Nothing much happened different than the other days at sea therefore I
will not spend much time describing the days activities. Basically if
you take all the previous posts that I have written, mesh them all
together (give or take a few things) and then make a day out of them you
will get some idea of what happened today. Colton and I tried to solve a
sudoku puzzle (we didn’t succeed I think that we messed up one our logic
for one square which screwed up everything else. Oh well, maybe we’ll
succeed tomorrow.)
Today was another day with a late start. About nine o’clock. We were
going to go to a church service but because the room doesn’t have any
windows we don’t know what time it is by the sun. If we turned off the
lights, even at noon it could be midnight for all that we can tell.
Anyway going to the church service didn’t work because it was supposed
to start at nine. Oops. We decided to go to eat our breakfast. After
that Hannah went to Club HAL and I went to the pool to see if anyone
wanted to play ping-pong. Colton was there so we played for a while
until we went to a talk about Seville. At the beginning though, he went
thought the history of architecture. Much of this I already knew. Thank
you Mrs. Duncan! After the talk we went to go eat lunch and then I went
back to the pool and talked for a little while with Colton and his mom
and played a little more ping-pong (we are playing a lot of ping-pong).
Then I came down to the room and got my bathing suit on to go swim. A
little way through my bathe, Colton and his brother Sebastian came. We
played for a little while end then their other brother, Nathan came. We
kept on going from the hot tub and then to the regular pool and back to
the hot tub again. Then we got ready to go eat. (eat, play, sleep; what
a life). After the delicious dinner we went to go to watch people at the
karaoke room. There were a few pretty good singers but this one guy, I
felt kinda bad for him, just couldn’t carry a tune at all. After that we
came back to the room. When we go there though we had some chocolate
covered strawberries which we promptly ate. The people that cleaned our
rooms must have done it because Oma’s meat was not very good. I must say
thought that Oma didn’t complain at a all but they must have sensed that
she was not pleased, no wonder that they did, she only ate a tiny
portion of the meat. Anyway that was basically it but I must tell you
that if any of you have pets you probably should be wary of mom when she
gets back because each night the people who clean the room always make a
creation with the towels. The past two nights when the have done so mom
has murdered the creations before Hannah had come down from club HAL by
putting her jacket on it! Pets beware.
The day started out really late today, ten o’clock for me. We didn’t go
to breakfast because we were going to have lunch in just a few hours. I
decided to go up to the crows nest but on the way I saw a boy that was
bouncing a ping-pong ball on a paddle. He looked like he was just
slightly bored. So I asked him if he wanted to play. We played ping-pong
for about half an hour and then Colton, that’s the boys name, and I went
down to the theater to watch a talk about the history of the cruise
boat. I met Oma and mom down there at the talk, which was very
interesting. I learned a lot about cruising in the speech. Then we met
up with Hannah went to go eat lunch. After lunch, which was really good,
mom and Oma went to go watch another talk and I went up to the crows
nest to do my class. While I was waiting for the ladies to show up the
people that I had done the trivia with yesterday called me over to play
with them. I didn’t help much but it was kinda neat just to listen to
the questions and think of good answers. Anyway, as the people in my
iPad class showed up I asked them if it would be OK if we just met two
hours later at four for the class instead of two because the talk that
mom and Oma were going to was on that the ladies in my class wanted to
go to as well. I decided go go up to Club HAL to see what they were
doing it wasn’t anything that I wanted to do at that moment so I went
down to the pool and talked with Colton’s brothers and mom. He has two
brothers, one is named Sebastian, the other is Nathan. Colton is ten,
and the others are seven and eight, I just don’t know which one is
which. Anyway, I went back up to Club HAL for a few minutes until I went
to go do my iPad class. After class we decided to meet in two days, on
Monday, so that they could try out everything that we had gone over. At
that point it was about time for dinner so we went to the room and got
ready. The food was good and after we had eaten we went to the show.
