It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

December 4, 2011

Hello again everyone! Let’s see what’s happened since I last updated you!
The first thing I should tell you about is the interesting thing that happened on our second sea day on our way to Sydney we had to take a detour from our course to an island in the northern Tasman sea called Lord Howe Island because a guest on board had a medical emergency. We were set to arrive there around 9:30am and on the way we passed something that’s known as “Ball’s Pyramid”. This “pyramid” is part of a volcano that formed 7 million years ago and has mostly completely disappeared except for this remaining part that sticks 3,600 feet out of the sea. It was SO COOL looking! Check out my Facebook for the photos—you can’t see the whole thing because it was so cloudy and rainy, but, you can tell how it’s just this random giant piece of rock that sticks out of the water and comes to a point at the top. It was also very rocky seas, probably the rockiest we’ve had so far! I was getting dizzy and had to take sea-sickness pill to try to alleviate that!

Anyways, we arrived in Sydney yesterday and we are leaving tomorrow night to head to New Zealand again. Last night a bunch of us went out to a club in Darling Harbour called “Home”—it’s a big four story building with lots of dancing and bars and such. It was a pretty good time, I was waiting outside the club for about half an hour for Brian to show up and in the meantime I was chatting up this cute Kiwi security guard (Kiwi means he’s from New Zealand, in case you forgot). Also on the walk home Brian and I were walking in front of three guys who, after a minute or two, I realized were speaking French! So I had an internal debate of whether or not I should talk to them, knowing that of course I should, but, being a little bit intimidated. So we continued walking for a bit until they ended up in front of us somehow and one was lagging behind because he was sending a text message so I kind of upped my pace, met up with him, and proceeded to ask if they were from France. He replied with “Yes! And you?” and the conversation continued from there! I found out that they were backpacking around New Zealand/ Australia and that they were in New Zealand during the Rugby world cup—how cool right?! They’re from a small town near Grenoble in France…**drool**. Eventually they were turning right and we were turning left so the conversation was over, but, I was very pleased with myself. Brian was also very impressed, maha, #winning.

Like I said, we leave Sydney tomorrow night so tomorrow morning I am planning on getting off around 9 or 9:30 and then investigating the purchase of a pair of UGG Moccasin Slippers (NOT BOOTS) and then I am going to go to the Opera House and possibly take the tour and then use the free internet that I’ve heard they have to post this blog post! Then I have to be back on the ship by 2pm to be a part of an acupuncture demonstration (means I get it for free since I let people watch, yes!) and then to work the rest of the day.

Also, there is a big Christmas tree and tons of decorations all over the ship and I love it :) There's a huge Gingerbread village, also! I will take photos of it ASAP :)

Hope all is well!
<3
B