Happy Sunday!

Happy Sunday Everyone! 

My Quote for this week... 

"Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well to think." 

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

...Coffee on the plains with hand picked flowers from my own back yard! #happymoment

...Coffee on the plains with hand picked flowers from my own back yard! #happymoment

100 things to do in 1000 days

Conversations with myself…

You know those nights…normally late ones when you have to be up early & you’re laying in bed, knowing you should be asleep but thinking of this great life plan you have for yourself, and all the things you’re going to do and this amazing person you are going to become…and then, you eventually fall asleep, wake up and you’re the same person as you went to sleep and either totally forgot about what you were thinking the night before, or pushed it back into your head because you have a “real life” to deal with??? Yeah-I know , me too!

I’ve made many failed attempts at “making a change”. Sometimes I can’t even get up the courage to start the change. And then I was watching “The Conversation” on lifetime…I know, it’s lifetime-but I promise, it’s a great show! It’s a talk show that interviews successful women from all around the world about real life issues. When answering a question about her success, one interviewee responded saying “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew what kind of woman I wanted to be, I just took it from there”

This, along with my late night self conversations got me thinking about human natures way of always thinking you have to do something huge to make a change in yourself or your surroundings, and then being intimidated by that idea and in turn doing nothing at all. After this thought, I had a thought about doing an experiment and documenting it on my blog to stay accountable…

The experiment is to make a list of 100 things to do in 1000 days. Please join me J

This can include tiny things like “Watch The Gladiator” ß(that’s on my list) or bigger goals like “Start my own business” ßalso on my list ;) The list does not have to be descriptive, but just enough so that you know what you are talking about. When documenting your progress (which I am going to do on my blog, but you can do this privately) be specific of what you wanted to accomplish when you set out this goal, and what you ended up accomplishing…or you can simply just cross it off the list as done! Whatever you prefer.

So here goes… not necessarily in this order…but in the timeframe. My list is in progress…

1.     Complete my list of 100 things

2.     Inspire someone else to write 100 things in 1000 days

3.     Make a piece of my own furniture

4.     Learn how to kite board

5.     Send 50 handwritten notes

6.     Buy a new racing bike

7.     Complete 5 triathlons (Including the conchman in Freeport)

8.     Compete in Marathon Bahamas

9.     Paint a mural

10.  Sell my artwork

11.  Start my own business

12.  Clean out my closet of all the things I haven’t worn in the past year

13.  Create my ‘new look’ and redefine my wardrobe

14.  Finish my thesis

15.  Graduate with my Ph.D

16.  Publish my first article

17.  Do research for the Ministry of Tourism

18.  Watch The Gladiator

19.  Read “Roots”

20.  Watch “Roots” (After you read it)

21.  Buy my parents a new TV

22.  See a Broadway show

23.  Visit all the Family Islands of The Bahamas

24.  Visit Cuba

25.  Learn Spanish

26.  Find good shampoo & conditioner

27.  Trim my hair at least every 3 months

28.  Find my favorite wine

29.  Compete in a salsa dancing competition

30.  Subscribe to Oprah (since I always buy it at full price anyway)

31.  Create a pin board

32.  Buy a meditation chair

33.  Meditate every day for one month

34.  Make homemade croissants

35.  Make homemade patties

36.  Make lemon meringue pie (successfully)

37.  Buy a nice camera

38.  Frame all of my artwork

39.  Grow my toenails

40.  Visit Katie in LA

41.  Paint a picture for Lionel

42.  Be a vegetarian for one month

43.  Eat less meat

44.  Be technology free for one week

45.  Help someone cross the road

46.  Organize Swim to Empower

47.  Run a volunteer tourism Swim to Empower camp in 2 family islands

48.  Organize swimming lessons for minorities in Auburn

49. Complete a swim safety clinic in Long Island

50. Do a Clinic with young Bahamian swimmers (doing one this summer! :) 

51. Make Yoga a part of your daily life! 

Let it be...

You know those times in life when you just feel sort of 'mellow'... well that is me right now. I've been on the go , pretty much since August when I started the second year of my masters in the fall and i really haven't had a chance to stop yet. from pan ams to the world and back...and the off to the world again, france, montreal, home...auburn, and in between trying to finish what seems to be a never ending thesis.
Anyways, my point is that every weekend i've had in Auburn I always hope that i'll find some inspiration to do all the things that i've been wanting to do when i was away...painting, scrapbooking, blogging, spring cleaning etc...but every weekend comes around and all i want to do is sit around, watch tv, chill with friends and eat good food lol.