Today it was an Olympic gymnast performing some things. Mainly he used
silk things that hung from the ceiling to do some tricks on. One time
though he said that he was going to take a break and let the band play
but he went over to the piano and started playing with them! He had
learned to play because for the last few years he as been doing shows on
cruise ships and he had learned from the musicians that he met on the
boats. He also did a few juggling routines, one of witch he did in the
dark with lighted balls. It was really cool. After the show we went back
to the room to go to bed.
Today we got up earlier than we did yesterday, about seven or a little
after. We actually got to go to breakfast today! The food was good and
after the meal we had to decide what to do. Hannah and I went with Club
HAL to play ping-pong. And after we were done we played UNO for a little
while. Then Hannah went with Oma to a cooking demonstration and mom and
I went to hear a person talk about one of the ports that we went to. I
dosed off during part of it do I’d don’t really remember everything that
he said. Oh well. Next was lunch, which was very good, and then we
played a little ping-pong before I went to meet with the ladies for our
little iPad class. We didn’t have much of a class, only about twenty
minutes. This was because there was another talk that all of the ladies
wanted to go to so our meting adjourned and the ladies left. I decided
to go and find mom and Oma, who themselves were at the talk. I couldn’t
find them but we had arranged for everyone to meet in the room at about
four to get ready for diner. That was done and we went to eat at the
restaurant. I wasn’t feeling great, it was a little rocky. (I’m fine
now, it was juts over that one spot for a few hours that was really bad.
It wasn’t that bad though I just didn’t enjoy everything to its fullest
extent.) After dinner we went to watch the boats sings perform some
Broadway songs. I fell asleep for part of it, (I seem to be liking to
sleep through things… Oh well it doesn’t matter). We all went down to
the trivia show, it was pretty funny. We left a little early because
Hannah wanted to go to a room where someone was playing the piano. I
came to the room and am writing this blog. Well I should probably start
getting ready for bed. I’ll keep you posted!
We started out really late, nine o’clock or so, because we have such a
dark room in the interior of the ship and we don’t have any windows so
we were all just thinking that it was three in the morning and went back
to bed. Finally I figured out and looked at my watch. Oh well we had
some nice rest. We actually didn’t have breakfast because we were so
late getting started. Instead we got ready to go to this “Meet and
Greet” meeting hosted by this group called “Cruise Critic” (if you ever
want to go on a cruise check it out, I actually don’t know what it is
but it must be good or else mom wouldn’t have used it). Anyway Hannah
and I got ready before mom and Oma so we went up to the Crows Nest to
write yesterday’s post. The meeting, by the way was at the Crows Nest on
one side. We were sitting on the other side looking out at the ocean in
front of us. Mom showed up at the meeting late, really late, so late
that she missed the entire meeting. She did show up for the mingling
time after the meeting and somehow or another she ended up talking to
some ladies about the iPad and how they didn’t know how to use it. Well
she volunteered me to teach an iPad class. I had come over just as she
was doing so and I was just a little surprised. Well, I walked out of
the Crows Nest with an iPad class with four women at two o’clock in the
afternoon. We decided to go have some lunch and after we ate we went to
play ping-pong until time for me to teach the iPad class. The iPad class
went well, our progress: we made it to learning how to mass delete
photos! Anyway after an hour of class we decided that we would have
another class the next day at the same time two o’clock. Remember this
time, it will come in handy near the end of the day. After I was
finished with the class I joined club HAL for ice cream an then plagued
ping-ping with mom. Then Hannah and I went swimming for a little while.
Once we were done we went back to the room to get dressed for the formal
dinner. The formal dinner is a very formal occasion. I wore a suit and
tie. If you’re reading this Nic, thank you for the suit, it has come in
handy. Goodwill also helped out by supplying the shoes and tie. The food
was delicious, we had an appetizer, soup, an entree and a desert. All of
which were good. After our dinner we went to go see a pianist perform.
