Stream of Unconsciousness...

It's official! I'm 23! I can't complain about getting old, especially since I'm pretty much the youngest crew member on the ship.

Today, I didn't wake up until about 11am. That was my birthday present to myself. We pulled into Curacao at 8am, but I decided that I wasn't going to do anything. The only options I had were to either (1) spend money I don't have, in a place I've already been, or (2) stay inside, eat free ship food, and sleep. Any guesses?

For lunch, I treated myself to a feast....at the Horizon Court Buffet. Yeah, I know. I treat myself well.

It's not uncommon for me to be an uninvited "guest" in Thalita and Camila's room. I'm not exactly uninvited, it's more like an implied invitation. Thatlita (youth staff) and Camila (photographer) were both off-work for the time being, so I showed up in their cabin. Thalita was working on fixing a bowl of Ramen for a snack (the 3-minute, hot water Cup Noodles). She also made myself a cup, telling me that it's my birthday dinner (which, in my opinion, is a WELCOME change from the Horizon Court Buffet). Dessert was a half-eaten package of chocolate that Thalita and Camila felt guilty about finishing off.

Ok, now, for real. That wasn't actually my dinner.

Dinner happened at 11pm in Horizon (which is our custom to do after a long day's work). Camila, Thalita, Nuno (photographer from Portugal) and Jeremy (a musician from the USA! GO USA! Side note: we are 2 of maybe 5 US citizens on the entire ship), and I all sat down in Horizon to have a late-night meal (nothing too glamorous, I don't even remember what I ate).

Nuno and Jeremy didn't know it was my birthday until just then, but then Jeremy jumped up and ran off to get me a piece of cake. He comes back with a triple-layer slab of artery-clogging chocolate mousse cake (which is something the passengers onboard our ship tend to enjoy, along with all the other "healthy" food choices available to us (NOTE TO MOM: I need a super-healthy, detoxifying meal when I get home!).

After "enjoying" my enormous piece of chocolate cake, (Jeremy doesn't know I don't care for chocolate), we all headed to my cabin, for an impromptu birthday celebration. It wasn't much, just Camila, Soraia (a slighty, eccentric, red-haired girl from Boutiques), Nuno, Jeremy, Vlatko, and myself.

Somehow, we got onto the discussion of my last name, and how I got it, but apparently, I was fuzzy on some of the details. Jeremy took it upon himself to poke holes in everything I said, at which point I gave up telling the story.

(Thinking back to that, how the heck did we fit that many people into that tiny cabin?) We just sat around and chatted for a couple hours. Camila asked me if I had called anyone at home today.

"Um, I'm supposed to call my family on my birthday?" I wasn't sure how I felt about me calling home, so my family can wish me a Happy Birthday. It's a little strange, don't you think?

"Then," Jeremy said, "you can find out the REAL story behind your name...since you, yourself don't even know it!"

"But I don't even have a phone card to....." I trailed off as Jeremy shot out of the room. Um. Ok.

He shortly came back with a new phone card that he hadn't even used (one that PCL supplied him with as a "Welcome Aboard" gift.)

Long story short, I [AND everyone else in the room] talked to Jillian and Mom AND I finally got the details of my family name right, along with some other great stuff that I'll have to write in another blog entry...

It's taken me THREE DAYS to finally write this entry. I'm exhausted. Goodnight.

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By the way: I'd like to say Thank You to everyone what wished me a Happy Birthday! I'm sorry that I haven't had a chance to get back to any of you, but I've had more people this year, than any year up until now (and you know I have very limited recreational Internet access).