So i've decided, to take my own advice and just let it be...and in the mean time, make a list of things you want to do so that when you do find inspiration, you can start chipping away at your list...

because life is not a speed race, but a process...slow and steady wins the race right?  

The Happiness Hypothesis

I’m reading a book right now called the Happiness Hypothesis and below is an excerpt I came across the other day that made me think…

“Happiness comes from between. Happiness is not something that you can find, acquire or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your personality. Other conditions require relationships to things beyond you: Just as plants need sun, water and good soil to thrive, people need love, work and a connection to something larger. It is worth striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself. If you get these relationships right, a sense of meaning and purpose will emerge.”

http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/

Lately, I’ve been working a lot on trying to put things into perspective in my life, on trying to see the ‘silver lining’ in things and just “LET IT BE”. For the most part-it’s working, and I have been able to feel my spirit become more relaxed in situations where I would normally become tense. I feel good about that.

However, one thing I’ve been battling a lot with is the concept of taking this life journey alone. Recently, I’ve had more than one person say to me that if I loved myself enough-losing important people in my life would make no difference to the level of my happiness, because at the end of the day-I’m the only one who can truly determine whether or not I’m happy, or how happy I am. Frankly, I’m just not sure I agree with that. While I agree that self love is extremely important and necessary, I think we are built to have relationships with others, short, long and everlasting. I think we are meant to lean on people during difficult times, and are to be leaned on in the same respect by others. I have always tried to be the person to never shut a door on someone who needs my ear to listen, no matter who or what it is. And I’m a strong believer in the power of human interactions being central to our life on this earth. I mean, how fun would it be to laugh alone, cry alone, dance alone, celebrate alone, sing alone (well that is kinda fun)-but you get my point.

I’ve even been told that I care too much! Is that even possible? I didn’t know it was. But I guess we are meant to love and lose, and love again and keep loving, because to me that’s what makes my world. It isn’t loving myself, but being able to share my love with others that brings me the most happiness.

Just a thought… Comments welcome ;) 

the Freakin NEVER ENDING TO DO LIST!

QUESTION to my faithful blog followers... or rather just anyone & everyone who happens to read this post.

What are some USEFUL strategies you use when you are feeling extremely overwhelmed with your "TO DO" list for life??

I sometimes have a lot of trouble with this and end up over reacting or breaking down when I could have prevented it!

Comments welcomed and very much appreciated :)

So much bigger than the gold

I’ve battled with the idea of talking about my swimming career on this blog for a long time now, thinking of the pros and cons of sharing; for myself, and for others. To tackle this fear, I’ve done a lot of thinking, reading, talking and most importantly listening to those in my life whom I look up to, and to those who have accomplished things I hope to accomplish one day (in the water & out). By doing this, I’ve noticed one reoccurring theme-we ALL struggle.

This is something that has helped me a lot lately- realizing, understanding and absorbing the struggles of everyday life-because that’s all it is-LIFE. Have you ever heard the saying “don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill?” Well that was me, pretty much all the time, about everything! Yes, I’ll admit it, I was that person who made everything a ‘thing’. I didn’t realize it when I did it, (no one ever does), but I was much more negatively minded that positively. Don’t get me wrong…this blog post is not going to be about how to make all your thoughts positive (because I am still of the belief that that is humanely impossible~but I’ve been proven wrong before), but rather about ‘absorbing’ the struggles and not reacting to them.

One thing I want to note is that struggle is a form of being that we should all start to become more comfortable with. I know this may be hard to come to grips with, because every inch of our man made environment tries to convince us otherwise (diet pills, plastic surgery, the ‘shake’ weight, “How to lose weight without exercising or eating healthier” (I’m pretty sure that someone is going write a book with that title soon) but that is not life-that is commercial TV advertising, and it stops there. Life is a struggle, day in and day out, it’s not easy and it never becomes ‘just right’. This is what I’ve had to learn through my swimming.

