Day 29...I can already smell the Greek cuisine...ohh wait...it's just the food from dinner!

Day 29 / C11, July 13th:

Today was an action packed day for me on the MV Explorer.  I began the day with breakfast before heading off to the ever so wonderfully boring Art History class and Global Studies.  The best part of Global Studies is when guest lecturers come in to speak and today my Economics professor talked all about the Greek cuisine and the European Union.  After class, I didn’t get to take my daily nap before lunch because I worked on my Art History paper some more.  I then went up to lunch, which happens to be all Greek food today (they always cook food relating to the next country we are going to be visiting on the last day at sea).  It was actually pretty good! That means I know I won’t be starving in Greece.  BTW I can’t believe I forgot to mention this in yesterday’s blog post…you know how I said we always have some type potato and a pasta at each meal.  Guess what?  Yesterday, we had pasta with green beans and potatoes in a cream sauce!  Can you believe that?  Potatoes in your pasta!  These people are nuts!!!  They have to throw them in there somehow everyday so why not mix the two together.  I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of the sign…it would have been priceless!  Back to the story…  

After lunch, I researched a little more about Greece and tried to figure out what I want to do while I am there, but I still have no idea.  The hard part about Greece is that it takes several hours to get to each of the islands from the port.  Secondly, the transportation in Greece currently is not too dependable because the workers are having strikes and protests.  At any random time, the flights may just stop, ferries not run, port authority not let ships in our out of the port, etc.  As we just learned in our pre-port meeting, the aviation sector within Greece is planning a strike for this Thursday and all flights will be cancelled.  This provides great excitement to travel within the country; however, I still want to get out of Athens and see more of the country too.  There is not enough in Athens to spend all 5 days hanging around there.  I really want to visit the island of Sorrento, but who knows at this point.  A few of us are going to go look at the ferry places to check the times and prices for the various islands once we get to port.  Only time will tell!

After more Greek food for dinner, we had another meeting for the SAS auction.  We are now working on getting students onboard to become auctioneers for the event, as well as donate items.  To help get the message out, Heather decided that someone should get dressed up like a clown and give a mini-speech about the auction tonight right before pre-port.  The entire group voted her to be the victim and she agreed.  In less than 35 minutes, Heather became the best-looking clown on the seas!  She had pink polka-dotted pants, white fluffy shirt, green feather boa around her neck, pink water tube around her waist, clown makeup and even a wild hair style as she did cartwheels out of the door onto the stage to provide some entertaining information about the upcoming auction.  It was so funny!  She did a wonderful job!  I can’t believe we pulled off a clown costume in 30 minutes including full makeup. What great fun!   

After we heard all about the logistics of Greece, I headed down to the 2nd deck to check my email before my sea meeting regarding the upcoming SEA OLYMPICS.  The Sea Olympics is held on the first day after Egypt and each Sea competes in various activities all day long to see who is the best!  Activities include eating contest, extreme musical chairs, pull up contest, Hawaiian bowling, lip synching and dancing contest, potato carving contest, shave the balloon head, etc.  It will be super fun I am sure.  Everyone is looking forward to it!  Now, does that not sound like a busy day!  Well, I am off to bed because I want to get a good night’s sleep before GREEEEEEECE!!!!!

Noon Report for July 13th:

The report is 5,000 NM away from my cozy bed on the 5th Deck (one deck above me) and I don't feel like getting up to get it.  I am currently 6 ft deep under the covers with an air temperature of 72 and a body temperature of 98 (or close enough).  I have travelled only on the ship since last noon at an average of 1/10 knots.  Sea swells are just light enough that I just want to fall asleep.  Sunrise tomorrow will occurs when my alarm goes off and the sunset is at dusk (tomorrow and everyday). 

Sweet dreams!