We got CRABS!!!!

Today was THE BEST at sea day EVER!!!! It was the SEA OLYMPICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never expected it to be so much fun but it really really was. So last night at the sea meeting after it I had met with the synchro group and they said they wanted to meet in the morning at breakfast and then go work on it.. so I woke up early and went to have breakfast at 815 with them all dressed and ready to go practice. Well I get to breakfast and I couldn’t find anyone, it didn’t help that I forgot what they looked like bc the weren’t girls ive really met before.  So I ended up eating with my moms and sisters Jackie and Danielle.  At 830 I headed up to the pool deck figuring I would just see them up there… I sat there till 850 with no one showing up and watching 3 other teams hard at work.. and we still didn’t have a song picked out!  So I went back downstairs and knocked on meredith’s door (the only girl I remembered the name of) and what does she do… she comes out half asleep because I just woke her up!!! Then the other 2 were still asleep too!  I was so pissed! Well Meredith went and was talking to the other two and supposedly they both “didn’t feel well” basically they just didn’t want to do it.. well we had to have 4 people on the team to be able to do it… I was able to convince Christina to do it after a long battle =P and then a girl who was innocently walking down the hall I got to bad it on too, Shelby!!! Well thank goodness last night I had found at least one sound that could work so that was it that was the song we used “Love Today” by Mika.. and during my 20 minutes of sitting and waiting at the pool deck I was able to start coming up with a routine so we just went with that too.. once we were finally all up at the pool it took us about an hour to come up with the whole routine and practice and get it down before we had to go change into all our green wear for the opening ceremonies!

Opening ceremonies consisted of the kids bringing in the “torch” the parade of flags, and then the chant competition.  This is where each sea had to present their chant to the rest of the ship community.. ours went like this:
Girls- my green
Guys- my swag
Girls- you want my sea
Guys- and my crabs
All: BERING SEA
Caller- what do we have
All- we got crabs
Caller- what are we going to do
All- give you crabs, give you crabs, give you crabs

the bering sea is where the show the deadliest catch takes place, where they do all the crab fishing.. so our sea’s mascot became the crab… oh in the morning Cynthia and steph had spread out crabs ALL over the ship you could not miss them! One of Lacey’s friends came to get her for breakfast in the morning and when Lacey had opened the door Mindy very sleepy said “there are crabs all over the ship, they are taking over” it was great =)  anyways back to the opening ceremonies.. next the dean of students gave an opening speech and then the captain gave a speech as well and declared the games officially open (after lunch of course).  So when the opening ceremony was over it was lunch time then at 1 the games began!  First I went and watched Christina do the Chinese Ice Cube Scramble and the pull ups competition that were both on the 7th deck aft (pool deck). At 130 jackie and Kristi had donut on a string, which ended up really being bagel on a string.  They placed 2nd!!! Woohoo.. they owe it all to the guy on their team though because he made good time taking done his half a bagel in no more than 5 bites! Then it was time to head back to the pool deck for synchronized swimming at 215.. our team met back up at 2 though to go through the routine just a couple more times! We decided we wanted to go second and it was a good thing we did… it was sooooo much fun though!!!! We couldn’t hear when the music started though so we were off at first but were able to figure it out. I had someone tape the whole thing on my camera so I would have it and I have a couple other videos off it too from other views! We got a lot of cheering while we were doing it, which was the opposite of the group in front of us because well honestly they weren’t that good… the teams that followed us had some good some bad.. Many teams did jumps into the water which was stated as not allowed in the rules and would be a deduction of points and one sea just had one girl… you were supposed to have at least 4 and no more than 6.  However, she hardly did a synchronized swim but more of a lap dance to the one male professor who was judging… highly uncalled for!!!  the ones that we thought we had competition against were the yellow team, the orange team (which was comprised of 6 guys doing a dance to all the single ladies), and the diploma sea (the faculty/staff/kids team).  They didn’t announce results right away though so we were nervous for awhile how we did…  they did however announce the rankings right after synchro of all the other stuff (not including the swimming) and bering sea was tied with the diploma sea in last place!!! =( NOOO!!! Hopefully we at least placed in the swimming to try and gain us some points and the same with lip singing later! after synchro I went and changed and met Jackie and Kristi to watch the relay race but that was running behind so we went back to the pool deck instead to watch the mystery challenge.. this ended up being a “beauty pageant.” This was not your typical beauty pageant though.. the teams consisted of 6 girls and 1 guy for each sea.. they had 9 minutes to go back to their rooms and dress the guy up in the best drag the could. Then the guys had to do their best run way walk around the pool and then state: their name, where they are from and their hobby. the best was watching their walks though.. some were in heals which was funny, its nice to watch guys struggle in heals I like to think it makes them have a higher appreciation for girls that do it. also some did some nice dances during their walks a few belly dancers, and tom (the voice) he did it for diploma sea.. and well his dances were interesting… they are on video I cant describe them you just have to watch them!

