more new-ness

July 3 & 4
Okay, God’s creation never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday I saw a baby whale jumping out of the water, today I saw snow-capped mountains in the summer, mini-icebergs and a few eagles. We’re on a scenic cruise through Tracy Arm, which is rather narrow; the land isn’t really that far from the ship! It is so cool, I think I’m as excited as the kids are about it because during our ice cream time, we all sat at the window, staring at the mountains, icebergs and waterfalls.
I love hanging out with these kids, they’re so much fun! They’re most all excited about any activity we do, and always want me and Ashley to play the game with them! They’re so eager to learn more games too. Their enthusiasm kept me going yesterday when I was exhausted, and it’s making my day today all the more amazing now that I can appreciate it. We’ve done lots of active things today, and even more are to come tonight as we have our “brave the night” (survivor) challenge! I’m so glad that I’m finally figuring things out now and getting used to everything, I’m still learning though and it might be a long process as I don’t have a whole lot of spare time to do stuff.
The kids loved “Brave the night” activities, they had so much fun coming up with team names, flags, chants and getting points doing stuff like drinking jello through a straw, doing cryptograms, and getting a hula hoop around the circle. Afterwards, Ashley and I decided to hang out and see if it was true that we could see fireworks from Juneau. So, we stood around outside, and watched a whale and other cruise ships! We saw the whale breathe a lot, and jump twice out of the water! It was really exciting. Sadly, there were no fireworks. It’s the first port day, but we have an emergency drill at 10:30. So, I’m going to port after that.

One really good thing about Youth Staff uniforms is that we are provided with all sorts of gear. Sweaters, windbreakers and there are big orange puffy coats for us to use when we take the kids to the sports deck on a sea day! I surprisingly like the windbreaker-probably because it’s not bright orange like the shirt, it is navy with two small orange stripes down the arms.
I’m slowly getting used to this, but next week will be better because I won’t have to stop my regular job to do new-crew stuff.
We made it to Alaska and I’m going ashore this afternoon to explore and get some stuff. I was scheduled to work, but Jordan, my roommate wanted another day off, so we switched what port day to work. The Youth Staff has been understaffed the past few weeks, we’re still down at least one, which isn’t good, so we’re hoping to get at least two new people (my roommate is supposed to be leaving Sunday). We have 180 or so kids this week on board and most of them come to at least some of the activities. Next week, I think I heard someone say that there will be over 200!


Fourth of July!! I did see fireworks, but not in the normal sense, but I’ll explain that in a bit. I woke up at normal time and went to breakfast, sitting alone because no one else apparently goes to breakfast on port days. Then, I ended up hanging out in my room and walking around Lido deck until time for the new-crew emergency drill. Finally that was over with, and I could go with Erica and Ashley to shore! We were on our way somewhere when the parade started, it was pretty excellent timing actually because I had just left a store and there was the parade. We watched the whole thing, and were joined by two guys who are musicians on the ship (also new-crew), and an Australian guy who also works on the ship (but I forget what his job is). We’ve talked to the two musicians a few times before and since they’re new too we had stuff to talk about. We all went to lunch together (except for Ashley, who opted out of lunch in favor of hanging out at a place that had internet). It was pretty fun, I got to know Nick and Steven better. Steven actually studied abroad last spring, in Florence, so we had lots to talk about since it’s an experience that not everyone can relate to. Everyone else got food at a crab place, but Steven and I found something else and brought it to the table- they had picnic tables set up under tarps outside. Lunch lasted about an hour and a half, Erica and I ended up going to Wal-Mart (a 20 minute shuttle ride) to get some supplies, and then came back to the ship just as it started raining. We did more of our online training activities, getting those over with when we had time since we’re likely to forget about them because of their lack of deadline. Haha.
The Club HAL team (Karyn, Ashley, Jordan, Erica and me) helped decorate a room for Fourth of July before heading up to work. We watched Cars 2, the kids were rather antsy though so I had to keep them quiet and make sure they weren’t getting out games and stuff.
Finally, 10 o’clock came. I’d made plans with Ashley to go see a show! It’s called Garage Band and it was really cool. All sorts of moving stage pieces, trapdoors, backdrops, etc (yes, my techie side kicked in at times). They had a general story line using all sorts of songs including ‘Life is a Highway’ and ‘Car Wash.’ I enjoyed it. At the end, ‘fireworks’ took place, stage fireworks, but since we haven’t had any actual ones, I figured that stage ones would have to suffice.
It’s been a great day. I can’t wait for Sitka tomorrow! I’ll actually get a chance to explore instead of shopping the whole time. There’s a different way of getting off tomorrow because there’s no dock, so it should be interesting. Apparently crew is only allowed to go out after all the excursion groups leave, which may be around 10 o’clock, then we have to be back by 2:30. I really either need to buy an internet card or find somewhere with free internet soon so everyone can hear about all this!