One day out of San Diego and home

We have had to set our clocks ahead three times this week and are only 3 hours ahead of the east coast now.    Disembarkation ought to be fun.  We have to have our bags outside our cabin at 11 am this morning (April 23) and are the second group to disembark tomorrow morning starting around 10:30 am.  800 people offloaded and through customs in 3 hours? Quite a feat but we'll see.


This past week has been one of winding down, lectures everywhere on returning and how to cope with going back to routines at home, seeing family and friends and talking, or not, about our voyage.  The nicest evening was Thursday evening when we attended the Masquerade Ball and dinner, everyone dressed to the nines, but mostly skimpy nines by the female students.  The meal was delicious, we all sat at two tables next to one another:  Theresa and Paul and us at one table, and Denny, Jim, Joanne, Stan and Katie and a male student at the other table.  We had a champage cocktail in our cabin after the program which started at 5:30 pm where we saw a terrific video by Brittany of our entire trip, and then saw the final version of our rap video which was hilarious.  Annie, Amy and Justin did a great job and they said they are putting it on U-Tube!  Along with the TajMahal Shuffle kid.  Dinner was at 8 pm and a ball followed in the Student Union.


Parties are going on everywhere and tonight at 9 pm, everyone is bringing their leftover booze and snacks to the Glazer Lounge and it will be party time!  The Sea Salts, formerly known as Life Long Learners, have our last meeting at 4:30 pm and we've again invited faculty and staff to join us for pizza and I'm going to present Barbara with a small gift and thank you.  Then we're having dinner with our onboard family.


I always thought that all of this talk of creating a community onboard ship was a little silly but after living for 3-1/2 months with all of the faculty, staff, students, crew and Life Long Learners, that's exactly what has happened.  When you see the same people at breakfast every morning, in classes, lectures, play games with them, travel with them, participate in programs, etc., it's very much a small community, with all of the attendant problems, excitement and diversity.  Everyone asks if I would do the voyage again and my reply always is:  Not right away.  50+ days at sea is long, but I'd love to do the short trips in the near future.  We already have a trip to NZ planned in 2013 for an Altrusa Convention.