Barcelona embark day

July 26, 2013: embark Barcelona
I got to breakfast just in time this morning, it was 9:30 and they were already closing because it was embark day (I’d forgotten it was embark day, thank goodness I wasn’t any later). It was kind of funny actually, I got there and ordered a waffle and then they closed the curtain for the line next to where I was standing. So, I stood around next to the closed counter for them to finish making my waffle; I’m glad they seem to like me in the kitchens because they could’ve just refused to make me one since they were closing up breakfast.

After eating my really good waffle (freshly made, just for me, haha), I went back to the room to wait until lunch then Open House. I met Miranda, one of the two new Club HALs at lunch. It was a quiet first hour of open house, I think people had just started getting on the ship. The next two hours though were busy. I kept going back and forth between talking to teens who’d walked in, answering questions from parents, and writing the Club HAL room phone numbers down on the registration forms. It was nonstop until we closed at 3. We had a short meeting, then Leah and I took the wristbands down and waited for the drill. Some of the officers and boat commanders ended up kind of doing my job for me during the drill; I’m supposed to check and make sure all the kids have the correct color wristband with the correct boat number on it, and give them one if it’s incorrect or if they don’t have one. The boat commanders actually did the searching part for me, so I just had to give wristbands to the kids they pointed out to me. After that, I was free until the Entertainment Department meeting at 5:45. There’s a ‘new’ EM now, she was here, but left for vacation and it seems like everyone that knew her before this loves her as an EM. That’s a good sign. The meeting was basically the same old stuff that doesn’t really apply at all to Club HAL, but it was short so we got a nice length dinner. I just read after dinner before going up to the Loft early.

The Loft tonight was busy. There’s over 150 teens on board, and I think we saw around half of them. The first night is always a bit awkward, a bit more so this time because Jenny (the other new Club HAL) has never worked with the teens before, so she was just following along with what I did. I had a few games of Apples to Apples going on until they got tired of that. The second group had started playing MarioKart, so my group ended up talking for a while. It was kind of odd, I’d ask them questions and they’d hesitate to answer, then ask me. They seemed very interested in my life, but I did get them talking to each other eventually. We played “Move Your Booty” for an hour before “Two Truths and a Lie.” By the time we got through with that, it was much less awkward and snack had arrived. So, it was a much easier night after that. I sat and chatted with some Canadians about French and travelling, and got a group chat going on. Slowly they all left, most still pretty jet-lagged, so Jenny and I cleaned up and got to leave a bit early.