I’ve had numerous moments when I wanted to quit swimming (I know-shocking right? LOL), luckily for me, I’ve never allowed myself to get to that point because there was always something inside, holding me back, something telling me that I wasn’t finished just yet. I kept on. I wanted to quit again. I kept going. And again-and I kept going. And so here I am today, still going.

It took me a while, but finally after all the thinking, reading, talking & listening, I figured out what that ‘thing’ was. And guess what-It’s all of YOU.

It was said to me once that

“If you’re mission is bigger than the ‘gold’, you can’t not get the gold. The ‘gold’ is ON the way, not IN the way.”

Let me explain…

I spent years swimming every single race thinking about myself, and only myself. I would think about a specific goal time or place that I wanted to hit, or a person that I wanted to please. I thought that if I didn’t keep these things at the forefront of my mind, that I would fail. Funnily enough, I always swam my fastest when I didn’t think about these things (so I’m not quite sure why it’s taken me so long to get here-but hey, I’m just thankful). After ‘failing’ at so many races, I started to question my swimming, why I was doing it, and why I wasn’t getting any faster (this was me reacting to my struggle, rather than absorbing it). I knew it wasn’t physical, because it wasn’t showing up in practice-but only in a race. I thought about these things so much that I lost sight of the real joys of the sport and how much I had already gained from doing it. Then it hit me… that extremely hot day in Madagascar when I went for a dip in the ocean (refer to blog post “A little piece of heaven” if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

Long story short, I realized that my love for swimming was not for fast times or gold medals, but for the amount of people I could reach in a positive way through the skills I’ve gained from the sport. I then thought about all the ‘material’ joys I had experienced throughout my swimming career, and what it was that brought me so much happiness from these achievements-and it all came down to YOU.

YOU-the child who learned how to swim under my watch

YOU-the children who will go to the Olympics and win medals for The Bahamas

YOU-the multiple Bahamian children who have attended and will attend University on a swimming scholarship

YOU-The Bahamian public who now semi-follow swimming

YOU-the child that has and will break all of my swimming records

You see, it isn’t about me at all, but about the small difference I may make in the youth of my beloved Bahamaland and the world.

It is about absorbing the struggle, to reach a place that will touch not only myself, but others as well. And believe it or not, that tiny, minute difference it SO MUCH BIGGER THAN THE GOLD.

How are you?? Really...

HOW ARE YOU?

How are you? This is a question asked millions of times a day, all over the world in countless different languages and forms and a lot of the time, it doesn’t even receive an answer. Have you ever seen someone you know, but not well enough to stop and have a conversation and had a conversation that went something like this:

You: Hey!

Them: Hi! How are you?

You: I’m good, how are you?

Them: they smile…and kind of nod, and keep walking past

Yeah, don’t lie, you know that happens to you at least once a day! (just pay attention tomorrow if you still don’t agree) Well I thought of this saying today, and for some reason, it really struck a cord. We rush through this life, day in and day out, year in and year out for some of us, never stopping to really think about this question-How are YOU doing? Forget about the rest of the world-but in order to give your best to those around you, you must first understand how you are doing, and unless you get to that point, I don’t think you can really begin to truly care how others are doing. I sometimes find myself so wrapped up in what I am going through, that I can’t even begin to empathize with what others may be dealing with-even those that I see everyday.

However, I’ve also noticed that when I do take the time to really ask and try to understand how someone else is doing, it often helps me put how I am doing into perspective-and more often than not, I realize that I’m overreacting, or I at least realize that I’m not the only one.  

Rule # ONE: You’re NEVER the only one.

Not sure where this is going…but for those who may be reading, and for the even braver ones who have decided to start their journal-I want you to take a moment, and write down how you are doing. This doesn’t have to be in the form of an eloquent story or even longer than one line, just write-whatever you are feeling at the moment or have been for the past few days write it down!

Here’s mine:

How are you Alana?

I am fine. No I’m not, I’m sad sometimes, and happy at others. I am thankful. I am strong. I am resilient. I am emotional. I am crying. I am laughing. I’m swimming, I’m thinking. I’m doubting, I’m believing. I’m scared, I’m lonely. I’m loved. I love. I want to be loved. I am loving myself. I’m watching. I’m observing. I’m reading. I’m trying to understand. I understand, I don’t understand. I will get there. How are you? I am insecure. I am beautiful. I am caring. I am selfish. I am kind. I am thoughtful. I am true. I am bold. I am ME.

