Day at Sea

Our first day at sea was a blast. We played mini-golf (amazing when you're looking over the ocean), played volleyball, made friends with some kids from Switzerland who let us join their soccer game, relaxed at the pool and in the hot tub, and then got all gussied up for formal night!

A monitor on the ship shows where the ship is.

What a view!

The slide!

This was our favorite hot tub - it was on the top level (level 12) and at the
front of the boat with a gorgeous view

  

I'm pretty sure that at this point Jarren was still scared of us.

Every night at dinner the waiters do a dance. This time our waiter grabbed  Andrew (literally) and danced with him.

Jarren was not making this face when our waiter was dancing around the pole next to him.
Jarren never sat next to the pole again. 

Poor Jarren thought this was all he got.

Formal night = lobster tail or prime rib. mmmmmm

Welcome to the Carnival Liberty

BOARDING

Waiting to get on the ship was kind of like waiting to get on an airplane. You get a boarding pass, you get a boarding zone, you sit and wait in airport-like chairs, and then you get on the ship when they call your number. 

Poor Anni had to take a final during our cruise so here she is diligently studying as we wait to board.

Lots of people waiting to get on the ship. I think the ship had 3000 people on board!

Walking across the water to the ship

Picture of the photo they took of us before we got on. We learned quickly that the staff love to take your picture in front of any (and every) possible background. We didn't buy any, but took this picture as a momento :)

THE SHIP
 Once we got on the ship, Jarren gave us a tour. It was HUGE! I was in awe!

Food 24 hours a day!

Basketball, volleyball, mini gofl

Super-size chess game

Looking over from the top

Venetian Palace (a show every night!)

Awesome waterslide.
 (Note: Experiments proved that speedos provide the least resistance and thus fastest ride)

Our cabin with a pull down bunk bed

LEAVING PORT

View of Miami Beach

Here we go!

Pre-Cruise Excursion: Fort Lauderdale

Since we didn't want to risk delayed flights causing us to miss our ship, we didn't want to fly red-eye, and we wanted to earn Southwest credit, we flew to Fort Lauderdale on Friday with plans to take a taxi to Miami  (~30 min away) in the morning.

We didn't have a red-eye but we did have to wake up at 4am!

We ventured into the city on a bus on Friday night and walked along the riverfront, ate at an Italian deli with an Israeli band, and enjoyed the weather. We returned on the last bus out of downtown (9pm) and got a real taste of the nightlife on the bus, including a guy who left his pants on the bus when he got off (I know! I mean he left the pants he was wearing when he got on the bus ON THE BUS when he walked off), a girl who tried to borrow people's phones to call her ex, a guy rolling a joint with such care you'd think his life depended on it (it very well could have), and a guy who looked us up and down and said, "You're not from here, are you? Welcome to Broward..."

Along the River Front. (That's a shark. And me. And Andrew.)

Our hotel gave us a great opportunity to view the wildlife of the city: cats, duckens*, and cockroaches. Much to Jarren's chagrin we didn't see any alligators, although it wasn't due to a lack of effort. The hotel was also an excellent venue for teaching Jarren how to play Dutch Blitz. Which Andrew promptly smoked us in. 

Jarren and Andrew chilling at the hotel

 *Ducks that look a lot like chickens.

Celebrate good times, come on! Duh-duh-duh-duh duh duh duh-duh!

Happy Graduation to me!

Ideally I would have pictures of my graduation to post, but since they are on Andrew's camera, this blog will be out of chronological order and I will post pictures from my graduation celebration before the pictures from my actual graduation. (Which will be mostly for my dear mom, who is such a good daughter and went with Gma to a writer's conference rather than sit through HOURS of a Marriott School graduation. Definitely know where I get my smarts from!)

To celebrate graduation, I went on a cruise to the Caribbean (Cozumel, Belize, Roatan, and Grand Cayman)  with some friends. 

It was an ABSOLUTE blast and I'll be posting about all of our adventures, but first I wanted to introduce you to my fellow travelers: 

ANDREW - the greatest, handsomest, funnest guy ever.

 JARREN - Andrew's friend from Saint George

 ANNIKA - One of my best friends and roommate from BYU

 AMANDA - Annika's good friend from grad school

Arman - our head waiter at dinner

Portland in a nutshell

(For those who don't know, the title of this blog post is actually quite appropriate as Portland is very "earthy" and natural and quite vegan, as well.)

Here's what I've learned so far:

1. Always check the Portland events calendar or you may run into things you don't want to see. This was a few weekends ago: news
(By the way, if you actually read the article, can you tell me how going completely nude and painting yourself gray is "all about saving the environment?")

2. How hipsters think.

Yes. That's my roommate.

3. When people say "It's been sunny today" they mean they saw the sun for at least 5 minutes. Total.
4. When people say "It's going to be sunny soon" they're lying. (Turns out the people that say "June, July, and August are sunny" and the people who say "It's always sunny after mid-June" and the people who say "It's beautiful after the 4th of July" and the people who say "Mid-July on is always sunny" ARE ALL WRONG.)
5. You get glares when you forget your reusable grocery bag.
6. People in Portland never speed and are incredibly cautious drivers. A far cry from Utah.
7. Apparently when people go to the beach here they don't go to swim. It's FREEZING. And is always raining.
8. Keeping Portland weird is not hard for most people....

Hard to see, but she (he?) has a bag of empty soda bottles. A common collector's item here.

9. Not having to calculate sales tax in your head is awesome. You pay exactly the price you see. Brilliant.
10. The dream of the 90's is definitely alive in Portland. 

Back by Popular Demand

After I returned to America, I abruptly stopped blogging because I used my blog solely to document my international travels. I received several requests to continue the blog throughout the summer. At first I just couldn't bring myself to do it. After several weeks in Portland, I've realized it's about as foreign as India and Israel, so I will continue my blog. I am, however, worried that I set the bar a little bit high with my blog posts in India. I'm going to re-set some low expectations so no one gets disappointed. I probably won't blog as much (I don't spend my evenings alone in a hotel room anymore) and the content may not be quite as funny, although I will do my best.

Ok, now that that's taken care of, I'll give you some pictures of the Pacific Northwest, which is as beautiful as they say.

P.S. For those of you who grew to love our Indian friends through our blog posts, I have an update on "The Boy" (picture here). I got the following email last week. Carl didn't get one. Ha. (I would be flattered except that the last day in Delhi the three of us had a long, detailed conversation about how Indians can get US visas by marrying Americans....)

Dear,Moriah

how are you
where are you now please you send me news.

--

best wishes

 

 

Administration Unit, ekgaon technologies