Sea Olympics! Go Aegean Sea!

7/12/2009

Our second day between Croatia and Greece was a no class day, and I was excited about getting sleep and relaxing, having a lazy morning, and not worrying about a schedule, but from the very beginning, the day did not go as I had planned.  I woke up much earlier than I wanted, probably because Athena and I were so tired the night before we forgot to close the window over our porthole and it got bright in our room.  It turned out to be a good thing though, because as I finally decided it was time to get out of bed and stop trying to fall back asleep, the tell tale chimes of the PA system rang out, and we were informed there would be a life boat drill in 20 minutes.  Lifeboat drills include putting on long pants and long sleeves, a head covering (a hat), and close toed shoes.  Putting on the life jacket provided in your cabin, and making your way up to the emergency section to wait for roll and inspection finishes up the lifeboat drills.  The siren sounded exactly 20 minutes after the warning, and explained that a lifeboat drill was taking place.  Everyone stumbled out of their rooms at this point and made their way up to the fifth deck where the emergency stations are located right next to the life boats.  Once we were out on the deck at our emergency stations, which are marked by a letter and number on our life jackets, one of the crew members calls out the names of everyone in that group.  It takes forever and we are all smashed together in our bulky orange life vests.  It was very warm, and it was also easy to tell that several people had been woken up by the drill.  We managed to finish with role pretty quickly, but then everyone has to wait for the captain to walk by each group and approve them.  We got approved on the first try. Lastly, the captain made a quick announcement saying it was the “best drill he has seen ever yet so far on this voyage” or something along those lines, whatever that means.
After such an unexpected start to the day, there was time to relax for a little while and prepare for the Sea Olympics.  The Sea Olympics is comprised of a series of different events, all of which earn points.  In the end, the most points wins.  The teams are divided by hall, or sea, meaning that the entire second deck was on one team because we are so much smaller than the other decks.  We are the Aegean Sea, appropriate as we were headed toward Greece which is bordered by the Aegean while competing in the Olympics.  The events included synchronized swimming, pictionary, paper boat races, academic bowl, dodge ball, lip synch, relay race and sea makeover.  It ended up being a fun filled day, but not quite the relaxation I needed.  I participated in the relay race, and watched several other events.  The synchronized swimming was really entertaining, to say the least.  A group of four boys from the Aegean Sea did the synchronized swimming to the thong song, with thongs drawn on with sharpie, fully complete with stars, hearts and bows.  It was pretty hilarious and definitely had the most audience participation.  Unfortunately, the judges didn’t agree, and we didn’t get as high of a score as I thought we deserved.  At the lip synch, there was one absolutely hilarious act.  It was a guy named Eric who put on hair extensions, had a full dress, heals, and make-up.  He even had stuffed boobs!  He sang the “when I think about you I touch myself” song and it was ridiculous.  He did an amazing job, and never broke character.  At the make-over, all of the guys were made in to girls, and most of them could walk better in heals than me!  They made very pretty girls.  Once the scores were totaled from all of the events, a closing ceremony took place.  The Aegean Sea came in third!
After the closing ceremonies, which basically consisted of announcing the winners, it was time for a dinner bbq.  The line was ridiculously long, and took forever as they kept running out of food.  The day wound up with preparing for Greece, and trying to catch up on school work.