That felt good! Try it… it’s kind of empowering. The thing is…if you don’t even know how you are, how can you care how I am, or how anybody else is? And it’s so stupid because everyone walks around saying “I’m good, how are you?” when most of the time, they are NOT good, and they are NOT listening to how you are.

So this is my challenge to you, try to start your week with doing the exercise above, and then try to spend your week really listening to how others are doing. Reach out to a friend who you know is struggling and ask how they are doing-really doing. Share a few moments…and you’ll probably both realize that you’re both having a little bit of a stressful day, or week-and chances are, you’ll feel a little better, just knowing that you’re not the only one. 

“I do not write to be understood, I write to understand”

Why I love scrapbooking & think EVERYONE should do it! 

Yes…I’m that girl. I’ve kept a running log of my life pretty much since I could read & write. And yes, I’m that girl-I’ve kept ALL of my old journals, scrap books and many notes, cards and letters that have been given to me along the way.

Oh and when I say scrap books-I don’t mean a pretty book with pictures and cute comments next to them, I mean a book with all of your ‘scraps’-the leftovers from your mind that you just had to get out there: that’s what I mean by SCRAP Book.

But getting back to the point, why I love scrapbooks and why I think EVERYONE should keep one. Over the past few days I have been reading back through the ones I have here with me in Auburn, dating back to about 2004-Isn’t it weird that that is almost ten years ago now! I still think of the 1999 as a ‘few’ years ago! And I know I’m not the only one!

Like I said in one of my previous blog posts “feeling like you’ve grown is one thing…but knowing the things you’ve conquered is another”-well, that’s my point. Reading through my old books was not only extremely entertaining, but very encouraging as well. As humans I think we have the tendency to always focus on the negative in things and take the always/never stance that is so easy to use (this was once pointed out to me by a very good friend of mine). But it’s true…how many of you can imagine yourself saying these things…

"I’m NEVER going to get this done!"

"Why does this ALWAYS happen to ME!?"

I’m sure some of you are nodding, if not, then I’m okay with being the crazy one. That being said, I too am guilty of these sorts of responses to adversity, taking the always/never stance just seems easy-and in all honesty, it’s a easy for you to feel better about feeling bad. Isn’t that weird? We feel sad, depressed, heart-broken, upset, pissed off and instead of trying to make ourselves feel better, we actually do the opposite and make ourselves feel worse with these thoughts & sayings. How many of you have watched a love story the week after you and your significant other broke up? Or listened to the song that makes you sad over & over & over again..until you feel like it was written for you LOL

I mean, that’s kind of ridiculous, if you think about it-or better yet, if you keep some sort of written record, and read back on it. I’m not going to bore you, or rather embarrass myself with the details of my life records, but I’m just telling you that you will be amazed at what you’ve overcome and even more amazed at how you’ve probably conquered something similar to what you may be struggling with right now, but just in a different form, or with a different person or experience. I read a quote I stuck in my art journal back in 2005 that reads;

“I do not write to be understood, I write to understand”

That is exactly what I’m talking about-and one of the reasons this blog is becoming quite therapeutic for me. It doesn’t have to be about anyone else but YOU, yes-you have permission to be selfish!

You may be thinking “but I hate journaling, I’ve tried it before”. I used to have trouble keeping journals because I always hated JUST writing. I hated those little books with lined pages, I felt they were restricting my thoughts. What if I didn’t want to write on line, what if I wanted to write in a circle?  I remember when I was younger I would get a journal for Christmas and tell myself I was going to write in it everyday! Well-that’s simply impossible, at least for me. After I gave up that idea, I tried to write every so often, but I just wasn’t that inspired UNTIL I discovered the blank paged book! This was perfect for me! I could write, but I could also draw, paint, stick magazine words, stories or quotes in there. I had space for pictures if I wanted, old cards, letters & emails. You don’t understand how excited this stuff makes me. It became my ‘everything’ book. So now I don’t just have to sit with pen and paper and write I can use markers, and crayons, paint and chalk, colour penils, nail polish, wax-you name it, I’ve done it! The important thing for me was not feeling restricted in the way I wanted to tell my story.

