Mauritius

Mauritius was a tropical paradise. We only had a measly eight hours to wander around and take in the tiny island. When we pulled up to the port we watched a beautiful sunrise; the island reminded me of the TV show Lost, there were mountains covered with green foliage and beautiful agriculture. Once we got off the ship it was around nine and the day was already warm and sunny.  Since we only had a small amount of time we decided to go to the beach. We took a taxi and arrived at Grand Bay beach, it looked like it was straight from a postcard. The sand was white; the water was aqua blue, and palm trees all around. It was incredible I now know why it is one of the top tourist destinations for Europeans. At the beach we laid out for a little while but the water was so inviting we had to jump in. It was so warm and inviting I think we must have stayed in for hours. My friend Tyler had an underwater camera so we went a little crazy with the pictures. After swimming me and my friend Marisa went tubing around in the water while Allie and Emily went waterskiing. The day was ended far too quickly and we had to head back to the ship and get ready to leave for South Africa. It was the perfect day which ended with a delicious BBQ on the ship; I ate my first cheese burger since home, so worth it!

                Once back on the ship we had two days of class then the SEA OLYMPICS, easily one of my favorite days on the ship. The whole day each different Hall is broken up into “seas” and we compete in crazy events against each other. My hall was the Mediterranean Sea and we came in dead last, although I still think that we should win the Miss Congeniality award.  We definitely had the most team spirit. Allie, Emily, and I cornrowed our hair and painted our faces and wore our fake Heely shoes (which we bought in Shanghai). The best two competitions were the Synchronized swimming competition and the Lip-syncing competition. Since the ocean was too rough for us to use the pool for the Synchronized swimming we moved it to on-land in the Union. The team of faculty and children did their swim to livin’ la vida loco and were hilarious. For the lip-syncing each team picked songs or mashed some up and performed a dance. One team danced to Aladdin and was cross dressers, another did Beyoncé, and our sea danced to the final song in Pitch Perfect. I think ours was the best but I guess I am a little biased.

South Africa in three days!!