the cruise, and it was a day at sea. I had a horrible night’s sleep, last
night. I don’t know if we rode through storms or what, but the boat was so
rocky, and I just couldn’t fall asleep. I mean I was sort of asleep. It was
like, I was dreaming, but I was conscious of all the movement of my body, as
well as the ship. So it was more like half-assed sleep? Around 5:30 or so, in
the morning, after going to bed around midnight, I fell asleep for good. Then I
managed to sleep until around 9:30, and then I finally forced myself out of
bed.On our door were white and blue
balloons and a sign that read “Happy Anniversary”, which is funny since my
wedding anniversary is in March, and mom’s is in August, and it was neither of
our anniversaries, so we’re not quite sure why we got those balloons or
anything. But balloons are pretty.
The first stop after wake-up was
the buffet from yesterday. The breakfast buffet was much more satisfying than
the lunch buffet from the day before had been. There were scrambled eggs, hash
brown potatoes, various Danish- I had a pineapple flavored one, sausage, and
corned beef hash, which is my favorite delicacy from the east coast… Texas
doesn’t know what the hell corned beef hash is, and it kills me. I also had
coffee. I must say, the coffee on this ship is amazingly good, and I think I
drink 2-4 cups of it a day. There were some nice men from England, sitting on
the deck next to us during breakfast, and they were pleasant to talk to and
they had cool accents. The uncovered part of the deck was wet, which made me
think that maybe it rained, last night, and that may have accounted for the very
rough waters we sailed through.
After breakfast, mom and I decided
to sit by the private spa, that we bought a membership for, the other day. It
wasn’t a hot day, at all, however, you can still get really sunburned when
there’s sun, but it’s not hot out, my burned chest and shoulders are proof of
that. It was actually pretty chilly on the deck, and windy. I forget, it’s just
the beginning of June, and the east coast is NOTHING like Texas, which is where
I live [though I’m originally from New Jersey, I moved to Texas in 2012, when I
met my now husband], so it’s not summer yet. Summer doesn’t start till the end
of June. The mineral pool was nice. It
wasn’t a hot tub, it was more like lukewarm, and it felt nice. I was also
excited to finally play with my waterproof Nikon camera, in actual water. I met a nice lady in the hot tub and we talked
about Texas, for awhile, then some bitchy older lady, who was reading a book on
the deck, asked the lady I was talking to and me to keep our voices down. I
guess we were ruining her quiet time?
Eventually, I got out of the tub,
and my mother went in it, and continued to talk to the same lady, whom I had
been talking to. They were both huge cruisers and had been on a lot of cruises,
so they were talking about different places they had visited and ships they had
been on. I went back to today’s book
“Night Road” by Kristin Hannah, which I finished, and then I also finished
“Castaways” by Elin Hilderbrand today, I seem to be on a “vacation book” kick
as opposed to my usual apocalyptic tween series that I tend to read such as
“The Selection” by Kiera Cass or the “Throne of Glass” series by Sarah J Maas.
At one point, I went to use the
bathroom, and another older lady, who had been outside with us commended me for
the way I dealt with the bitchy lady, and said the bitchy lady had some nerve
with how she talked to us in the pool.
We stayed at the tub until around
noon or so, and then we went to the dining room for lunch. We sat with a very
nice Australian couple, and enjoyed talking to them. For lunch I had potato and leek soup, which
was delicious, and a salad. The first salad they brought me had almonds in it,
so I couldn’t eat it [Yay nut allergy], but the waiter was very nice about exchanging
my poisonous salad for a Greek Salad with no olives [I think olives are gross],
and then for dessert I had a chocolate bread and butter pudding, which was
delicious and light, as well as ANOTHER cup of coffee.
After lunch, mother and I went our
separate ways [cue Journey song “separate ways” playing]. I had a massage at
2:45, so I went to the room, changed into some workout clothes, and did a quick
thirty minute workout on the treadmill, in the gym, it wasn’t much, but at
least it’s something? It was sort of nice exercising and staring at the blue
ocean, while reading. Then it was
massage time.