Before he started though, the guy announced that there would be a time
change in the middle of the day tomorrow, at two o’clock. There will be
no two o’clock tomorrow. He joked that he was going to work out from two
till three. Now remember that time I told you to remember? Well if you
remember I had scheduled my iPad class at two o’clock but tomorrow it
not exist, oops. Anyway the pianist was really good. I enjoyed the
songs. One of the songs was a medley of some of Beethoven songs made
modern, it was really interesting. It just goes to show that the
melodies are the same just the style, and instruments that the melodies
are played on change. After that show as we were going towards our room
we saw another thing set up. It was a game show. We decided to watch
that, they took some people form the audience that wanted to do it and
one of the guys from the staff asked the questions. One of ladies was
just not good at all but he staff guy made her feel fine. He asked all
of the other people to step back and let her get some questions for only
herself. One time when she answered a question “John F. Kennedy!” he
said, “Yes, also known as Jimmy Carter but you know he went by a lot of
things back then.” Anyway everyone had a good time and it was really
funny to watch. After that we came back to our room and got ready for
bed. I am currently writing his post and getting tirrrrrrrreeeeeeedddddd
oops, I think I held down a key on he keyboard, that probably means I
should go to bed.
Today was tiring at best. We started the day out in Ft. Lauderdale and
ended it out of site of the shore. We had breakfast in the hotel and
then went back up to get ready to check out of the room at ten. Then we
went to the port, Port Everglades. There we dropped off our bags and
went to the airport to drop off our car. We took the shuttle from the
airport back to the port and went through a very extensive security and
check in. Eventually we got to the jet-way. Oh wait, it can’t be a
jet-way, we weren’t going on a jet. It did look like it though. Anyway
when we got onto the boat it was really cool. It was really grand. We
were almost attacked with people with hand sanitizer and everyone was
very nice. Then we were told where to go to get to our room and there we
put down our bags and then we went to lunch. After a delicious buffet
lunch we explored the ships for a little while and then went back to the
room to get on our bathing suits to go swimming. After that we watched
the embarkation at about 6:00. There is a kids club and a teens club on
the ship. The kid club (called club HAL; Holland America Line) had a
meeting and so Hannah went to that for a few minutes while mom, Oma and
I went to go eat. We learned that I was one of two teenagers on the ship
and Hannah was one of about ten or so kids. We were going to try to eat
at the nice restaurant but the line was so long that it just wasn’t
worth it. We went to the buffet instead. After we had eaten we went up
to pick up Hannah. One of the leaders of the club informed us that I was
actually the only teenager on he ship. The other “teenager” turned out
to be 67 not 17. Someone had made a typo. Anyway Hannah came down to
have dinner and then we went back to the room to go to bed.
Can you believe it? Tomorrow is the BIG day! We are going on our cruise
tomorrow around noon. (Maybe before.) Anyway… Today was the last
minute shopping time. Such as Target, Walgreens and CVS/Farmacy (that
is the southern Walgreens.) Today wasn’t very interesting, but I’ll tell
you, in 7-9 days, there will be LOTS of news. Well maybe tomorrow will
be interesting. Why? Because I will probably tell everyone about and
what’s on the boat. It will be VERY exciting. Well I gotta go to bed
now, see ya’ll later!
Hi everyone, in just a few days (starting on April 30th) Basher Academy
will be going on another long field trip in which we will be seeing many
of the things that we are learning about in World History.
We will be going on a trans-Atlantic cruise to Europe. While in Europe
we will be going to many different countries and seeing many interesting
things from Portugal to Greece, Rome to Dubrovnik in Croatia, Athens to
Corinth. All of these places we will be seeing history right before our
eyes. Just going to Rome is a journey through history but going to
Athens, Corinth, Barcelona, and other cities will give us a taste of the
cultures of many different countries.
OK now I will tell you what I thought of the trip since that’s the
number one question that you ask people when they come back from a
vacation. It was great, I was able to see the lives of many different
people groups, from the Dao (pronounced: Zow) in Sapa to the Cham in the
Mekong River Delta. I got to see rice being harvested, planted and rice
fields that were already harvested. One of the sad things that I noticed
was that much of Vietnamese culture is based on Buddism. Well I have
thouroly enjoyed being able to share this wounderful, rich culture in
this blog. I hope that one day I can go back to Vietnam to see my
wonderful homeland once again. I’ll be sure to keep a blog that trip
too.
