Bahama Mamas

I've been keeping a mental countdown for this trip since November and daydreaming about soaking up the rays, holding that umbrella drink in my right hand and letting go of every ounce of stress. And then last week was the cream cheese icing on top of the pineapple cake-- it was stressful and enough to make me go crazy.  So the day dreaming of the Bahamas got out of control and the mental countdown turned to counting the hours--minutes even.

 3:00 on Friday rolled around and we threw our hands in the air and waved goodbye to cloudy, rainy North Carolina to head to the Sunshine State.

I'm pretty sure we covered every, single song on our ipods. We are amazing singers and we'll be happy to perform at any of your upcoming events. On top of that, we all love SheDaisy-- the sign of true country music lovers-- therefore, I was a happy girl.

We counted the South of the Border signs and laughed at advertisements like "Cafe Risque". We stopped a few times and clung tight to the car in front of us carrying two more of our boat mates. I also discovered my new favorite song. You can listen it here.

 OLE!
With about 2 hours left in our journey, we stopped to get gas and hopped out of the car, turned up the stereo and danced to this song. It was a spontaneous dance party at the BP and I am pretty sure they didn't know how to handle us. Or our sprinkler dance moves.

The trip was long, but fun and when we arrived a little before 2a.m. the morning of our cruise, the full-moon greeted us to Florida.

 

And that was it! The whole trip..... 

Just kidding. We slept little that night and woke up early the next morning to shower and get ready to get on the ship. Every day we just laid in the sun-- even if thought it wasn't sunny very much. The winds were strong. And the boat rocked the majority of the time, making  it impossible for the ship to dock for two days so we ended up having more "Fun Days at Sea", which was fine with us because that meant more sun and more sleep.

As we left Florida, the sun decided to show off a bit. I am a sucker for sunsets and moons-- if you didn't already know this from previous posts.

The big Carolina-Duke basketball game was supposed to begin at 7p.m. on Saturday and we had asked multiple people if it would be playing on one of the televisions on the ship. That wasn't the case. So all the Carolina students and the one Duke student on board all chipped in a couple bucks to watch the game "live" online. It wasn't a clear reception and at one point we were watching some animation of the game where each player was a triangle, which was hilarious. We were thankful that we were able to see that Carolina beat Duke hands down--without too much of a fight.

On Monday, we went snorkeling on a catamaran. It was cloudy and pretty chilly, but we made the best of it and we got to see a little bit of Atlantis and Nassau.

Snorkeling was a bit scary for me because I don't usually like swimming in the ocean. The fish were so beautiful though! Just watch out for those jelly fish that we were swimming through!

 We had a lot of fun this day probably more than we should have!

 Continuing with the singing theme, we went to karaoke where I got on stage to sing "I wanna Dance with Somebody" and "Honey, I'm Home". I got a Carnival Artist lanyard. Try not to be so jealous-- you can borrow it sometime.

The cruise was just what I needed. I needed a break from regular life to clear my head and put things into perspective. Before boarding the ship, I was tense and still stressed from earlier in the year. I needed to get out of Chapel Hill. I think that if I had not gone on this trip, I would have not spent the remainder of my senior year exactly how I want to-- happy and free-spirited.

It made me happy to get to know everyone of these people better-- they are pretty special and I'm really lucky to know them.

Our first beach outing was kind of a disaster-- high winds, cold--- but we stopped to take a picture beside the icy, blue water.

My head is clearer. My skin a bit burnt and kissed by the sun. I am back in Chapel Hill ready for the next 70 days that will end in graduation (and hopefully me being hired somewhere).

 Gracie was hired by a school in Memphis while we were on the boat and Sally found out that she got into graduate school at Carolina. Pretty impressive, gals!

Stepping off the boat was a bit bittersweet. The cruise was really an amazing time, but I was ready to get back and conquer these next few months. I needed that breather. I needed that time to be disconnected from text messaging and e-mails to make me miss people and miss my life. I did miss it, but I needed to get away from it to miss it. Does that make sense?

Spring Break 2012-- you were good to me! Bahamas, you'll be seeing me again.

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I got home last night and started thinking about a new page.  UNC Dance Marathon is over. Spring Break is now over. Now it's classes and job hunting and celebrating senior year from here on out. I thought about how I was going to turn that page to make a slight change. I decided that the most healthy "change" I could think of was to rearrange my room!

So today I cleaned and rearranged and did laundry till the cows came home. It was relaxing and changing up the feng shai is always something I love to do. 

 I started a new "inspiration wall" because my old one covering my door is getting too crowded.

 Love hanging up every piece of mail, inspiring quote, pictures, etc. to remind me everyday of love, compassion and the people who are important in my life.

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 Until another time, Bahamas!