Endless Summer Tiny World

So Chelsy left yesterday 🙁 I was not ready for her to leave already and I can’t wait for her to come back! I got moved to a new bar though, I actually took over chelsys schedule! I am now working at ocean drive bar which is the bar at the pool deck. I am happy to have more responsibility and to be busier at work. This new schedule means I work from 8 am to noon everyday and the go back to work sometime between 3:30 pm or 5pm and then work until anytime from 7pm to 10 pm depending on the day! So the nice thing is I still get a couple hours every afternoon to go hang out in the sun. I love my other partner at the bar and I’m excited to have some nights off to enjoy the ship, or go out on the islands when were overnight! Last week was basically spent at the beach hanging out with Chelsy whenever possible! My plans for the next 7 weeks are basically to save money and hang out at the beach. Other than that not too much to report!

Wow… Coming back to the ship is always rough… But getting back into the groove seems to be so difficult for me this time around! It probably doesn’t help that Chelsy Is leaving soon and that I hardly see her! But give it another week and I’ll probably be right back in the game! I have found a new workout buddy, Jamie, she is our crew bartender and has been working very hard this contract to get into shape so I think she will be a great influence and I have been trying to workout with her most days. At least that will help to pass the time while Chelsy is gone and It can probabaly help save me some money. There’s not a ton going on early this week, it’s been too windy for the beach. I said goodbye to my friends Amanda and chajwanna this week as they headed off on vacation! And today Jamie and I walked into downtown hilo and did a little window shopping! I’m looking forward to doing the ironman swim tomorrow without the flippers that are too big and give me blisters! Maybe next Monday I’ll try to get to the Internet to add more pictures for you all to enjoy!

My smelly roommate leaves in a week and a half and I can’t wait!! She’s a nice lady but anal about where everything goes!! I am mostly pumped for Chelsy to come back so we can live together again, we were just discussing today about how our old living situation was super comfortable and made our room feel more like home… I’m ready for that again!

Well there was a tsunami warning but luckily no actual huge tsunami!! They saw some waves and Hilo bay got flooded but that was about all! We were not allowed to pull into port at 7 am like usual this morning and instead we spent the morning and early afternoon out at sea a ways from Honolulu. We finally were allowed to head into port at 3 pm, but believe it or not there actually were quite a few guests who were mad about being forced to spend extra time on the ship today! Now we have a huge job of getting all the old passengers off, the new ones on, and all the provisions for this week on by midnight! It’s gonna be a long night but oh well you just gotta go with the flow! So thank you to everyone for all your concerns but things were not as bad as they could have been and I am definitely safe! Off to work and to try to make people happy after going through all the issues on the island!

I did it! I’ve been talking about doing the ironman swim for an entire contract and now I have officially finished the whole thing my first try! The only problem was the flippers I had were too big, made my back hurt and cut into the back of my heel but I still did it! I think next time I’ll do it without the flippers, but this will definitely take place every week! Don’t worry I didn’t do it by myself, it was fish, Jamie, Lange, Val, and Graham and we all take breaks along the way too!! I was told the water was murky today but you could still see coral and fish along the way as well! A lot of time i would get distracted by the fish and forget to swim!! Other than that the day is filled with laying on the beach with friends and working! Yesterday Val and Chelsy and I decided to try out the mehana brewery in Hilo… It was fun but not too much to see! We got to try 6 beers though and the girls bought some tshirts! Fun day but not too much going on! Tomorrow will be a day at the beach again! Gotta get my tan back after losing it during the Minnesota winter!

Just found out that my sister is engaged!! It’s super exciting and I’m so happy for both Ken and September! I just wish I could be there right now to plan the engagement party and the other fun stuff but I will be there to help this summer!! So congrats to you both, I’m so excited for the months to come!!

