Alaska (Reunion # 1)

It has been 6 whole months since stepping off of the ship and being reunited with America. Towards the end of the voyage, a number of us began planning for our reunion which, at the time, felt like years away. It is now June and the reunion had finally arrived. We (the student life team, medical team, and few misc. staff members) spent a fabulous week together in Alaska camping, fishing, and touring.



Adventure # 1: Salmon fly fishing outside of Anchorage


I hooked about 5 but only took in this one.


Jenn, the marine biologist, took on the role of fileting the fish.

After a long day on the river, we took in 12 fish between all of us in the group. Linda prepared a nice glaze and we cooked up the salmon for dinner that night. YUM!


After spending some time in Anchorage, we ventured up to Denali National Park (with a few pit stops on the way).

I don't think the trip would be authentic if we hadn't seen moose. This was a baby who walked away from its mother (who was directly to the right of the sign).

We camped overnight at a campsight in Denali and were faced with a ton of rain and yucky, muddy conditions.


The next day we took an 11 hour bus ride deep into the park for some bear, coyote, fox, sheep, eagle, and other creature sightings.





It all ended with a great pizza dinner in town. It was so nice to be reunited wth the group again!


Seward was my favorite part of the trip. It was a cute little fishing town and it was just so beautiful.


We spent a day on Marv's fishing boat fishing for halibut and rockfish. This is the one that I cought.



Because of the storms and rough weather, we made the fishing trip a 1/2 day event so our catch of the day was rather small. We ended up with 5 rockfish and 1 halibut, cought by ME!


Back at Diane and Marv's we played a number of friendly games of pingpong in the boat garage.



On the last day in seward, Jenn and I broke off to do some exploring on our own and some geocaching around town. We had a delicious lunch back at Diane and Marv's and then said our goodbyes to the group. We then hopped on the Alaska express for a 4 hour train ride back to Anchorage to catch our plane. What a wonderful trip!

With Anna spearheading the arrangements, our next reunion will be VEGAS in December!!!

Miami,USA

After 3 1/2 months of calling the MV Explorer home I am finally back on land in the USA. I spent the weekend in Miami, which was a nice capstone to the voyage.

Here is the view of the parents and loved ones awaiting our arrival as we pulled into the Miami port at 8:00AM. It was heart warming to see their excitement to welcome us back home.

I just couldn't go to Miami and not take a photo in front of the MIAMI INK shop!

What would any port be without seeing students????

HOME SWEET HOME...

Ambassador's Ball

I had the pleasure of serving as the advisor to the planning committee for the Ambassador's Ball and what a great experience it was! The committee consisted of about 14 members who all worked tirelessly planning every last detail of the event.

Selling Tickets in Tymitz Square a few weeks before the ball.

Cutting and sorting the tickets/wine vouchers two days before the ball.

Working on Decorations the day before the Ball in the Student Union. The committee was most excited about the balloon drop that we planned.

The final product in the Student Union.

The final set up in the formal dining room.

Here are only 2 of the 6 AMAZING chocolate sculptures made by Chef Danny.

After over 3 months of planning the Ambassador's Ball; Sunsets Around the World it had finally arrived. The two days prior to the event were the most hectic because we spent our time decorating, problem solving, and finalizing the seating for the few adjustments that had to happen. Then on the DAY OF I found out that I had to give the toast at BOTH dinners!!

I had a GREAT time with some of my favorite students and fellow staff members on the voyage! The bottem photo is me with Sasha the one of the captains I worked with a lot throughout the planning of the ball. I wish I could post all of my photos but that is virtually impossible.

Now that the Ambassador's ball is over, that only leaves a few things left for me to do before my voyage of a lifetime concludes. I must finish typing up my end of the voyage report, pack, and mentally prepare for my homecoming..all in about 3 days. From start to finish, I can't even begin to describe what an AMAZING experience this has been for me. 14 countires, 4 continents, over 2,700 photos, countless new friends, and memories of a lifetime.

Thanks to everyone who supported me through this experience and thanks for all of the emails over the last 3 1/2 months. Since I never figured out how to enable "comments" on my blog, you can email me at michonip@hotmail.com. Keep in touch!!

SOS Auction & Faculty/Staff Appreciation

The Students of Service Committee puts on their big event- the “SOS Auction” each voyage to raise money for a variety of charities around the world as voted on by the student body. The auction is held on one day and consists of two parts-a silent auction and a live auction. On this voyage it was held in between our Croatia and Spain ports.

All of the items auctioned off were donated and include things like gifts and souvenirs form the various countries that we visited or trips to vacation homes that staff/faculty own or that belong to the parents of the students aboard. Some are donated by the ship such as raising the flag, making the daily announcements for a day, manually steering the ship, cooking lessons with the head chef, a massage at the spa, choosing the dining menu for a day, blowing the horn upon our arrival in Miami, and many more.

One of my staffmates even donated her hair. Someone actually bid $150.00 US to shave her head bald.

As a student life staff, we all went in on one item-a week vacation in Alaska at Doctor Linda’s house and ice fishing. Well, we won! So, ten of us are going to pick our date for the upcoming summer and enjoy a reunion trip to Alaska. I am REALLY excited about that!

All in all, the auction raised approx. $29,200 US dollars! What a success!

My Goodwill committee planned a really nice Faculty/Staff appreciation Day right before our arrival in Spain. They came together and made posters for each department and personalized cards signed by the students for each and every staff and faculty member on board. They then presented a funny top 10 list to us before our Spain logistical preport. They did a great job and really made a number of faculty and staff feel great, including me!

Spain

Of all of the countires on our itinerary, Spain was actually the one that I was least excited about. This was partly because I had been there two times before-once in 1994 & once in 1999. Fortunately I had only been to the Northern part of the country and we docked in the south so it was a very different area. Over our 5 days there I spent some time in Cadiz (the port city) and I also travelled to three other cities-Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granada.

Cadiz was not the most exciting port city in the world but it was safe and clean and there were lots of cute little allys with shopping and cafes.

Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granada were all filled with old cobblestone streets, catholic cathedrals, and palaces. It was all very beautiful but it all really started looking the same by the end.

Meagan, Holly, Sheena, and I went to a traditional Flamenco show in Cordoba.

Lunch in Granada after we broke away from the larger group and spent the day walking around and checking out the city.

This photo is for you dad. Sorry, but I couldn't bring one home for you this time...

On our night in Granada, I went with Meagan, Holly, and Kathy to an Irish bar and then to a Tapas bar that was recommended to us by our bartender. Our walk there was quite the adventure and we did not need to re-live it so we planned to call a cab for our ride back to the hotel. We walked to the closest convenient store to ask the attendant to call one for us and I just had to buy a few bags of my favorite chip ever, Boca Bits. In fact, Boca Bits were what I looked forward to the most in Spain. If you have never tried them, you should because you are missing out.

As we leave Spain and sail toward Miami, I just cant believe this experience is coming to an end. It all went so fast and I still have a lot of processing left to do. I feel so lucky to have been given this opportunity to do what I love and get paid to do it (disclaimer: I actually did work throughout all of this travelling but that stuff wouldn't have made for a good blog so I focused on sharing the fun, non-work aspect of the experience). I have plenty of stories to share about the work side of the voyage and I'd love to share them when get home, so just ask!

Anyway, the last thing to look forward to besides for the ship's arrival in Miami is the Amabssador's Ball. This is the huge end-of-voyage formal dinner and dance that I have been planning/advising for almost 3 months with a committee of students. I am so proud of my committee and I know that it will be a hugely successful event. Most likely that will be my final blog entry...