Sunday, May 17, 9:15 a.m.
Today we will be boarding the cruise. We've just checked out of the "Clean Stay U.S.A." which was run by a man with a thick Indian accent that was difficult to understand. Shannon probably would have thought that he was hot. The hotel itself was pretty nice; the beds were clean (we had a second floor room) but I found a tick attached to my hip this morning during my shower, which was a vaguely unpleasant surprise. Fortunately, it must not have been there for too long, because I only have a faint bump as evidence of its presence on my hip. Hope was sort of impatient yesterday in the car, asking if "we were there yet" and all that. However, she was occupied with the portable DVD player for most of the ride, so I can't complain. Another bad thing that happened this morning, during the same shower that revealed the tick on my flesh: my hemp necklace (given to me by Sean)'s clasp fell off and the rest of the necklace consequently slipped off my neck as well. I'll have to find a new clasp for it when we get back : (. Anyways, there are a few things I'll need to remember to do. I have to pay attention when we cross the Florida line and pass Orlando (we're still in Georgia). Once we get to the ship, I have to remember to get my camera out so that I can get some pictures from afar and a video from aboard as we sail off. The last thing: I need to find a bottle at some point before we get there so that I can collect some water from the ocean before we board the ship. A year ago, I took some of the ocean water from Sombrero Beach on the Gulf of Mexico, so it's only proper that I add some water from the Eastern side of Florida to my "collection." Anyways, until we get onto the ship, I will stop writing and read some of Anna Karenina.
Monday, May 18, 4:00ish
As I write, I am sitting on the ninth deck of the Disney Wonder, on which there are eleven decks total. Rooms and other locations are described by their deck number and ship placement: frontship, midship, or backship. So far, our stay on this cruise has been nothing short of amazing. Today, we visited the island of Nassau in the Bahamas, and I had my hair braided and beaded by a professional who sort of ripped us off, but the hair came out okay, so it's all right. The vendors who lined the halls of the market would bother people insistently about buying their products.
Yesterday was awesome; after boarding the ship, we changed into swimsuits (Hope and I) and came to the ninth deck to swim. We watched the ship depart around 5:00 from level ten. Hope didn't get to see this, though, because she was afraid of the masked Disney characters who were entertaining the crowd that waited on the top deck for our departure. We ate dinner at a Caribbean restaurant and watched the sunset on the top deck. We also attended a performance titled, "The Golden Mickeys," during which various awards were presented to Disney movies for "Best Villain," "Best friendship," etc. Then, at 10:30 that night, dressed in my blue halter dress and its accompanying gray sweater, I embarked on a rigorous quest to "bounce and wear the golden hat" as Mr. Fitzgerald might say. I went up to level eleven, where a teen party at a section of the ship called Aloft was being held. I read in the program that they would be holding teen parties such as these every night on board, and so I decided to go to check it out. Once there, I sat down with a group of girls who were playing Jenga while everyone was still arriving; I was pleased when I noticed that a nicely-dressed red-shirted young man, whom I had scoped on a few occasions that day in other parts of the ship, had arrived on the scene, along with a younger, blond boy who ended up being his brother (his brother looked a lot like the seventh grader, Logan). The counselors in charge of the night's affairs asked us to come forth and display our talents. When no one initially responded, one of the counselors showed us his ability to walk on his hands, at which point the red-shirted kid (whose name, I think, was Jake) countered with, "Well guess what: I can walk on my feet." When asked to demonstrate this feat, he came to the front and did so with a flourish, to much applause. He then disappeared for about half an hour while he was retrieving his guitar. By the time he had come back, we had moved on to other things, and after we met (when they separated us into groups based on deck level of our overnight rooms, shoe size, birth month, etc.) he sat in the back of the room, tuning his guitar. Later on, during a lull in the counselors' entertainment, he stepped forth with his brother to perform a few songs, and they had talent! Among others, he played "Back in Black," some Guns 'n' Roses, one good Jonas Brothers song that I hadn't heard before ("Hello Beautiful"), and the chorus of "Sweet Home Alabama," which he asked me to come and sing with him, as we both didn't know the other parts of the song. Being the glorious performer that I am, I missed my cue. Alas, it was still a great half hour of music, and when I asked him to do an original from my beanbag, he flashed a grin that rendered me dumbstruck and said, "I'm not going to play you guys any originals, at least not tonight." and I had that weird feeling of being whacked over the head with something, similar to the time a person said, "I love singing," and when yet another person had said, "Can I borrow your pencil?" And then the more recent, "You look beautiful when you play (the piano)," and a more distant, "Sure, I'll come to your party." Anywho, enough reminiscing, and those were the major events of last night.
