this past week I had my first real adventure of the summer: I went on a cruise. I heard about it through one of my now roommates (she was just a friend before). she and a few friends wanted to get together a group of 5 girls and 5 guys to go on a 4 day cruise from LA to Ensenada Mexico, and back but she was having trouble finding enough people to go, so, since I wouldn't have another chance to go in the foreseeable future, and since I like Rachel (said roommate) I offered to go... for the good of the group. I really didn't know another soul in the group, but I figured it would be alright because we would get to know

 each other really well once we got started. that was a very true judgement. our journey began with 9 of the 10 of us piling into 2 cars, and driving down to St George Sunday night, where Caitlin's aunt lives and graciously allowed us to stay for the night so we wouldn't have to drive all the way to LA in one go. but the adventures started on the road.
the other car, which was not the one I rode in, at one point ran over some metal, and ended up stripping the rubber off the tire in a few spots. it was bad. and only got worse as we found we only had a "doughnut" to drive on (which you

 can't drive faster than 55mph or for more than, like 50 miles. and this happened in Cedar City, which was not our destination for the night. They decided to send one car on ahead so we would have "fresh" drivers in the morning if the people in the other car didn't want to drive, but we ended up getting to the house by midnight anyways, and we were planning on leaving by 6 the next morning, so that was way little sleep. I used to it though since I've been getting up at 4 every weekday for my job. it was actually really nice to "sleep in" until 5:30... :P

 the next day we drove for about 6 hours, and there really wasn't a lot that happened. we drove through Las Vegas, and we drove through a wall of fog/mist/something. it was crazy because visibility was so low, you could barely see 20 yards in front of the car. but it was fine because we had no collisions, and we arrived safely at the port. the car I was in got there about an hour and half before the other car did because they had to go pick up the last guy who was staying in LA already, so we hung out in a parking lot: eating sandwiches, looking at the boat, looking at the submarine, and basically just trying to fill time.

 we had to loop around the parking lot (out and back in) about every 30 minutes, because it was free for that long and we didn't want to pay any money while we were waiting, but it really wasn't that bad. we only got lost one time (and that was the first time, until we figured out where we were supposed to go.

 when we got on the boat, they were serving lunch, so we all went to the Mongolian Wok buffet to see how the food was. it was pretty good, and there was so much of it, I was definitely a little surprise. although not as much as I am now thinking back on how much food they must have been hauling to feed us all so well for 4 days! unless they loaded and unloaded at Ensenada when we were in port. I really have no idea, but... ya. a LOT of food.
after eating, we did some exploring on the boat, just to familiarize ourselves, although I'm pretty sure there were places that I never got to while

walking around. like the library. I walked past there once on the last day, and realized I'd never seen that place before at all.
that first night at dinner, we found out where our table was, and we got to meet our waiter for the duration of the cruise. he had a list of our names, and tried to get to know our names with our faces. I don't know if he kept the list so he would at least have the names handy, but he was really fast at learning our names! remembered them every other night, even though we kept switching spots at the table to have new views and sit next to different people.

 thinking about the menu for dinner, there were two parts to it: the daily dishes, and the special dishes for that one day only. I don't think I ate a daily dish ever. for the most part, I figured the special dishes were going to be cooler, and they were. I don't remember which night I ate what, and I don't remember every dish, but there was one night when I had alligator fritters. I ate lobster tails one night. I had raw salmon. there was also veal one night, which for the record does NOT taste like cow almost at all. I can't decide between the lobster and the veal, because both were amazing, but all the food was always

 good. I liked the alligator fritters, although it was mostly fried dough, so I'm not counting that I actually have eaten alligator yet. I still want to though. they almost offered escargot, but our waiter said "the chef lets them go in the kitchen and there aren't enough to make dishes, so we don't offer that any more." I thought it was hilarious that the chef would let them go, even on accident. I guess that means they would be fresh at least!

 our first day was in Catalina Island. I remember when I was in 6th grade, we were supposed to go to Catalina, but they decided not to and ruined it for all the future generations of 6th graders. so it was my first time, and Catalina is gorgeous. the perfect weather and...such a touristy town. at least the part we were allowed into. we decided to rent bikes for a couple of hours, and ride around. we felt like such a bicycle gang because there were about 13 of us riding around in a huge group, but it was more funny than anything else. we made a wrong turn the first time we got out of the bike parking lot, so we started going into residential parts, up huge hills. I did the Iron Man in march, which included a LOT of biking, so going up the hills was not as big a deal for me as for everyone else. at least, that's what I'm blaming for my stellar bike performance. going down one of the hills though, I mad the cardinal error of bike riding, and used the front break. I wasn't even going that fast, nor did I stop that suddenly, but the bike still tipped forward. I felt what was going on and jumped forward, so I didn't fall face forward. but the bike still swung around and ended up getting me

 on the knee. I still have a bruise there, but it doesn't hurt any more. we decided we wanted to try and make it to the botanical gardens on the island, so we all pedaled towards them, but the hills go to be too much for most people, so we were walking up them when we came across an awesome zen rock maze. since everyone was tired, and the maze was pretty legit, we all stopped there for a long time and just took random pictures: jumping pictures, carrying pictures, inception pictures. I even did a hand stand at one point and someone got a picture of me doing that. it was a lot of fun, but eventually

 we got bored, and our time was starting to run out, so we took the bikes back. We didn't really want to eat on the Island because there was so much more and freer food on the boat, but nearly everyone got a snack of some kind. for the afternoon, I had brought my swimsuit, but I didn't really want to go swimming: it was still California afterall, and the sea is not very warm there. but I did want to go kyaking since it was so cheap there, I think. and I was feeling "extravagant"since we were on vacation (a more "vacation" than I think I've ever been on before). so Kyle, Alex, Dan and I rented 2 kayaks and went out on the bay. it was pretty cloudy and the

waves were a little high, but we got to see some fish, and when we were in around the boats more, we saw a few seals! there was even one that came up about 20 yards from us with a fish in its mouth. we tried to get closer, but I think we probably scared it away because it dove, and we didn't really see it come back up again, which means it could have swam anywhere. 

 when we got back on the ship that evening, we didn't really know what to do, since the ship was suddenly even more boring than it had been before. I'm pretty sure Michelle was right: it was a booze cruise, so we were constantly offered alcohol and other boring things that Mormons never do, and we all realized makes people really boring, since they don't do anything but get drunk.
but, as the night when on, we found things to do. the night before, a few people had found the "piano bar" which literally had a piano and piano man in it. since the night before we had done kareoke, everyone recognized our group, and got the piano man to sing a duet with my roommate Rachel. she was thrilled because he had a good voice to begin with, and he was pretty attractive. so that's where we spent our second night of our cruise.

  the next day was the even longer day, when we were set free on Ensenada. we had about 4 guys who could speak Spanish with us, so we weren't that worried about being ripped off like other poor souls on the ship. there isn't a lot to do in Ensenada because it's a little bit of a tourist town, and I think a lot a bit of a drinking town (although those two might go hand in hand: tourist towns will have a lot of bars for those who want to get roaring drunk on their vacation)

um, so ya. Ensenada was awesome. the blowhole was way cool, and the fleamarket on the way to it was a lot of fun to walk through. the beach was the best part though because we were there for a few hours and just hung out like early 20-something people should. we had fun running around, and throwing sand at each other, and taking ridiculous pictures, and just enjoying the sun (when it shone. it was really cloudy).

 I would write more, but it's been almost a week, and I've forgotten a lot of detail. plus, it's taken a week already and I just want to publish this thing. the pictures are the coolest part anyways!