Suuuuper windy day. Apparently pretty common in these parts — windy, humid and hot. Assumed my clocks would all automatically move ahead an hour, but they did not…woke up and it was already noon, and I set about to wander the ship.
Juices and Shakes
Turns out that the juices in the morning are only on the menu through 11 AM (good to know for the next 270 days… :D). I went with a smoothie instead, and I think I came up with a new game to entertain myself.
There isn’t really a menu per se for the fruit smoothies (at least not that I could see), and when they asked what I wanted in it, I told them to just surprise me.
Not entirely sure what’s in it, but it was great….the color (and taste) leads me to believe there was at least strawberry in it, maybe some pineapple as well.
Content Creator Meetup
I use that term semi-lightly, as it was a meetup from the blogger and sharer facebook group (one of MANY groups through the various facebook groups — it’s a little out of hand, I think there’s like 25 different chats going on with various subsets of people).
We chatted about what we’re sharing, how to help each other, etc. I’m still a very reluctant content creator, I’ll likely look to just share things out to people and not look to chase numbers or views, or anything like that.
But it was fun to see some (already) familiar faces and some new ones as well…our new little extended family on the boat for the next 9 months….
PC: https://www.instagram.com/activistfreak/
Might go and try to aggregate all the links that have been shared by all the folks sharing from the cruise, as the Facebook algorithms have been kind of all over the place recently. I started playing with the Facebook API to see what I could go mine real quick, but turns out that while I can create a developer app and key pretty quickly, to get info from anything not basic, I have to actually create a real app and get it verified, etc. Maybe some other type of web scraping, or just manually going through and aggregating all the links :D. Will share in future posts!
Finding Shelter and Squatting
Looking at the weather, it looks like it’s 90 degrees (even at 11PM) with 14 MPH winds in Aruba. It certainly felt like more. This critter even took shelter on our boat (not entirely sure what it even is, but it’s HUGENORMOUS (sorry Nate, it’s waiting for you from the boat).
Joking aside, it’s fascinating where it came from, cause it must’ve caught on somewhere and is hitching a ride. I was trying also emulate this creature cause it was insanely windy (felt more like 25 or 30 MPH winds at one point (ok I might be slightly hyperbolic on that). Ended up going back to one of my spots to hide from the wind (and people).
Set up at the back of the ship, and let the camera do it’s work for about 4 hours hooked up to one of my portable batteries to make sure it didn’t die. The view was incredible as usual, I was sheltered from the wind, and got some data exploration done with my running side project.
I think all in all in the 4 hours I was out there I maybe say a total of 6 people, which was glorious.
Data Project
Was able to get my Garmin data downloaded from each run, but also was able to do some light google and stumbled on a python package that I can use to programmatically download all the data.
Unfortunately it’s in XML format, and I hate dealing with XML. I messed around with a couple different methods to shred the XML but ended up getting it to work, and data pipeline for the data into Google Maps / Google Earth format is almost done.
Hopefully this little side project will have a fun outcome (and if not, oh well, I learned a bunch playing with python, garmin and xml today).
Sunset – Day 2
As I wrapped up my data project (to a good break point), I looked up to realize that the sun was coming down in a gorgeous pink / purple color, and that the moon wasn’t far behind it. God some more fun photos as I had my 200-600mm lens with the 2x telephoto converter with me this time.
Running Update
Last night, I went to run, and was sad to find that Deck 12 was closed due to wind (probably smart…it was insane). I didn’t really have anywhere to go run at that point, so I just ran up and down the 10 flights of stairs (9?) between floors 2 and 12.
Today, I went out before dinner (or I thought I was going early :D). Did a not-so-quick mile, then needed to cool down and get ready for dinner.
On one side of the ship, I was FLYING, cause the wind was literally pushing me, on the other side of the ship though, I was running right into the wind, which felt….unproductive…different experience though, and was kinda fun…maybe there’s something to training with wind resistance :).
You can guess which side was which from the route map.
Food
Didn’t realize my watch was still an hour behind, so thought I made it to dinner really early (for me), but really, I was like 5 minutes before close….MY BAD. I tried to eat quickly and offered to take my food to go, but my staff are amazing and even stayed to catch up and chat for a bit about tomorrow in Aruba.
One of my favorite parts of cruising is getting to meet the staff…contemplating a “meet the crew” spotlight / section of the blog for those crew members that’d be willing to / want to say a few words….tbd…
For dinner, the great staple of French Onion Soup, Fish and Chips, and then Toffee Cheesecake (delish) and Flan (also delish, but it’s no cheesecake).
Puzzles?!?!?!
As I was leaving the dining room, I noticed a room off to the side that was open, and I poked my head in to find that there was a puzzle there! Was tempted to just knock it out, but I’ll wait till there’s people later to I can chat with them to make sure it wasn’t someone’s personal puzzle :D.
Vibe Check
2 parts joy — other than the wind and humidity, pretty relaxing day
2 parts sadness — already had observed some of this interaction in the many various facebook groups, but there’s an air of superiority and entitlement on the ship, someone reported that there were words / vibes sent to families with kids that made them feel unwanted or unwelcomed on the ship. I find this super upsetting, while I get that we paid a lot of money, and people have different expectations of a cruise, we don’t OWN the boat, nor any of the public spaces. I have not seen or encountered ANY kids that were unruly (actually, I have encountered several adults who would probably do with a stint in the brig, rather than any kids doing anything annoying or bad). We just have this incredible experience to go see the world, and instead people feel the need to have it “their way”….yes I recognize the hypocrisy of me saying people should keep their own comments in their pocket, while I’m telling them what to do as well, just my thoughts on this random blog though.
1 part fear — it’s not only super windy, but as we tip left and right with the swells, there’s definitely some creaking going on on the boat — maybe some of it is my old bones, but the stairs at one point were creaking 😀 and there was a banging noise over by the rear that some crew even came over unsolicited to take a look…not actually worried, but made me realize JUST how windy it really was.
Holiday Corner
A day late, but enjoyed seeing the Hanukkah stuff around the ship (along with the Christmas and Kwanzaa stuff as well). Snagged this, and found one of these on my way back to the stateroom.
Matti 
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