or something off of the On Demand in the room too, but I’ll have to find that out later. Anyway, we dropped our stuff off in the room and almost immediately left to go grab some dinner. Dinner was fabulous; we went to a little Puerto Rican restaurant to get some authentic food. I don’t even really know what I ate, some sort of red meat, but it was very good!

Now I’m sitting back in our hotel room, trying to figure out how this damned television works and talking on Google chat with Bill, Jamie and Marika. I wish that I could call Brittani more then anything, but I guess that’s not possible, so I’ll continue to Email her and look forward nine days in the future when I will get to see her again. I have some pictures that I took today, just a few, but I will upload them anyway for your viewing pleasure.

I don't know if I will have any internet connection on the cruise, but I will upload all of my blogs when I finally am reconnected with my beloved World Wide Web!