Day 1 on the cruise: It was windy and cold and slightly cloudy. Boo. Also, the boat was really rollie-pollie and rocking around. Double boo. People were stumbling around and it was not necessarily directly relate to the amount they had to drink. I ended up laying down in the room with one Dramamine in my system and I was asleep for hours. I rallied for dinner and lucky for me and mom it was 70s night. That photo was already on the blog but here it is again because it's so darn cute:
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Day 2: Mom and I had tickets for an eco-wildlife tour in Belize. When we woke up we were stationary but we still had to take a tender in to shore. We got in line what we thought was relatively early, but the line was not even moving (pain). When we finally got on a tender, it was packed. A lady we were sitting near had a lanyard for Dickinson college.
She was sweet when Mom struck up a conversation about her lanyard. Then, I noticed the women she was sitting near all had matching bracelets.
I asked about the bracelets and they explained that a young girl makes them and sells them to raise money for people in India who are suffering from leprosy. That's pretty cool that these women support her! All in all there were six ladies and a long boat ride. We found out that they had bags full of supplies to bring to an orphanage in Belize. They had markers, crayons, shoes, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and little Christian crafts.
They had set up a ride ahead of time and talked to the woman who ran the orphanage. The boat ride took a long time and we found out that they were 6 Christian women who were from the east coast. They formed an organization called Mission Ships which you can feel free to "like" on Facebook. They go on cruises and make contacts ahead of time so they can do mission work in ports. Pretty neat.
These ladies invited us to go along but we had dropped a lot of money for our tour. Also, they were strangers. Well, sisters in Christ, but still kind of strangers. I prayed for a few of the women and the work they were going to do. Then Mom and I got off of the tender and we started looking for our tour.
Saw a lot of signs for other tours, but none for ours. Saw a lady with a clipboard, and she told us that our tour was gone. What? Yes, you two were the only ones that missed it. Go talk to that other woman with a clipboard and see if she can get you on another tour. Other lady with a clipboard had her back turned and was in the middle of a discussion, so I waited. Then I head Mom yell "Dee!" and take off.
The women were quickly headed away from the port, so we hustled after them (Dee, Deanne, Tracy, Mary Ellyn, Lisa, and Denee). All of a sudden, there we were, walking with them away from the tourist shops, helping them carry their ministry bags. Their driver was waiting for them and there was room for us in the van.
We stopped to get money from the ATM. Belizian dollars, baby. Also, yes that's a jaguar and Queen Elizabeth II. Other countries have way cooler money than we do.
Then we stopped to buy groceries at a local place rather than a big chain.
Our driver, Donald.
We spent I think $1100 American dollars which is like $2200 Belizean dollars.
Finally, we stopped at a teeny tiny store to buy eggs and we finally showed up at the orphanage. We unloaded the groceries and then Delfina took us on a tour of The Liberty Children's Home.
The Liberty Children's Home takes kids through the court system from homes that are not safe. Delphina told us that some people show up to the front gates and ask her to take their kids but they can't because it's not legal. The kids they take are siblings and are considered difficult to place. They are older than the age most people want to adopt, and they can't pick one kid out of the group. Each kid gets to decide if they want to be adopted, so like if you're one of three siblings and your brother says "No, I don't want to be adopted" then a person could adopt you and your sister if you both do want to be adopted.
When the kindergardeners woke up, we got to play with them a little bit. There was one girl, Jillian, who was special needs and Mom spent some time with her.
These cuties were brothers, a set of twins and then their brother.
Then we cleaned up the library a little bit and I hammed it up on the stairs.
Aloe plants! Then we checked out the animals. Biggest pigs I have ever seen in my whole stinking life. This was not the time for "this little piggy." No. These pigs were massive. It's a little hard to tell from the photos, but they were at least as tall (long?) as me.
Mom didn't check out the pig pens. They really were stinky.
Finally, the kids came back from school! They had to do their homework so we only got to see them for a little while. The little girl in the photo with mom and then with me is Britney. She was a doll.
I asked Britney if she liked to climb the trees, and then she said she could with two hands, so I held her candies so she could climb properly. Atta girl.
Here is just a portion of the supplies that these ladies brought.
When the kids had to go inside to do their homework, we headed back to the ship and this life:
It was a strange shift and hard to process the day we just had when people were doing the Wobble on the lido deck. We had dinner with the ladies we served with that day and headed for a shower and a bed because we were tired.
