A Missing Time Event

So, yesterday, Sunday, January 20th, 2013 seemed like a normal-enough day.  Matt and I woke up and did our 7am yoga on the 7th port deck.  We had breakfast, and then we began our day of post-production.  This means that we lock ourselves in tiny closets and stare at our computers for hours on end.

Lunch was non-descript.  The usual salad, potatoes, pasta and meat options.  Pretty good pork and chocolate pudding for dessert.  Yum.

We finished up post-production, then headed for dinner.  It seems that most of our days just consist of eating.  Every time I turn around it's time for another meal, but with the rocking of the ship, our bodies are working overtime to keep balance, and we all find ourselves famished.

After dinner, it's time to begin the evening's festivities.  Our first celebration is for Pedro whose birthday is going to be completely skipped by our travel over the international dateline.  It was decided by his teammate, Rosa, to have a happy no-birthday celebration for him.  Daniel arranged a mandatory meeting in the Tipsy Toucan where allegedly the dean of students had some beef with us and needed us all to be there for the talk.

We had a film crew set up for the surprise and the ship made a happy no-birthday cake that was set out with one candle.  Pedro was very surprised, and we all had a good laugh at his speech.  I really need to work on my Spanish.

A long celebration ensued because we were all trying to stay up until midnight for our missing time event.  We danced (as usual) and Pedro somehow smuggled aboard some tequila which he generously shared even with those who didn't want it.  Highly entertaining, but all in good fun.

At 5 minutes to midnight, we had one final song, "Bohemian Rhapsody", which led to us forming a circle and singing and dancing in unison.  We headed up to the top deck with all of the students and had a countdown to midnight.

It was actually extremely anticlimactic which made us all laugh, sing one more Journey song, and then head for bed.

A mock-up of the international dateline comp

The most beautiful part, though, was standing on the top deck of a ship going 19 knots in the middle of the ocean at night.  The moon was out and the clouds were lit up.  The moon was just over the direction we were heading, so its reflection created a silvery pathway to blackness.  The air was warm and salty, and in the (very few) moments of silence there was a peaceful magic of how alone we are out here.  Sometime the thought is scary, but at that moment, it felt exciting.

Because it was our glory day, Matt and I slept in until 10am, then watched the Little Mermaid one and a half times through as we got ready for the day.  (They loop films on the closed circuit TV and today was Little Mermaid day).

We headed up for a community lunch with most of the team, then met all our parents for some Skype time.

Today, (Tuesday, January 22) the Unreasonable team is celebrating "Women in Business" day, and all of us ladies are going to go and get a spa treatment.  I decided to splurge for a massage.  All of this carrying of equipment up and down and up and down stairs on a rocking ship really does a number on my back.  After our spa treatments, we're headed to a fancy dinner with the Captain of the ship.  He's British and dryly entertaining, so I'm sure a room full of ladies will be fun for him as well.

Word is, we won't hit our 15 meter swells until we turn north tomorrow evening on our way to Japan.  We've avoided almost all the weather so far, but we have to face it eventually in order to get North up to Japan.  Wish us luck!  I'll keep you posted.