The message was very relaxing. I
had never gotten a massage before, but my dad always boasts about how awesome
hot stone massages are, so I went with a hot stone massage. It was done in a
dimly lit room with meditative music playing, though I swear some of that
meditative music sounded like the original Final Fantasy musical theme. The
massage felt good, it involved a lot of oil, stones, and it hurt, but it didn’t
hurt in a bad way, unfortunately I think it will take a million massages to
undo all the damage teaching small children has done to my back and shoulders
[bending over to help 4-6 year olds- SO NOT FUN] for the last four years. But it was relaxing. Of course after the
massage, they tried to get me to buy all sorts of oils and sign up for new
treatments, which I didn’t, and they didn’t pressure me or anything , and I
understand, that they probably get commission and stuff for it, so I
understand.
After the massage, I went back to
the cabin to check on my mother. She was snoring and Star Wars: The Force
Awakens was on TV. I decided to let her sleep, so I decided to venture up to
the sun deck to continue reading. It was
FREEZING on the sun deck, so that didn’t last very long, so I decided to head
to the library, instead. En route to the library, I saw a family with a young
child, so I guess there are people younger than me on this cruise, after all. I
read in the library for about an hour or so, and then came back to the room,
and mom and I started to get ready for our first formal night.
After getting ready, which really
wasn’t much different than any other night… and I must say, the shower was
nice, yes it’s small, but the pressure was good as was the temperature, and
surprisingly the bathroom didn’t flood like I feared it would. For dinner, I wore a boring black dress,
which I suppose is more formal than most of my other “dinner” clothes, but
nothing fancy. But man, people really get decked out for these formal dinners…
I saw ballroom dresses, glittery jewelry, tuxedos, bow-ties… I guess some
people like dressing up?
We finished getting ready early, so
we checked out the casino, which consists mostly of penny slots. We found the
only two quarter machines in the whole casino, mom blew through twenty dollars,
pretty quickly, and I turned twenty dollars into fifty-two dollars, so I
decided to stop before I blew my winnings.
The dinner theme was Champagne
Dinner, and outside the dining room was basically a huge pyramid like thing
built out of champagne glasses. Somebody
got to pour champagne, at the top, and then it flowed to the other glasses like
a fountain, and people cheered. Mom poured the champagne into the fountain, I
didn’t. There was free champagne and mimosas, both which I didn’t drink, and
cake pops. The chocolate mousse cake pop I had was delicious. There was also
live music. We also got to meet the head
chef and one of the captains. Mom selfied with them.
After that we sat outside the
dining room and had drinks. We had Key West Coolers, which consisted of sprite,
watermelon juice, and it had oranges and masrchino cherries in it. It was
pretty good; it sort of tasted like a watermelon Shirley Temple, which is still
my favorite drink even though I’m way over the legal age to drink alcoholic
beverages. We sat with a couple from
California, until it was time to go in for dinner. Mom talked to them, I read
more. My favorite part of the cruise, so far, is all the peace and quiet I have
to read, which is something I lack over the school year.
Dinner wasn’t bad. Our waiter is
very nice, and from Barbados. I had French onion soup, which is one of my
favorite things, and some weird spinach and potato flan, which was really good…
It was sort of like cheesecake texture, but it tasted amazing. Yum. I also had
some fancy dessert; it was a cinnamon flavored pastry sitting on a bed of
coffee flavored mousse. I also drank hot decaf tea with milk, in hope that the
milk will help me sleep better tonight. Mom had the same soup I did, a caeser
salad, and some sort of pasta dish. She had cobbler with vanilla ice cream for
dessert. Our tablemates didn’t show up at dinner… perhaps they don’t like
formal dinners? So it was just mom and me. Maybe we’ll meet them tomorrow.
Tomorrow is our first stop. We’re
stopping at Halifax, which is in Nova Scotia, Canada. Mom and I are doing some
sort of duck tour. I’m excited to bring out my DSLR camera and hopefully get
some good pictures. After that it’s either 3 or 4 days at sea, and then we’ll
be in Iceland, which is what I’m looking forward to the most.
And that was Day One, and hopefully
I’ll get more sleep tonight, and be ready for our first day ashore tomorrow… On
the bright side, the boat doesn’t feel as rocky as it did yesterday, so that’s
something. Now it’s off to read some, and then eventually to bed.