MEXICO!!!!

Alright, so despite the fact that it all feels like a beautiful, wonderful, peaceful dream, in reality, I really did spend all of my Spring Break on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico with the Mount Marty Choir. We returned to Mount Marty on Saturday night, and I felt like I had been gone for years because I though nothing of schoolwork and life back here while sailing away. As soon as we set foot on campus though, ironically I also felt like I had never left but instead fallen asleep on that dreadfull bus and dreamed everything that happened during the past week....let me try to make a weak attempt to take you into a corner of that dream.

The 50 choir members and our chaperones left campus at 2:00 on Friday March 5 to drive the 20+ hours down to Galveston, TX where our cruise ship, the Carnival Ecstasy, was awaiting our arrival and happily begging us to board so that it could take us far away to lands of sea and sky and food and Mexican shopping during our Spring Break. The plan was to drive straight through the night, and with such a tiresome task, it was necessary to stop in Oklahoma for a round of midnight bowling while the bus drivers rested their eyes. After us eager college kids used our energy to knock down a few pins, we boarded the bus to complete our southerly journey and our desire to flee the country. It's kind of a gross, groggy thing to drive through the night on a bus. I spread a blanket on the floor and slept (perhaps a better description would be "fitfully snoozed and rolled around forever conscious of a bruised hip bone) for some time. I remember waking up at some point, having spent the journey tangled in a mess of hopeful sleep, mp3 player cords, blankets and food crumbs from my friends in the seats above me. I had slept throught Houston and Dallas and tried to get up but was stuck because Cody in front of me had taken the opportunity to lay his seat back and thus trap me in my lowly position. So it is that you now have an image of the battered shap I was in as we boarded our wonderful ship on Saturday morning.

The ship itself....I don't know where to begin. It was a city of itself - a floating city of the sea with a theatre, a pool, a gym, a spa, multiple restaurants and bars, live music forever and always, 12 floors, a top deck jogging course, a put put golf course, and a water slide just to give you a broad picture. There were lights and sparkles and color everywhere, and there was never an shortage of things to do. Each day we were given a schedule of events and there were dance class, towel animal folding classes, ab blast workout classes, discounts for massages, a hairy chest contest (MMC's Leonard won that one!), trivia games, movies on a big screen projector, a talent show (the Mount Marty Smoothies performed along with Mitch and his paper plate animal cutting), comedians, karaoke, seminars on shopping and diamond buying....there was everything you could think of. The food deserves special note. Despite free frozen yogurt, ice cream and pizza 24 hours a day, every night we had fancy dining meals with the best, most cheerful waiter ever: Bobby Brown. Each night we were given freshly baked bread followed by an appetizer and a mail course which we selected off of a menu that changed each night and all of this was followed by an equally exquisite dessert menu. The menus were anything but processed and were definitely high class. I ate lobster, duck, shrimp, escargot, marinated fresh fruit, souffle....I felt distinguished...and disgustingly full. But, as Bobby said when I felt like I could no longer eat another bite, "You're on Vacation!!!" :)

Our first day we spent exploring the ship, the second day was a fun day at sea, the third and fourth were spent on Mexican islands (Progresso and Cozumel) and the last was another fun day at sea ....and the one after that. What you ask? Yes, that's right, we spent an entire extra day at sea because on the day we were scheduled to get off, the heaviest fog I have ever seen in my life closed the port of Galveston and we were thus succombed to spinning circles in the Gulf of Mexico. You couldn't even see the end of the ship if you stood outside on a deck in the middle of the ship. It was crazy. I really didn't mind the extra day at sea (even though you couldn't see the sea). I spent a good portion of it relaxing on the decks and reading and writing letters. However, the delay stopped us from making it to Dallas where we were supposed to perform for two schools in the city. And then, when we docked a day late, we were not far enough into our trip back north to make it to Kansas City to sing as was planned. So, essentially, due to fog, the only singing that the MMC choir did on the spring break choir tour was a short performance by the smoothies for the talent show, a very rough rehearsal Friday morning while waiting for word on the fog, and a poor rendition of a song for our bus driver upon crossing the South Dakota border. I guess we're just saving it all for the Spring Break local choir tour when we'll be truly prepared for it. :)

Ok. anyway. Let's back track because I would love, love, love to go back to Mexico right now. Let me tell you a little about my island excursions. When we stopped in Progresso, a group of us (Briana, Gina, Steph, Jordan, Becca, Dr. Vogt, and Bill Stahl) found a local guide who offered to take us to a place of Mayan ruins (the name started with a D and was something complicated I couldn't pronounce but sounded something like "chicken pizza"). It was mind-blowing, a great deal money wise, and totally worth the adventure (even though the bus driver scared us with the crazy "don't worry about stop signs just gun it down the streets" driving style of the area). Once there we actually got to climb on these fortresses. I couldn't believe it. I was standing on amazing structures that were built thousands of years ago. If those had been in America, I have a feeling there's no way we would have been allowed to get near enough to touch them much less climb them and take pictures. One of the temples was actually built so that it's two windows would reflect the summer and winter solstice sun perfectly. I think maybe those Mayan people were smarter way back in the day than we are today!!!!

And then there was Cozumel - land of great shopping (especially if you are in the hunt for quality, authentic jewels). A good majority of us girls took advantage of the Caribbean jewel business and bought real pearls for a bargain price of only $1.50 an inch!!! But, the most exciting part of the whole trip had to be my shore excursion on this island. Briana, Jordan, Becca, Bill, Dr. Vogt and myself joined a few random others and ventured out for a three reef snorkeling adventure. After an initial panic in the first reef of not knowing what the heck I was supposed to do and fearing that my ginormous flippers (the word for those things is slipping my mind right now) would weigh me down and drown me, I had a marvelous, heavenly time. I was like a little kid in a candy store once I discovered that the flippers were more of a floatation aid than a drowning doom. Then came the struggle of figuring out that I needed to take slow deep breaths instead of panic breathing. I swallowed a bucket of nasty sea water before I figured that one out...oh but when I did I saw schools of fish and bright colorful fish and coral reef and bright blue water. It was the most wonderful, enlightening, beautiful thing ever! And then in the very last reef, we saw a barricuda, or guide saw a shark down in the reefs and a few of us got stung by tiny jellyfish. Needless to say, we didn't stay for our full alloted time in that reef. As for the jellyfish sting, well, I think it's pretty cool to have the claim that I was stung by a poisonous creature. It just felt like a vaccination of some sort and afterwards, it didn't matter in the midst of my salt-coated, exhausted, but truly content self.

So there ya have it, Mexico in a nut shell....Mexico with so many, countless wonderful stories I have left out and not sufficiently given appropriate status too. It was a spring break for the records!! :D