Life is good!

I am currently sitting in my cabin watching the Devil Wears Prada after a day full of rocking seas and judicial meetings. It’s amazing how doing anything on Semester at Sea seems wonderful to me. Okay, so the judicial meetings don’t sound like that much fun but it does give me a chance to get to know students I wouldn’t otherwise meet on the ship and we are finally getting into a routine that seems normal. That first week was a killer. All the orientation meetings and only one day of class before we hit Acapulco was a bit much.

Our last day in Acapulco was wonderful. Dawn (the Asst Academic Dean) and her partner, Tim, organized a trip to a beach & lagoon north of Acapulco in Pie de la Cuesta. This place was heaven to me. It was a virtually empty beach with a great restaurant that had a thatched roof overhang and hammocks. I love a good hammock. The waves were enormous and it was totally peaceful there. Had I found this place on Thursday I may not have come back to the ship until the last minute. I’ve decided the next time I see a cheap flight to Acapulco and I can sneak away I will hop on it and take the first mode of transportation to Pie de la Cuesta that I can find.

On our way home we went by the former estate of Diego Rivera where he constructed one of the most amazing mosaic murals I’ve ever seen. There was a lot of historical significance to it, but I’ll have to get that information from our resident art historian on board and get back to you on it. It was stunning though and I’m so glad we decided to swing by.

We had our last meal in Acapulco and headed back to the ship to monitor the gangway during on-ship time. Luckily, we had everyone on board in time and no one received dock time for being late. Dock time is like being grounded. If you’re late to the ship you must return early in the next port by an exponential amount of time. We were quite pleased that everyone made it back. It certainly makes my life easier.

I’m beginning my research on Panama and can’t wait to be there. I love the time on the ship with everyone but I’ve been counting down the days until Nate gets here. Panama may be a difficult port as we’ll be tendering (taking small boats) from the ship while it’s out at anchorage off the coast and that complicates things a bit. It makes running back to the ship for a quick minute difficult. We’ll have to plan our days out well so we can get off the ship and stay like that for a while. A few of us are talking about heading to the Caribbean side for a night or two. We’ll have to see what pans out.