Alaska..first day

As aformentioned, here is the start of our trip. Kate is the author of this, so you are reading her writing. Just easier that way.

Without much ado, here is the first of many trip chronicles.....

THE ALASKA ADVENTURE

September 6, 2008

5:31 a.m. Eastern Time

The year-long anticipation is over! We're on our way to Alaska... Just ate a Clif bar, and the world is a lovelier place :) For the record, 3:10 a.m. is an ungodly hour to wake up. But it's worth it to be well on our way!! Okay, not many coherent sentences in my head, even with 1.5 cups of coffee under my belt. Just wanted to say VACATION HAS OFFICIALLY STARTED!! WOOHOO!!

12:01 p.m. Vancouver Time

After many hours on airplanes, we're finally getting ready to land in Vancouver. Had a rude awakening about how far we're really going. After a 2 hour and 22 minute flight to Houston in a plane scarcely larger than my Honda Fit, I was like, "Ah, now for the vacation part after our brief flight to Vancouver." Looked at the itinerary... "brief" was actually about 4.5 hours. The flight has gone by surprisingly fast, though. Probably a combo of my confused-woke-up-at-3-a.m. brain, the constant goodies/water/drinks from our flight attendant, the considerably roomier plane and... all the cool sights we saw! Flew over Yellowstone NP; Grand Junction, CO; the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Ranier and what's left of Mt. Saint Helens. Can't wait to deplane and head for ze boat!

3:35 p.m. - Vancouver

Things I think I'm going to do a lot of for the next 2 weeks:

* Pee my pants with excitement/awe
* Pick stuff up when old people drop it

Off to dinner!

7:35 p.m. - Northwest of Vancouver @ Sea

I'm so at a loss for words when it comes to describing how incredibly amazed I'm feeling. It's our first time on a cruise ship, and anybody who has cruised understands that sense of awe when you first realize how ridiculously HUGE the ship actually is... how strange it feels to glance out a window (and they're everywhere) and see water flying by. Add that shock to the gorgeous Pacific Northwest.





I'm currently sitting on our balcony (yeah, SO worth the splurge) watching the sun set over the mountains. Like, real mountains, not just overlarge rolling hills like we get in the Midwest. We're talking some craggy peaks. Justin is next to me, reading info about our floating city, a.k.a. the Sapphire Princess.





After finding our room, we headed to our "muster stations," or where we'll assemble if there's a ship emergency. I won't make any jokes about hitting icebergs because um... yeah... too close to home (literally). After our muster exercise wherein we learned to correctly don life jackets, Justin and I hung out on the windy top deck for awhile to witness our departure from port.

I have something to admit, friends. I, like most people my age (which would be about 5 on this boat, Justin and myself included)- did have the urge the urge to reenact a number of Titanic scenes when the top deck breeze ruffled my hair (i.e. gales that blew so strongly they almost blew the straw out of my soda). However, you'll be glad to know that I stifled said urge in the name of dignity (Justin's).

Anyway, it's an incredible day to set sail. 80 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 25 degrees Celsius! I learned how to do that today -- subtract 30, then half that number). Sunny outside and just gorgeous. After watching the port disappear, we wandered around the boat for a bit, discovering cool stuff like the heated pools and jacuzzis outside, the tennis court, a big chess board and shuffleboard.



We eventually made our way back to the room and changed for dinner. Dress code on most nights is apparently "smart casual" ... so I guess I'll be wearing the one skirt every night, as jeans aren't permitted in dining rooms. Oops. Missed that memo. Glad we're not doing the "traditional dining" option where you sit with the same people nightly.

We went to Pacific Moon for dinner tonight. There are four main "anytime dining" restaurants that serve the same menu. The dining rooms do offer one specialty item unique to each place. We got a lobster, crab and scallop appetizer that looked like Fancy Fish Spam. A little weird, but not bad. We also got a spring roll appetizer, which was pretty tasty. Came with an odd sweet and sourish mustard sauce. Justin ordered the "Cajun crockpot with spicy shrimp." Kind of a pot pie filled with shrimp, mussels and crab in a cajun tomato-based sauce. Looked awesome and he said he enjoyed it muchly. I ordered salmon ("lemon scented") that came with carrots, a hunk of zucchini, a boiled potato and what seemed to be a boiled tomato (which was actually SO GOOD). All garnished with a grilled lemon. Very light and tasty. I do love me some fish.

I was feeling pretty good about our eating so far. We haven't been guzzling booze or consuming every non-toxic item in sight... but then I thought about it and laughed at myself. We've been on the boat for less than one day. Four hours in fact. I'm sure things will change.

And they did! The dessert menu came out. Justin got an apple strudel with hazelnuts, raisins and a vanilla sauce. Muy yummage. I got "The Love Boat" - an incredible dark chocolate mousse with bittersweet Swiss chocolate and a little chocolate cruiseline logo. Also awesome were the chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us in our room when we arrived (thank you, Cruise Holidays of West Chester!).



Yeah. We've been eating realllly healthy. Hey, the strawberries count as fruit...

After dinner, we came back up to the room for a bit. I think we're planning on going to a comedy show at 9:30. It's currently 8:06. I'd be perfectly content to go to bed now and sleep until the sun rises in whatever time zone we happen to be sailing through. But we're on VACATION! I won't let the fact that being awake / alert / remotely focused is a monumental task keep me from experiencing every second of this trip. I want to see stars tonight. I want to watch for Northern Lights. I want to enjoy every ounce of this surreal adventure. Maybe I'll splurge on espresso before the show. Off to watch the rest of the sunset!