I come back from the fantasy, and now live once more in harsh reality.

Sorry I didn't post this last night. I started writing it, and then got hit with a major case of Jet Lag. So I'm going to bed at 8 and waking up at 6. Man, I haven't done that since I was 7.

So yeah, that's right, I'm back from my cruise, and it's time I spilled all the juicy tidbits. You should feel so lucky.

Generally the cruise went very well. I was quite popular on the ship, had a good hundred people know me by name, including all the "Cruise Director's Staff" AKA the people who would run all the events. I took part in karaoke contests, and learned ballroom dancing, and line dancing, and I had lots of fun. I also got to know all the girls my age on that ship. But more on them later.

I started out in Coopenhagen, where we hung out for 3 days. Not much to see there, besides an abundance of Burger Kings and 7/11s. Oh, and apparently H&M is the largest clothing retailer in the world. I saw one in every country I went to. The Hotel was nice there, and they had free beer. Woot. Oh, and Hans Christian Anderson lived there for many years. For those who don't know, he's famous for writing a lot of famous fairy tales including The Little Mermaid. Apparently writing a few short stories is enough to make you the leading icon of Denmark, as their biggest tourist attraction was in fact a small statue of a little mermaid, in his honor.

It was nice to get on the ship. The ship was huge, had 3,180 passengers, or something like that. The ship had two pools and a ton of attractions, though it had a pathetic Library. It didn't take long for me to know the ship like the back of my hand. I tried to avoid the Elevators best I could cause they were ridiculously slow. That meant running up sometimes 10 flights of stairs, often more than once in a short period of time. I'm sure I've become much more in shape now, than when I left.

Which is amazing, as the food on the boat was delicious and limitless. Needless to say, I ate enough to make the entire cruise worth the money we spent. You could get food at any time on the ship, Though the dining hall was only open at strict times. But most of the times I'd rather eat at the buffet, because the dining hall was all high class weird names and tiny portions. You know when you see on TV someone orders something with a big fancy name, and a huge plate comes, and there's just a weird colorful tiny thing in the center and the plate just looks totally empty and lame. Yup, it was one of those restaurants. Luckily, it was all you can eat, so you could order ten of them, and be good. Also the ice cream cost money all over the ship, except in the dining hall, so sometimes I'd eat lunch in the buffet, then go down to the dining hall, get seated and all that, and just be like "Yes, I'd like a chocolate sundae with extra whipped cream please."

One problem I had with the ship was that there didn't seem like a lot of stuff to do for people between the age of 18 and 21. The ship used US laws when conveniant, so I couldn't drink or gamble, god damn it, and I could hang out in the cool teens zone anymore cause I'm not longer a teen. So as I said I spent most of my time going to every on ship event they had, including every trivia game and comedian.

The places we went to were vaguely interesting but the things we visited there were not. I swear, I saw like 50 churches and palaces over those 10 days, because apparently those are what showcase the culture of the people. Which a complete and utter lie, it showcases the culture of .1 percent of the people. I swear, it's like my parents could careless about the actual country, all they care about is taking pictures of shiny things. It drove me crazy. And they wonder why I don't like touring. The most fun I had was the times where they'd go off and do their thing, and I'd go off with my Uncle George to do other things. If you know me, I might have mentioned my Uncle before but lets just say he's the cool one. When we go out exploring, we do just that, explore. We investigated a fortified castle, we survived the busy streets of Oslo, got caught up in a marching parade through the market district, and walked up to the door of the Canadian embassy. Turns out if you're being chased by local police and in need of sanctuary, you have to take an elevator up the side of an office building to the fourth floor between 8 and 12 in the morning. Go figure.


Most of the palaces and churches I saw were in St Petersburg, Russia. It's terrible to see such a low income city have such opulance and wasted wealth. Just sad.

Of all the places I went to, almost all of them seemed stuck in the past, except for Gdynia and Gdansk, Poland. Turns out Poland has recently joined the European union and is working on readying it's people for a change of currency into Euros. Their economy has been in the dumps for quite a while, especially after getting stepped on during World War 2, but the guide showed us tons of proof of how they've rebuilt, and the government has put a lot of effort into improving Poland and readying it for the future. I was really impressed, and of all the places we visited, Poland was the only one that actually seemed like a first world country. They were the only country that was looking ahead into the future, instead of being stuck in the past. So Kudos to Poland, and no Kudos to Denmark, Russia, Swedan, and Norway. Well I guess Norway wasn't so bad, but I didn't actually take a tour, that was the country where I just explored with my uncle. I'll admit, they had a computer store that sold something called a Clone-a-Willy. Apparently it's a make your own dildo kit. And who wouldn't want one of those? It was 60 bucks with the conversion, if I remember correct.

