Athens, Here I Come

Date: August 2, 2008
Location: The Aegean Sea
Lat: 36° 18.32N Long: 024° 45.44E

Well, we make landfall at Piraeus, Greece in around 6 hours. I’m certainly excited about it. Athens should be real nice; I hear its nightlife is a lot of fun so that should be good. Baklava and gyros should be quite the taste treat. Also, the Acropolis and all the historical treasures of Greece will be really neat to see; too bad I’d have to go to London to see the best things.

Today was an eventful day on the M/V Explorer. We finally had the Sea Olympics, quite fitting given our destination. The ship’s community is divided into various different seas based on where ones room is situated. I’m in the Caribbean. The community then competes in a large variety of events.

I was drawn into two events today, despite not being signed up in any for today. One of the other members of our sea was already doing too many events so I had to take one off of him. I ended up getting the Iron Chef competition. Unlike the real Iron Chef TV show, where they make some amazing meal with a secret ingredient, we just made put toppings on pizzas.

We were given a large variety of toppings, such as lima beans, peanut butter, chocolate chips, pepperoni, and others. Our team decided to go for an innovative approach of a three course meal. We divided our pizza accordingly with an appetizer, which were mostly vegetables with some soy sauce. The main course had more meat on it. Our desert section was the highlight by far. We put peanut butter on the section with the white chocolate chips on top of it.

The judges came by and gave our pizza favorable ratings. However, we didn’t place, which is a bummer. I later came up and decided to get some snacks at the pool bar. I was then met with a surprise. Our sea was short of contestants for the hot hula hoop contest. I quickly jumped at the chance to help my sea out.

Hot hula hoop pretty much plays out like hot potato. Everyone who’s competing holds hands and passes a hula hoop around while not letting go of the other persons hand. This results in the contestants having to quickly hop through the hoop while a song plays, when the music stops; the person with the hoop is eliminated. I did pretty well here. I got past the first two rounds but I got tagged in the third. I didn’t have a chance as the person in front of me just barely jumped through the hoop when he handed it to me and the music stopped. My fellow sea mate did pretty well, but I don’t think she placed.

It was kind of the story of our Sea at the Sea Olympics. We usually placed around 4th or 5th so we didn’t get any points. This all culminates in the sea that wins the Olympics gets to debark the ship first in Norfolk. The Caribbean ultimately got 5th place out of 8 seas. A respectable showing but I’m sure we’ll do better next time.

When I wasn’t participating in events or cheering our sea on, I worked on writing a paper. We have some downtime now while we’re moving between our last two ports, but after that it’s going to be a paper writing bonanza. I want to get a bit of a leg up on it so I’m not swamped on the slow boat ride back to the USA.

Athens, here I come.