CHALLENGE FOR THE READER

So-this is my challenge for you, if you haven’t done it already. Man or woman, boy or girl, start your first journal…or revamp something you may have started sometime ago. Be creative and I mean CREATIVE, don’t give yourself limits, and don’t try to make it ‘pretty’, just let it be what it is…and the next time your feeling sad, frustrated, happy, overjoyed and simply stressed-open it, maybe with a few magazines, glue and scissors & just see what comes to you (maybe nothing-because that can happen sometimes too) but trust me, at some point, something will come and it will probably do more good than not.

I know you may be thinking-I’m not that creative, this isn’t my thing, but I’m telling YOU, that everyone is creative and everyone certainly has thoughts and questions about life, and even if you only add things to it every once and a while, that will be more than you started with and you’ll be amazed to look back on how much you’ve grown, and how much your world has changed…and if nothing else, I can guarantee it will make you laugh.

Here’s a little peek at a few old pages from my journals, hopefully this will inspire you to start your own record keeping! Enjoy J

Anything goes 

 I told you they were "scrappy" 

 Life Questions...lots of them!

 Fall Forward 

 Thinking Space...

This one is great-a sure reminder of how much I've accomplished during my swimming career, and how many great friends and support I've had along the way! 

 A little painting...hand tracing, doodling...writing 

One of my favorite quotes below: 

Soul Mates?

I always found it funny when I heard the phrase ‘soul mates’, I mean what is that? (If you have the answer, please feel free to comment! Again-this is my opinion, not wrong or right, just mine)

There is no human way possible that one person in the world can provide everything for you to make you feel ‘complete’ (if that’s even possible, which is another discussion all together) It’s like the term ‘best friend’ or ‘bff’ as they now term it on the world wide web. So if you call someone your best friend that means that all your other friends are 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 50^th best, I’m not sure why we try to use this hierarchy to rank those closest to us, it seems a little dumb to me.

Just think about it, for those of you who may be married or in a committed relationship, how many times do you feel like your partner just doesn’t get it, or isn’t what you need at a certain moment in time? It’s not that you don’t love them, or have a perfectly functioning and loving relationship, it’s just that they can’t be your husband/wife, only friend, mother, father, brother, sister and daughter! It’s humanely IMPOSSIBLE. And because they can’t be all these people, they have no way of providing all the facets that make up you as a person.

What I mean is… I feel that our environment (tv shows, reality shows showing the ‘happily ever after’) are drilling it into our heads that we will one day find our ‘everything’, when in reality, NO ONE can be your everything.

I find so much joy from so many different types of people, and people at different stages in their lives. For a while there, I was going along the road of ‘one true soul mate’, when in fact, those types of relationships bring out the worst in me. For example, the other day I went to the movies with two 13 year old girls, it was one of the most satisfying and fun Friday nights I’ve had in a long time! For those few hours, I felt like they were my ‘soul mates’, they shared stories about their school and the ‘drama’ from their lives, while I just listened, laughed and shared the little wisdom I had from my teenager days. It was amazing because I forgot what it was like to be that age, and it was a reminder of how I had grown so much since that time. Without that movie night, I would never have been able to get to that place, to pat myself on the back for accomplishing the things I have since I was 13. I’d like to think that I shared a bit of joy with them as well, a bit of support they may not get everywhere else. You get my drift? All I’m saying is that I’m realizing that I’m the type of person that feeds off others peoples joys & triumphs. And to me-that’s what makes up your SOUL. So…it is going to be my first assignment, to spend the next month involving myself with people & things that I normally wouldn’t, just to see what happens J I have a feeling that its gonna be good-or maybe even GREAT!

Live YOUR Best Life

I have a little extra time to work on ‘me’ right now… I’m not going to post about why I have this extra time, because that’s irrelevant. I think it’s funny when people tell you that you need to “know” yourself before you can ever have a successful relationship with a significant other. I mean, maybe it’s just me-but as long as I’ve known Alana Kathryn Dillette, she is always changing! Yes, I have things about me that remain challenging for me as a person, or things about my personality that stay the same, but I’m forever changing my perception on things, my outlook on life, my fashion sense LOL- I mean, if you think you’re going to one day just wake up and say “Today is the day, I finally KNOW who I am!”, I, personally (and don’t take my opinion too seriously), but I think that’s crazy! I love the fact that life is a continuous journey, forever changing and throwing rocks down your smoothly paved road. Yes, it makes things a little more difficult than planned sometimes, but so much more of a story in the end!