I gotta give Kudos to some of the fun people I met. First Kudos goes out to Kristen, one of the Cruise Director's Staff. We shared a nice long talk one day when no one showed up to one of the events she was hosting. Turns out working on a cruise ship could be fun, if you don't mind never having a day off. She was fun, and cool, and gave me a bottle of Champeigne for winning a bizzare gun dueling game. She knew I was underage, and whispered in my ear "If anyone asks, just say you're 21." I still have the champeigne too, I'm gonna save it for a special occasion.

My next Kudos goes out to Jennifer, and Mimi, and their family (And their family's friends). They were a part of this huge Asian family (and friends) that decided to go on a big cruise together. I swear I think there was like 30 of them who were all connected to each other in some way or another. They were from California though, so like...yeah. American Asians. Jennifer was 21, and Mimi was 15, but looked older. They all were really nice and accepted me into their group on a number of occasions. In fact, out of everyone I met, Jennifer is the only one who took down my full name so she could add me to Facebook. Everyone else I'll never hear from again probably.

I met another girl named Madison who was pretty, but totally anti-social and seemed to hate me. Can't imagine why, but I met Jennifer through her (We all bumped into each other in the hall one day), so that led to that. No Kudos to Madison, she ended up not being a cool cookie.

My next Kudos goes out to Marlaina. She wasn't Asian, but she came from California with her huge ass family of like...also 30ish people. They had kinda a latino feel to them...well some of them did. I think Her dad divorced someone, and married a white woman, and they both had huge families, and the two families came together to create one big tossed salad of a family. But they were all warm and accepting, and really nice people. Met them through Karaoke,and that's important because Marlaina is the best Singer I ever had the pleasure of talking to. Her voice was just huge, and perfect, and amazing, and she was drop dead gorgeous. I swear, she was like a Broadway star. I almost never saw her, except when she was surrounded by her family, almost as if she never went anywhere by herself. And every time I saw her she had the most amazing looking hair, and dress. Like she always looked like she'd stepped out from a magazine or something. Just absolutely stunning. I don't think she'd leave her room in the morning unless she looked perfect, I'm sure she puts tons of effort into looking that good, so I'd like to emphasize that the hard work more than paid off. My god.

But anyway, she sung All That Jazz, and did a better job than Renee Zelwegger, or whoever sung that song. She was just amazing. Turns out she's going to college for Musical Theatre, and I have no doubt she'll be famous some day. And when she is, I'll look her up and be all like "Remember be...from that cruise that one time." But yeah, her family totally accepted me, and always wanted me to sit with them and stuff (Though I rarely did, cause I was so popular I often had to split my time between people), they were just all so nice and welcoming. And they had this little 6 year old girl who seemed so shy, but seemed to like me or something. She kept giving me these cute little looks, and whispering into peoples ears to ask me if I'd sit with them and stuff, I dunno, it was really funny, I thought she was cute. You know, in a non-creepy way, you damn perverts. But man, Marlaina...wow what a woman. Wish i'd gotten to know her better. But w/e. Her father was really nice, had a lot of nice conversations with him. He was actually the first one who talked to me. But yeah, All in all just a warm accepting family. The kinda family you'd want to surround yourself with. So I don't really blame Marlaina at all.

Um, who else. Oh I met a cute British girl who was 19 on my second to last day. Don't remember her name, but she was really nice, and really cute. Had nice freckles. We played some bascketball together (yup the ship at a basketball court) and did some trivia, but I'll never see her again, and never really got to know her. It's too bad, If I'd met her early in the cruise, we probably could have gotten closer.

So those are just some of the many people I met on the cruise. I had a lot of fun, and even participated in a Dancing with the stars style ball, where I did the swing with an older woman who's husband didn't like dancing. I lived in fear that night, I'll tell you, but it was fun. We didn't win, but it was fun. All in all, I'd love to go on another cruise...just next time I know betetr than to tour with my parents. Total yawn fests.

So anyway, I'll post again tomorrow, to discuss all the things I missed while away, oh and I'll post some pictures at some point I guess. Don't expect much though, I don't play tourist very well. Never really understood the allure of taking pictures of shiny stuff. But I have at least a couple of cool pics, like one of the clone-a-willy poster.