It’s Holly

Holly’s officially addicted to Flickr, thanks to Mikee.

Sooo, get at me on Flickr, son. It’s where all the cool kids are.

I just wanted to mark this special occasion in history. I watched the swearing in of Barack Hussein Obama this morning at the North Park Theater with people who I didn’t know, who embraced me as family when they saw I was there by myself. We laughed together (esp. when Rick Warren said ‘sssssasha!’), we cried together, we hugged one another – complete strangers coming together through a common cause.

We. Are. One.

I’ve been nasty sick the past two weeks (a little bit better now) – since the cruise has been over. I was telling Tina my reasoning:

Holly: i think my body is used to that cruise food
Holly: maybe i should go eat at Applebees or TGIFridays to make myself feel better
Tina: lol, did Jonathan get sick?
Holly: no
Holly: he has a stomach of steel, that fool was ordering 2 appetizers and 3 entrees every night
Tina: yea, he’s like a goat

Like a goat!!!! I couldn’t have said it better myself.

my little stomach o steel zoolander blue steel sushi chef

It was Thanksgiving / Haejin’s 18th birthday party where I was shown the original picture:

That was the inspiration for the recreation:

How time flies.

Dear White People on Cruises,

Please don’t feel the need to get your hair braided when you’re in Jamaica. You look like Hurricane Chris.

Thanks,
Holly

Note: I wrote these blogs while on the ship, and I’m publishing them post-vacation.

from the ship

December 30th: It’s “Haiti” because we weren’t really in Haiti, we were in a fenced-off, <1 mile stretch of Haiti called Labadee, owned and operated by none other than Royal Caribbean. This explains why we didn’t need passports, even though we thought we did… that’s why Robi and Peter stayed on the ship (their parents had their passports). Oops, our bad:

you see ‘em?

There were signs that said beware of barracuda and sea lice. wtf. Sea Lice? Needless to say, our dip in the water was a quick one, followed by a rinse and a scrub. The water was beautiful, though.

jono, js and chris

laughing at the sea lice

it's how we do.

Since we didn’t really want to figure out what sea lice actually did to your skin, we found some hammocks and chilled.

Would you like hours of endless fun? Just watch me get onto and off of a hammock. I swear, the shit is priceless, especially when Jonathan kicks sand in my eye.

So, after a not-so-productive day on Fake Haiti, we had dinner the headed to Schooners, a bar on the ship. There, we found Simeon, our new favorite ship entertainer, hosting Name that Tune (which I missed most of because I was too busy getting fierce in the room). He ended his time on the piano with “Sing-a-long with Simeon”, where you could request songs, and he’d play them on the piano so you could sing along. Of course, I requested Brick House, and of course, he obliged happily with some sort of lounge operatic remix. Thanks, Simeon!

Note: I wrote these blogs while on the ship, and I’m publishing them post-vacation.

December 29th:First of all, sleep on this ship is amazing. We left the balcony door open and fell asleep to the sounds of waves crashing. It’s kind of amazing. Not to mention the rocking. I felt like a baby being rocked to sleep. I can see why it works so well on the infants. Waking up has never been so hard.

So, now we’re smack dab in the middle of nothingness. look out from the balcony and all I see is sky and water and absolutely nothing else. See?

that's allll you see.

Drinks aren’t terribly expensive, we found a place that makes a damn good mojito. Yay Boleros!

You know what else is weird? Not being able to communicate with each other via cell phone. It forces us to do things in sync, instead of just wandering off and saying “call me later”. That’s odd.

Today so far has just been chill. Read a book, have a coffee, take a nap. Since we’ve been in the middle of the ocean all day, we decided to be super fierce, play dress up and have photo shoots on the balcony:

laura and tracie, after tracie won the Miss Biceps competition. Yeah... that's right.

jonathan shows us sexy. haejin points and laughs.

Tonight was the first formal dinner on the ship, as well. We figured it was the perfect opportunity for family portraits. We took over the chapel on the 14th deck (there’s a ton more of these pics, but this gives you the gist):

And, the fierceness continued after dinner, back on the balcony:

peter, dressed by haej

lauren, doing the '1,2,3, turn and be fierce'

Note: I wrote these blogs while on the ship, and I’m publishing them post-vacation.

December 28: It was a long day today. Delayed flights and no sleep leads to Cranky McCranksters, but alas we made it to the ship.

hanging out at the hotel before we all head to the ship.

We did the mustard muster drill,had some cocktails, a nice dinner (think Mimi’s Cafe with Indian (note: 7-11, not casino) waiters), and now we’re back on our private ocean balconies(!!!) enjoying the warm breeze.

that life vest is hot as all get out

looking off our balcony.

Do you know how absolutely eerie it is to look out and see nothing but black at night? It’s kinda scary. The stars are brighter out here… but I’ve never been without land within sight. It’s weird. I can see why those old folks thought the world was flat.

And this boat rockin’ nonsense can stop at anytime, too. This ship is like a big floating Vegas, sans hookers and bright lights. We keep getting lost trying to get back to our rooms, too. Even sober.

Tomorrow we’re at sea all day, then off to Labadee.

i’m completely exhausted. fortunately, i did some minor blogging while i was on the trip and saved some drafts, so i’ll be able to update tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week. in the mean time, here’s a little preview of the most fantastically fierce cruise ever:

on the balcony

docked & tendered in labadee (a.k.a. fake haiti)

cozumel

docked at ocho rios

more to come this week… kinda almost sorta (not really) good to be back.