After the mystery challenge there was a little break before dinner to relax and regroup.  Right before we headed up to dinner the voice gave an announcement on the updated standings. He announced the scores for synchronized swimming.. there was a tie for 3rd, then the 2nd.. but we weren’t either of those.. Kristi and I were in the cabin and looked at each other like crap we didn’t get anything… but then he announced first place and guess what!!!! WE WON FIRST PLACE IN SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =)) =))  can you believe it!?!? I was ecstatic! I mean im going to be real here… im the one who put that whole thing together! And only in an hour that morning! I was sooooo proud!!! I was freaking out and then I heard Jackie, Christina, and mesha screaming next store so we ran out in the hall jumping all over the place really excited =)  we were too busy being happy about that we didn’t hear the rest of what tom was saying so after we calmed down we went to his office to ask him to repeat to us what he said since we were too busy celebrating =)  well turns out we jumped from tied in 10th (there are 11 seas total) to being in 7th place, not bad not bad!  So with all our happy news we headed off to dinner.

 We got a BARBEQUE!!! For dinner again!!!! Wooohooooo!!! This means it was hamburger night (just in case you forgot that from last time).  Kristi, Jackie, Christina and I ate outside on the 6th deck, very barbeque like =)  after this there was a little more down time before it was time to head to the union to get good seats for the lip singing competition, the final competition of the day!  Ummm… the bering sea kicked butt on this!!!!  The first sea to go did “its raining men” an ode to the gender ratios on the ship =) ha it was good.. the other teams did some mixes of songs but had no real theme to them… then the bering sea went! Theirs was a mix of songs that went with every country we’ve been too, and they set up a scene for each one to highlight just a few of the 16 members at a time.  They did a whole new world first, then for spain it was bailamos, Italy was its amore (I think that’s the name of it), then Croatia was fuego (I guess this was played in the clubs a lot?) then Greece was stereo love (again a club thing), turkey was the Turkish delight song, egypt was walk like an Egyptian, morocco was belly dancer, and then they played party in the usa and a clip of nsync “bye bye bye, bye bye” to end it off.  It was great and I have a couple different videos of the whole thing! And the ones of my swimming!!!!!

So after all the seas went there was some stalling that was done while scores were tallied and the official results.  First came lip singing results.. not third, not second, but FIRST PLACE GOES TO BERING SEA!!!!! Woohoooo =)  I knew it all along though =)  then they did over all results…. 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5th place bering sea! Not bad seeing as in the beginning we were in last! Over all the caribbean sea took 1st and that means that once we hit Virginia and the ship is cleared they are the first off. Which is actually okay because I wouldn’t actually want to be the first ones off… but I just also don’t want to be last… I don’t know how the rest of the order ends up but im hoping we get off somewhere in the middle!

So that’s the end of an AMAZING DAY! Sea Olympics was by far the BEST day at sea ever and I had soooooooo soooooooo soooooooooooo much fun!!! And I got first in swimming!! =) =) =)

In reality this all happened yesterday august first so today is now the second but im going to post a separate blog for it because it is a very special day today!