Sealed with a Sunset

So I had to omit the Mauritius blog, for no other reason than there was little to share. Three quick days of R&R, for me it was 3 days of God’s faithfulness to teach me about obedience. Oh, how He is tricky that way!

We are now on our way to India, can you believe that, India? Not only is it so different than any culture I have ever experienced, but it marks a little over halfway. Wow time just goes away, well I honestly have lost time because we have to set our clocks ahead an hour almost every night, so time really disappears here.

So I know I shared our ship tradition of Neptune Day, but today was something I would never have anticipated enjoying so much! It was Sea Olympics. We took a day off of class so that we could get together and compete. The teams are made up of the hall you live in and they are titled by the name of different seas. Our’s was Sargasso, random, I still only know that it contains Bermuda, but that’s it. So of course everyone had to compete and I really did not care either way if I participated or not, until I found out there was a pie-eating contest, which was later turned into popcorn, but nonetheless still fun. I was then suckered into synchronized swimming with three other girls and as anxious as I was I had so much fun and laughed so hard. It turns out everyone on this ship has no problem making fools of themselves. Our team placed seventh overall, not last so that was good. My personal events did well, third for swimming and second for popcorn eating, not bad huh?!

The rest of my day consisted of sitting outside in the sun, swimming, and watching people play stupid field day games. All in place of a day of class, just to rub it in, we’ve only had two since Mauritius…It’s a ROUGH life! To make the day even better we had a barbeque, complete with ribs, burgers, hot dogs and ice cream. Each of these items has only been served once on the ship so there was a frenzy at dinner. As we were all eating outside the sun set in the most beautiful way I have ever seen. The water looked like glass and the sky was filled with shades of pink and orange. It was magnificent.

I took an hour to indulge in dinner and then had the brilliant idea to dance on the top deck, which ended up turning into an hour-long dance party. Oh my we danced our hearts out, not literally that would be gross. I just want to say I have friends here, sometimes the way I write these blogs it’s seems like I’m alone, but I’m not! Today I was with Leigh Anne, Anjuli, Olivia, Charis, Kate, Lane, Mary Chandler, I could keep going, but honestly there are a lot of people here and you are pretty much with all of them all the time! By the end of the night, after much needed showers, we grabbed blankets and pillows, piled into one of the classrooms and watched Slumdog Millionaire. Seriously the perfect day!

Tomorrow is cultural pre-port for India, which will be intense compared to the last couple of them. I cannot wait to share my adventures in India with everyone; I am doing a homestay for two nights with a rotary club family and visiting a hospital. Should be interesting! I miss you all…LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Carley