I’ve come to realize that life isn’t just going to one day-all of a sudden, ‘make sense’, in fact, it may never make sense.

This realization has been quite shocking to me, because when I was 13, I would have sworn that 25 was going to be my age of clarity, that I would be married & ‘living happily ever after’ (whatever that means), imagine that! I know you are all thinking of when you were 13 now, and how you used to play M.A.S.H with your friends during class at school to decide what your life would be like (what was it? Mansion, apartment, shack or house LMAO). Or your first ‘love’, and how much it broke your heart when it ended, and then ended again, and again-for however many times it took for you to realize the guy (or girl-let’s not be gender biased here) was an idiot. So now that I finally know this, I’m on a life long mission to embrace these changes and on a continual quest to find a way, everyday to ‘live my best life’ as Oprah (or her writers) would say.

I’m not exactly sure how this is going to work quite yet. I don’t really think there is a method to the madness. But I do plan to share with you some of the things I use to channel my thoughts & energy, whether they’ve failed or not, with the hope that you may also share yours, or just get a laugh from reading. 

Just a little trip down memory lane... 

Quote for the week... well, weeks. This is going to be a tough one

"Nothing is ever good or bad-it's just the way you think about it" 

Back to the grind...

It's been about a month since I left the ship and jumped back into reality. Life has been...well, let's just say it hasn't been a vacation. I got right back into the swing of things upon my arrival with the 2012 Hospitality  Graduate Conference that was in Auburn this year. I presented on a study I did last summer in some Bahamian family islands-not exactly sure how I did that, but I pulled it off and quite well if I do say so myself...

I didn't think I would continue blogging after my internship, but I actually really miss it. In a way it was therapy, whether or not people read it, I never really knew, but writing with the mindset that there was someone out there reading and nodding to your words was enough for me to keep going. On top of that it provides a great release from the hussle & bussle of life and that's more than enough reason to keep going!

The weeks after I got back, it was strange...being on land again, driving my car, having a cell phone. I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it all. Being on the ship allowed me to feel so liberated and learn things about myself that I don't think I would have in any other setting. I would sometimes sit on my couch, or the floor, or wherever and just listen to the silence...I felt like I had grown so much, yet the things and all the people around me were the same. This made it extremely difficult to get back into things with enthusiasm. I tried to think back to my time on the ship and what it was that 'changed' me, or how was it that I felt I had grown so much. Because honestly, feeling like you've grown is one thing... but knowing the things that you've conquered is another. So I pondered and over time I realized that the biggest difference between the Alana from the ship and the Alana before the ship was the attitude that I chose to have.

I remember days when I would roll out of bed into pitch darkness after only a few hours of sleep to go to my first of 3 shifts of work, and somehow...I just chose to be happy, I chose to joke around, to smile, to have fun. Working breakfast at 6:30 a.m. may not have been the most exciting thing...but it was, that day, that morning it was. And let me tell you, it made the world of difference to how much I learned, the friendships I made and the experiences I had for the rest of that day.

Not only did I develop a "choose to be happier" attitude, but I also feel like I was way more open to change...to things being thrown at me and taking them head on. It pretty much happened to me every day I was there. Once you work on a ship, you realize that anything goes and your "job description" doesn't really mean anything.

So after all these realizations and (I must admit) a bit of feeling sorry for myself, I've decided, that I'm going to take control of my life, my attitude and the way I handle situations. "Nothing is ever good or bad, it's just the way you think of it" And if you're reading this blog-I give you permission to hold me accountable to this ;)

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."

Nelson Mandela 'A Long Walk to Freedom' 

Farewell!

I knew this point would come some time…the point where I would get so busy that I’d stop writing for my blog! I’m sorry to my readers (if there are any)…but it was really busy on the ship during our stay in Cape Town & of course during my free time I had to play tourists! So this is my attempt at a catch up post, won’t be so many details…mostly pictures.

