I'm On a Boat

[taken from my travel log, dated March 6,2010]

This morning we woke early, said our quick good bye's, grabbed some rye bread and headed out to Helsinki's harbour. There, we bought tickets for an over-night ferry, The Viking Line. The ship was huge; much bigger than any boat I've ever been on, and if I was impressed with the outside, it paled in comparison to it's interior. Each deck had either a bar, restaurant or both and some decks even had grocery stores, lounge areas, or stages with live music. By the time we boarded the gigantic vessel, it was already 8pm and we were ravenous for dinner. After grabbing some cheap eats at a Mexican restaurant, we were headed to the upper deck when we heard some swanky live music coming from the hallway. Upon further inspection, it wound up being a live African band who played a combination of jazz music and African style instruments (my favorite being steel drums). Chelsea and I usually can't help but move to beats, so we started grooving in the back, hopefully hidden from view. Wrong, haha. The lead saxophonist set down his instrument and asked us to dance. Before I knew what was happening, he pulled Chelsea and I onto the floor and started, I guess, swing dancing with us. It was hilarious and Mike couldn't help but laugh at us.

After the dance lessons, Mike, Chelsea and I set ourselves down on some comfy chairs overlooking the ship's effortless attempts to break apart the large chucks of ice in the Baltic Sea. A hour later, we had finished off some sodas, played a few rounds of Monopoly, the card game and enjoyed the piano players valiant attempts to sing Johnny Cash with his Swedish accent. I let Chelsea and Mike know I was tired and wanted some good reading/writing time on the bottom deck where our cabins were located so we parted and they headed in the direction of a dance floor. Below decks, our cabin floor wired and groaned as the bottom of the ship hit and broke apart ice. With the addition of the engine room, I thought to myself that it was funny how soothing the noise was to me. I stayed up for an hour enjoying the peace and passed the time engrossed in a book. Sleep overtook me later, and the day day, I awoke to the sound of the captain letting us know we had a half hour until arriving in Stockholm.