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Day three was spent in Cozumel.
During breakfast, we were pulling into port so we sat by a window and watched it happen. That was sweet. The ladies who sat next to us were a mother/daughter duo as well. And the mom told me she had gotten her degree from a satellite campus of IWU! Pretty neat.
We had signed up for a dolphin tour, and this was on Mom's bucket list. Also, if you don't have a bucket list you should totally start one. Even start with something silly like "own as many lipsticks as I do nail polishes" because one day if you do it, you can cross something off the list. Don't think of it as an obligation, but a list of cool things that you one day want to be in your story.
So anyway, dolphins.
Waiting for our tour to leave.
We took a taxi to get there, and while we waited we watched some other people have a dolphin experience.
Soon it was our turn!
We were with two ladies from Detroit who were sisters and then a brother and a sister from Florida.
The dolpin experience employees took photos and videos while we went with the trainer. There are a few different interactions that everyone in the group gets to do. We started off with the coolest one- the belly ride!
I got a mouth full of seawater and it was the best thing ever.
Next we did the kiss/handshake. First you do the kiss on the cheek, then on the lips, then you dance a little.
The last thing we did was the dolphin hug and the dolphin smile
At the end, the dolphin gets to show off how fast she can swim. Wowzer. Then the three dolphins in our enclosure did jumps all synchronized and it was sweet.
The pool they put our group in was the maternity pool. It had two mom dolphins, a nanny dolphin (who knew there was such a thing?) and three baby dolphins! They were super cute. Sometimes they tried to do what their mommies were doing but the trainers and us were not allowed to touch the babies. Also, dolphin babies are called a pup or a calf but that's weird.
They gouge you for the photos, but it's a once in a lifetime opportunity so they totally know you will pay for it. Lucky us, they threw in 5 free stock photos! :)
Really, Dolphinaris had a good staff and a really cool program. Sometimes the photographers missed the moment so we had to do the interaction again- oh darn!
After shelling out big bucks for the photos, we took a van back to the port and shopped around a little. We bought a deck of cards from our destination, as is our custom, and a few other fun things.
This shop was totally selling black leather fanny packs. I am way ahead of the game. I rocked this thing every time we were in port with no regrets. So convenient and, apparently, stylish.
Mariachi!
These things are elegant and simple and understated and funky and so versatile.
When we got back on the boat, I got this very special and temporary souvenir:
Longneck dinosaurs are the best hands down. Little Foot? Let's get real. Best.
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Then the last day of vacation, I fried in the sun. Pretty badly. We were at sea all day and I had a lot left to read of a book for class so I planted my butt in a chair by the pool. I was burned badly enough that I couldn't have a cotton v-neck touching my skin later on when I wanted to go to dinner, so I ordered room service. That sounds really fancy, but there's not an extra charge. It was definitely not the worst I've ever been burned. That instance would be from spring break 2011 on Sanibel Island - just before I started this blog. Here's some pictures of me from that time which I don't think even do the burn justice:
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This time around I did not make the Sanibel mistake of getting burned the first day and ruining the whole vacation. In both cases, however, the airport/airplane experience on the way home is still miserable.
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We had breakfast on the boat on day 5. They take your luggage the night before so we had backpacks for the few hours on the ship.
The customs line was long and boring, but hey what are you gonna do?
The woman next to me on the plane really wanted to talk to me and I was not about it. Sorry lady. Normally I'm a decent conversationalist but I think I had low blood sugar and was a little dehydrated from all the sun. Not a great combo and I ended up feeling really sick on the plane. Blergh.
We got back in the states and Dad picked us up at good old O'Hare. On the tail end of spring break, I had plenty of time to chill at home and recuperate from my sunburn. I got to hang out with Max (!), go to the dentist, buy that super cute red dress at Target, and watch the Blackhawks game.
Giordano's pizza, a faithful pup, and a Blackhawks game. What more could a girl want?
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Wow wow wow this post took me a LONG time to write.
I began writing March 15 at 12:19pm
and I am done on March 25 at 11:00pm. That's insanity. Life got in the way!
This is definitely a marathon post. Whew. It feels great to finally tell all of you about this amazing vacation! So many amazing stories and now they are all in one place forever on the Internet. Perfect. Thanks to my parents for making this vacation happen. You guys are great.
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