I got back yesterday and after getting through all the lines to sign on and am finally a little situated. I am in a room with an older phillipino lady, Edna, who seems very nice and leaves in 3 weeks 🙂 and a girl, Jessica, who just started for her first time ever yesterday but she is going to be a bar server. They both seem really nice but Chelsy and I are already plotting how to make it so when she signs back on from vacation she can live with me!! I only have two problems with Edna, first that our bathroom smells like pee and she apparently can’t smell it and doesn’t think it’s bad, while I hate it and am off to get cleaning supplies and air freshners, and the second is that she is on a complete opposite schedule than me! She gets up at 4:30 am to get to work at 5 every morning, and last contract there were days i didn’t get done with work until 3 or 4:30 in the morning!! But we only have to deal with this for 3 weeks so I am sure I can handle it!! Jessica seems like she is gonna be very fun so I’m excited to have her in there, I just have to figure out how to get Chelsy in there. I also have a small room! The rooms are set up in a couple different ways and my way is small:(! But on a good note I got back to the ship to find out I’m bartending! I am working at the front bar portion of mardi GRAS, which is the ships night club. This means late nights but an awesome schedule to get out and see the island! I don’t work today until 7 pm!! And bartending also means nicer paychecks, so I’m hoping this means I will be permanent soon as hopefully at least two permanent positions opened yesterday because people didn’t come back! The first day back was good, they had a crew party last night in gold rush and there was karaoke and luckily I didn’t work last night so it was good to catch up with everyone! But it is definitely a little adjustment to being back to ship life! Today I’m headed out to the beach with Chelsy and Becky, who lives on Maui! Hope everyone is still good at home, I had a great time on vacation and I miss you all already!

So tomorrow is the trip back to the ship…. it is always good and bad. The funny part is everyone asks if you are ready to go back to the ship and that is one of the hardest questions to answer. Yes of course I’m ready to get back to the sun and the beaches and see my friends on ship… but at the same time it is so hard to leave your friends back home again. I am so separated on the ship and I miss my friends back home but I am not one of those homesick people who dwells and can only think of them. I think I do very well and am “fine” without my friends from home. But once I come home and spend any time with them again I remember exactly why each person is my friend, and that makes it not fun to go back to the ship. That and the fact that I am going back to the ship to work for five months. But my bags are packed, my flight leaves Duluth at 7 am and I am basically ready to go besides a couple things I have to pick up and put in the mail! I hope this finds everyone well and I will try very hard to keep you up to date via this blog. I have a feeling the pictures wont be as common as I hope but I will try. As spoiled as I am It makes things hard when pictures won’t upload from my phone!!

So I am hoping this will work well to keep everyone updated on my life. I didn’t send out too many email updates this last contract because I got my new handy dandy iPhone and that meant I hated stopping at the Internet cafe to write updates 🙁 sorry!! But this will hopefully work well so I can blog from my phone and you can all subscribe to get updates! But bare with me while I figure this whole blogging thing out!!So I am in Minneapolis as we speak, finishing up 6 weeks vacation!! The first two weeks were spent in Duluth and then traveling with chris, Bryan and Kristen in Ireland. That trip was amazing!! Here are some of the highlights: a great time in Dublin at the Guinness factory and the Dublin castle, a trip to cork, seeing the city gaol and getting a private tour of the Jameson factory, a trip around the ring of beara ending in a stay at a five star hotel, and a gorgeous view of the cliffs of moher. We then flew to London where we stayed at the generator which is the hostel Bryan used to work at, so you can imagine the fun we had there! I then got to visit phil and Faye outside of Manchester!! All in all it was a great time where I luckily got to spend time with friends new and old!I then got to have some down time while I visited my dad in Illinois!! It was nice to spend time with him and have good food and catch up with the family! I went from my dad’s to napa valley California with my mom and sister, it was a really great trip that included lots of wine tasting, a trip to the beautiful redwoods, a night tour of Alcatraz, indoor skydiving and catching the show wicked!!I went from California to Colorado where I caught up with my girls: Tasia, annie and Theresa and also got to catch up with my buddy Nick! We went snowboarding, dinners and sleepovers just like old times!! From Colorado I went to Las Vegas with Tasia, Kourtney and Bear, where we met up with Greg and Kevin and kevins family and friends. We stayed at the flamingo right in the middle of the strip…. It was an epic trip that included randomly running into the mens rugby coach in the middle of the strip, the international 7s rugby tournament, and way too much champagne at some points.I am going to be in the cities until Thursday and headed back to the ship and warm weather! on Saturday! I am not totally ready but my bank account probably is ready for me to start making money again!