Girls night out...plus two guys, in Durban 

The East Crew :) 

Sailing into Cape Town 

I’m now sitting in the Cape Town airport at my new favorite coffee shop-Mug&Bean. Yes, I now drink coffee…can you believe that?? I guess that’s what ship life will do to you. They have this hot chocolate/coconut/capaccino thing here that is amazing!! And I’m having an omelet for dinner after this, can you tell how excited I am? Haha

My adventures aboard The World are now over and well, it was more than amazing…more than words can really even describe. I left the boat today and I was actually sad to go-imagine that, from the girl who cried her eyes out the first week, I am now the girl who cried when I left. I was fine-until Vera, my cabin mate started crying-then I couldn’t help it. We shared so much in our 8X8 room haha…late nights, early mornings, long days, girls nights, dinners out, Christmas…new years. We became such great friends and like sisters on the ship because we were always together-“the intern twins”.

Cape Town was amazing, a very beautiful city with lots of things to do & see. It’s summer time here now so there are loads of tourists and locals around on vacation. The ship was docked at The Victoria Wharf Waterfront which is apparently famous in Cape Town. In between & after work I managed to get a few things in ;)

A ride up to Table Mountain-the views weren’t too bad ;)

On our way up Table Mountain

Just so you can see how high it was...

Camps Bay-one of the most beautiful beaches in the world-so they say

Yes-my all time favorite, the jumping pic

Yeah-this is how it really looked, I think Vera was a little scared 

An encounter with the Cheetahs at a Cheetah conservatory park.

Just saying hi..

Sleeping Cheetah

Yawning Cheetah 

Jumping Cheetah (I know-great descriptions lol)

A visit to the Glen Carlou Winery where we got to have a tour and educational lesson about the vineyards followed by a tasting of all their wines-this was pretty cool.

The Glen Carlou Winery 

In between time, there were shopping malls and amazing restaurants within walking distance from the ship. Vera and I shared a South African Christmas lunch together on the waterfront which was amazing! A few nights of sushi….mmmm J A famous Indian Restaurant-nights out on the town.

Christmas and New Years were great-I thought I would miss my family more (I did miss them-don’t get me wrong) but I found it very hard to get too sad because I was surrounded by somewhat of a new family, and spending Christmas in Cape Town for goodness sake, how can you be sad about that!? I just felt so grateful honestly, I felt grateful to have a family that was worth missing, and worth feeling sad about. I felt grateful for all the new friends I’d made who were going through similar emotions that I was…but instead of being sad, I just embraced them and embraced the new idea of Christmas on the ship. They made it very nice for us…I must say, we even got to sit on Santas lap! We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner in the crew mess & were all given digital photo frames and chocolate for Christmas. On top of that we had a Christmas party in the O’Bar where I ended up dancing with all the South African Musicians haha-I guess I got a little rhythm in me ;) They were an acapella singing group for Durban that came onboard to perform on the night of the Christmas Tree lighting. The night the group performed, crew were allowed to watch from the deck above.

Their voices were beautiful-you know, that African melody that you can find nowhere else in the world. They performed one of my favorites Amazing Grace. It reminds me of my Grandad when I was a little girl. I remember when it played at his funeral and I was sitting there in my velvet dress next to Daddy (most likely)-It was a sad-but happy moment as well because I suddenly had these extremely clear visions of myself as a little girl sitting on his lap and him telling me not to slam the door. He was such a sweet & loving man-so much like my Daddy. And again, even though it made me sad for a moment because he is no longer with us, it makes me happy that I was able to know him-that I had the chance to make these memories with him. To me, it was like a gift from heaven-and that he was watching over me in some way while I was on the ship.  

Santa!

Christmas Eve Dinner...Table Mountain in the background, if you were wondering about the name...now you can see why it's called that 

christmas lunch

Sunbathing seals 

New Years was extremely busy…all F&B Crew worked until about 1:30 a.m… We all stopped service from 11;45-12:00 to have a champagne toast and watch the fire works from the bridge. Again, yes it would have been nice to have a little new years thing-but it was just as fun working on the floor & celebrating with people that I actually know-instead of being in some overcrowded hot club or bar. I much rather be in the comfort of my own home with my own people-which, in this case was the ship.

That’s about it folks…I know this post lacked a little detail, and I pretty much summed up the whole 10 days in Cape Town, but I really hope you enjoyed. I enjoyed writing it…it’s like a form of therapy, and release for my thoughts. So, off I go back to my Auburn loves to figure out my next step in this amazing journey called life. I love you all & thanks for reading!