Absolutely amazing....

Today, all in all was a great day! We had our first morning "off" and really ate it up.

My typical day on the ship consists of (in this order) working out, breakfast, getting ready, going to global studies, work, lunch, meetings, work....etc....

The entire shipboard community (students/faculty/staff/kids/adult passengers etc.) are all required to take a "global studies" course. I don't mind going to class everyday and the readings are interesting - but I don't have to take the exams!!! Yahoo! I have longed to audit a course and finally I get to do so.

Anyway, today was the first (of 4) global studies tests which meant that we (the RD's) didn't have to go to class and the ship was quiet!!! We all slept in until about 8:30 AM, went to breakfast, went swimming at the pool and then went to workout. It was so relaxing and provided some much needed down time. To top it off, the weather was gorgeous. ahhh... so much fun to be in the pool and looking out over the ocean.

The rest of the day was back to normal with meetings but the evening hours were phenomenal. I was up in the fishbowl (forward, deck 7) at the end of the day sorting some papers and went outside to watch the sun set in front of us when I finished.

The water was like glass, I've never seen an ocean as calm as it was last night. It was almost eerily calm. I took a video of it and will try and upload that to the blog, don't know if it will work. After one of the prettiest sunsets we've had I headed down to dinner (on the aft) with Dr. Bob (physician on board) his wife and one of the profs. During the course of dinner we got to see the moon rise and holy cow, It was incredible! The moon popped over the horizon and was full (or nearly full) and fiery orange. Pictures wouldn't turn out, but it lit up a path on the ocean like a subtle sunrise. I've never seen anything like it, absolutely breathtaking. What a day. I look at these things and still can't believe that this is real.

We are two days from Kobe, Japan and I'm getting very excited for our 5 days in Japan! I had a few Japanese language lessons yesterday and am hoping that I can meander well enough.