Mauritius & Sea Olympics

Oh my god, Mauritius.This place was paradise. The water was the bluest water I have ever seen and so warm. We got off the boat around 9am for the Isle Des Deux Coco SAS trip. There were about 150 tickets for this trip and it was a fight to death. I won't tell you hot I got my ticket, but I did. No, just kidding, I was lucky enough to get it first try by signing up for it with the field office.

Port Louis, where the MV Exploror docked, was on the northwest side of the island so we had to drive all the way to the other side on the southeast, it took 45 minutes. We pull down this road that says "private"and immediately we all start getting excited. Any college kid loves the V.I.P. feeling so everyone was yelling "BALLLLIN!"

We got off the bus and little taxi boats were waiting for us. The boats were glass bottomed so we could see all the coral and sea life as we rode out to our private island, no big deal. The island was really tine and all ours. Lounge chairs, BBQ, a bar, snorkel gear and sun. I get credit for this. The local rum was apple flavored and it didn't taste that bad if you held your noise, drank it fast and covered the taste up with a handful of peanuts. We swam and lounged around for hours until lunch was ready.

Lunch. WOAH. Best meal I have had in a very long time, besides Aunt Susan's Thanksgiving fest. They had endless shrimp skewers and lobster. Pastas, salad, beans, rice, vegetables and fruit galore. At one point I sat down and said to my table, "true or false: this is my 4th plate."True.

After lunch we all swam again. I never wanted to leave the water, it was THE nicest beach I have ever been to, hands down. Sorry Robert Moses, no jellyfish here. At around 4pm it was time to head back…We were all slightly inebriated and hungry! We stopped at the town right by port before getting on the ship. My table ordered every fried food that was listed and kept the drinking trend going.

On ship time was 8pm. We got back around 730 and the line was RIDICULOUS. Even if you are standing on the line to get on, if 8pm hits and you did not physically step foot on the ship and swipe your card, dock time. You have never seen someone finagle a line like I did. Every man for himself, I went from the very end to the front in less than 5 minutes. People thought I really wanted to have small talk with them, false, I am using you solely for your position in line, sorry. You get 2 hours dock time for being 15 minutes late! We keep a tight ship around here. I got on the ship before 8 and it was time to get ready for the SEA OLYMPICS!!

SEA OLYMPICS

This is serious stuff. Rumor has it the winner gets to get off the ship first in Ft. Lauderdale.

So all the students on the boat are divided into "seas."I am in the Yellow Sea and our chant is "YELLOOOO!"How original ha! There are a bunch of competitions such as limbo, mash potato sculpting, hula hoop, tug of war, synchronized swimming, Pictionary, sudoku, Texas hold 'em, flip cup, spelling bee, dodge ball, volley ball, relay races and a few more. After Mauritius we all gathered in the student union in team colors, chanting and displaying our mascots.

The Yellow Sea decided to have "Yellow Fever"as our mascot. You're probably wondering how you make that a mascot, well, we used all the symptoms…We were in a team meeting and someone googled the effects of Yellow Fever. As they were reading them off we just got more and more excited…it went something like this.

Nausea...
Yessss
Nose bleeds…
Ya!
Black vomit…
Woo!
And ultimately death…
YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!

Sold. Next we had to get a chant to rally everyone together, we came up with "No hope! No cure!"We seriously are very sick people. Some others and myself were nominated to make the flag. Why would anyone ever let me do anything remotely artistic? The flag had a brown coffin on it, black text and some yellow tassels. I thought she was beautiful, it looked like toilet water.

The opening ceremonies began with a drum performance; I think it might have outdone the one from Beijing followed the announcement of all the seas. I think everyone basically did the same thing during the day, drink, so we were a ROWDY bunch. It was mass chaos and so fun. Every sea had to get up on the stage and sing their song; yes we had a song also. I didn't know any of the words so just made strange noises in time to the beat, it sufficed. After the ceremonies were over the dean announced they were playing "Slumdog Millionaire"on the T.V. You would have thought we had all won the lottery. The yells of joy that broke out were crazy, such a boat of nerds we are. I got back to my room and passed out within the first 5 minutes.

The day of the games was today, Saturday. I had my first event, the orange pass, at 10am. I was dressed to impress. To do the orange pass you have to hold it between your chin and chest and pass it to the next person without hands. We were terrible and lost.

My next event was the limbo. I was nominated for this strictly on my credentials. Spring Break 2007 limbo champion. When the event time came it was about 20 of us and I was 2 feet above everyone. The other seas put in their smallest girls, its not the height its what they have on the inside.

I am proud to say I am the SEMESTER AT SEA SPRING 2009 LIMBO CHAMPION! Took home the gold for the Yellow Sea. I was an animal out there. I got my head in the game and never took my eyes off the prize. The Yellow Sea was doing terrible overall, so I single handedly got 1 out of the 3 gold medals we won. I know my parents are proud.

The last event was synchronized swimming. This was an excuse for every guy to dress up in girl's bikinis and dance to boy bands. It was quite a sight to see. The best part is the pool is only about 5 feet deep…Essentially, it's synchronized standing and arm flailing. There were a lot of back flips off the side and booty shaking, class acts overall.

At the end of the day the Yellow Sea took home third place.

P.s. We took off class today because it was imperative that we did this. Haha Love life.

India in 4!

Jac

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