Tuesday, May 19, Noon
Alas, we have landed on the Disney Island, and yet the weather is rainy and prevents much island activity. Heather is also sick in bed, and will be unable to do anything fun until her strep throat (which is what we think her sickness is) clears up. I'm currently on Deck 9, under a shelter near the 18 and over pool, writing this, enjoying a soda (which was free), and watching the rain.
(It must be added here, because I don't think I explain in a later entry, that the rain did clear up, and my dad and I went onto the island alone to walk around; we ended up renting a bike and viewing the island from these observation points. I also swam in the ocean and collected water from the ocean in a bottle, as I had planned)
Last night was even better than the night before. My dad, Heather, Hope, and I watched this theater production of "Toy Story," and it was really cool. I planned to go up to Aloft afterwards, so we parted and I got into an ascending elevator, where I ran into Jay Gatsby (which will be my name for the hot guy) and his brother Brandon (which will be my name for the hot guy's brother), who (I seem to like repeating this) looks like a mixture of Quaid and Logan. They'd just been to see the musical as well, since, as Mr. Gatsby said, music is "his thing." Once up in Aloft, we asked the counselors who our victims for the Gotcha game were (which was this thing where you were secretly assigned a victim to "kill" by shaking their hand or giving them a high-five or something; once you killed them, they were crossed off the list of living people and you were then assigned to their old victim). I was assigned to some girl I didn't know, and Jay was likely the first person "killed"; it was right after this music trivia game, and a girl asked to high-five him for a good game, to which he complied and consequently "died." Right after this, I found out who was trying to kill me: this big awkward sort of guy, Sean, who sang "Luck be a Lady" on our first night there. He tried to shake my hand directly after Mr. Gatsby's death, so I was like, "No, you're trying to kill me." and os now I know who's after me. After some free smoothies at the bar, we played this dating game, where one person is blindfolded and three potential "suitors" are asked various questions; the blindfolded person chooses the person whose answers they like the best to "date." After a while of doing this, we had a sort of dance party, which fell apart after a while. Eventually, Brandon, Gatsby, three girls (who, I found out, were cousins, the blond of the three dating Brandon), and I went to the beverage machine on Deck 9, had a drink, and loitered around for about half an hour talking. There was this argument about which of two movies (Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast) was the better one; the three girls favored Cinderella, while the rest of us thought otherwise, though Brandon might've been neutral on the topic, as he didn't speak much. They had to go to bed after a while because, for the teen excursion, they were expected to wake up at the ungodly hour of 8:00. They dropped me off at my floor before going up to their's.
Wednesday, May 20, 8:30 p.m. (The last night)
I'm in the Disney theater right now, wearing my black sparkly dress as a sort of farewell flourish on our last night here. I'll be heading up to Aloft later. Last night at Aloft was a bit of a disappointment because Gatsby was being a flake. There was a "pirate party" and he was one of many who dressed for the event and would have put Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow on a run for his money. However, as I said, he was rather flaky the whole night and ended up leaving in the middle of a movie with this blond girl who looks like a manlier, sulkier version of Angela from "American Beauty," except I can't say anything more about her because she was fairly nice to me. Anyways, we went as a group to watch the fireworks, to this pirate game show thing, and back to Aloft before I left for a walk around the deck in the middle of a crappy Nicholas Cage movie. I then returned to my room and had confused dreams that involved Gatsby and someone closer to home.
Thursday, May 21, 8:30 a.m.
We are now all loaded in the car, and just got my last glimpse of the ship. "It's a Small World After All" happed to be blasting as my dad pulled up in Heather's car and we all got in. Though, because of the events of Tuesday (involving flakiness), I was planning not to attend Aloft last night, I did so anyway, and I am glad I did. I went up straight after the Disney play called, "Dreams," which was awesome. I engaged myself in a game of BS while I waited for Gatsby to arrive, his brother Brandon, and, inevitably, the Angela girl who hangs on Gatsby. They did, eventually, and Gatsby and Angela, and I feared, left together almost immediately. Brandon wandered off shortly after this and I also considered leaving, but decided to stay and participate in a game of movie trivia, which our team won as they did with the music trivia a few nights ago. Following the game, we moved the furniture for karaoke, and I found "Vienna" by Billy Joel and decided to sing it in Shannon's honor. Angela and Brandon came up without Gatsby shortly before I went up to sing, and Gatsby made his appearance in the middle of my song by which point I was into it and jamming (with my eyes closed, swaying back and forth like and drunk and all that). As crazy as it sounds, people were coming up to me after my performance and congratulating me on my "awesome" singing voice. After "Vienna," I sang "Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis, also to much applause and praise. Brandon came up to me and said I had a nice voice, and high-fived me, consequently "killing" me (it turned out he had killed Sean and I had become his new victim). It was after his compliment that I got cocky; I asked the room at large if anyone wanted to duet with me, and Gatsby and this other guy who sang "Lean on Me" really well said that they would be willing. While Gatsby went up and sang a few numbers, mostly Disney songs from "Aladdin" and "Hercules," and while Sean, the "Luck be a Lady" guy, hogged the microphone and murdered "Jailhouse Rock," the "Lean on Me" guy and I were looking through the list of songs to find a good one to duet on. I picked "L.O.V.E." by Nat King Cole and "Time Warp" but he didn't know these songs, nor did I know any of the songs that he selected. I then went up and sang "L.O.V.E." alone and messed up because other people were singing loudly. Thinking that it would be nice to end my singing contribution with a traditional tune, I submitted a sheet of paper with "Amazing Grace" on it, assuming by this point that no one was going to duet with me. However, as I got up to sing, Gatsby said something like, "Robyn, stop hogging the microphone," joking around. I replied, "I've been trying to, but no one will get up and sing a duet with me." Then he asked me what I was singing, I told him, and he stood up on my right, saying, "All right, I'll sing with you; everyone knows 'Amazing Grace'." Which was sort of funny, becaues about halfway through the song, he messed up a few times, going too high too early, and at the end, he said, "Oh, I guess I don't know 'Amazing Grace' all that well." As we sang, I lost all sense of my surroundings; I couldn't tell you any of the lyrics beyond the first verse. I messed up a few times as well, as his higher voice forced me to accompany an octave higher than was natural for me. He also tried to harmonize, and I made the mistake of trying to follow him, instead of keeping to the melody. Anyways, the important part is that, a verse or so into the song, he came very close, so that our cheeks were pressed together as we sang. I could feel his entire left side against my right, as well as the rocking rhythm of the ship. Someone took a picture, we were singing, and it was over all of a sudden; we whooped into the microphone a couple of times, I thanked him for singing with me, and he replied, "You're welcome. It was awesome." He also inquired if anyone in my family played guitar, because my dad had approached him earlier that day and praised him for carrying around a guitar (this was against my wishes; I sat in a beach chair on the ninth deck, watching from afar and pretending not to be). Gatsby seemed rather flattered, however, that someone like my dad would praise him. After this, we passed around our address books, signed and provided email addresses and phone numbers respectively, and I reminded him that I had yet to hear an original by him, and he smiled. I was going to sing the "Time Warp," but I was too late. They turned off the karaoke machine and put on dancing music. It was about here that Gatsby, Brandon, and most of the girls left, as did I shortly afterwards. I took one last moonlit walk around the ship alone before retiring, feeling that our awesome trip could not have ended better.
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