Setting Sail (and vomiting in the ocean)

In January, with our college graduations in sight, I decided with my friends Emmie and Dan that a celebration was in order, so we booked a cruise to Mexico. This would be my first time on a cruise and out of the country, so I spent the next five months giddy with excitement, getting a passport, booking flights, practicing my Spanish (‘huevos verdes con jamón’ is always my go-to phrase. It means ‘green eggs and ham’ and is helpful in almost any setting.) and googling the weather for Ensenada. The trip did not disappoint.

 

Ty Burrell insulted me and I was thrilled: As Emmie and I boarded our flight out of Salt Lake, she stopped three rows into the place and hissed to me, “Rachel. Phil Dunphy is on this plane. TY BURRELL IS ON THIS PLANE.” Ty Burrell is the main character, Phil Dunphy, in one of my favorite sitcoms, Modern Family. I looked to the place she was pointing, where a bearded man sat. He was wearing headphones and his face was in a newspaper. Emmie had made eye contact with him, but as soon as he realized she recognized him he suddenly became very engrossed in the banana bread recipe in the Deseret News. There I was, standing inches away from a COMEDIC GENIUS. We waited as another 25 or so people pushed past us until there was a break in the flow, and then I tapped on his shoulder and asked him if he would please take his picture with us. As he started to talk to us, we immediately recognized his deep rumbly voice and I wanted to shake his shoulders and say, “You sound exactly like Ty Burrell! You ARE Ty Burrell.” But instead we just took our picture with him and I told him it was the best day of my life, to which he responded, “You must have a pretty boring life then.” And then we all laughed, and I wanted to say, “You should be a comedian! Oh wait!! Hahahaha!” but really all I could focus on was how excited I was that Ty thought that my life was boring. After the other fliers and the flight attendants were sufficiently angry, we thanked him for the picture and he wished us a good flight. The next two hours to Los Angeles were spent watching Ty from a few rows back and saying things like, “Ty Burrell just adjusted his glasses. I adjust my glasses!” and also trying to convince the woman next to us that we had actually just graduated college instead of the 5^th grade.

We explored Catalina Island: In the morning we zip lined through Catalina Island, and I decided my new career choice is tour guide, because they get to say whatever they want. Our tour guide would go on and on about squirrels roaming around that were the size of bears, only at the end to say “Just kidding! Those actually don’t exist.” Half the group had already stopped listening to the guide and were pushing their faces to the window in order to find the monster the guide had described, while parents were frantically looking in their bags for squirrel spray. We had lunch and then rented beach cruisers to ride around the island. We decided to bike to the botanical gardens at the top of the hills, which I immediately regretted because it WAS on the top of a hill. At the end of our journey was not actually a gorgeous garden, but a boring stone gate that said there were no bikes allowed. Nonetheless, biking was my favorite part of the trip.

I threw up in the Pacific Ocean: Emmie, Dan, and I decided we would go kayaking when we got to Ensenada, Mexico. Emmie and I laughed but were also terrified at the thought of tipping over our tandem kayak or getting it stuck in the middle of nowhere. Dan was paired up with random kid from the cruise, who I tried to congratulate, telling him that Dan was an expert kayaker. The 13 year old just raised an eyebrow and told me, “I kayak all the time.” Apparently he was not impressed that I guided Emmie and me into a patch of kelp. The further and further we kayaked into the ocean, the more entranced I was. The sea looked just like liquid glass, moving our tiny kayak up and down. Emmie said she felt like Pocahontas, and I felt like an Olympian, rowing away with 15 other kayaks through the waves. The further we went into the ocean, the more our kayak swayed. Was the dizziness I was feeling the same rush that an Olympian feels when they’re about to win the gold medal? Was the faintness in my head the same feeling Pocahontas felt when she kayaked just around the riverbend? All of a sudden my head was stretched out of the kayak, and I was losing my lunch. Little did the sea lions that we passed know that instead of swimming through ocean foam, they were actually wading through the croissant I had on the ship. The next 45 minutes of the adventure included me laying on the kayak and Emmie kayaking me ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN. She didn’t even complain or attempt to feed me to the sharks once. Give that girl the Nobel Prize, Oprah.

My monopoly skills came in handy: When my family plays board games, we don’t mess around. A family favorite is Monopoly, which usually takes a good five hours to finish if we’re lucky. I can’t count the amount of hours I have spent relentlessly trying to trade Park Place to the owner of Boardwalk in exchange for the Railroads, St. Charles Place, and a hefty sum of cash. I thought these skills were useless beyond Monopoly. However, after kayaking we found a place to eat some tacos and then looked around at the shops. As I looked into one of the shops, I told the man there I was looking for a bag for my sister. He held up one but I told him that was too much for me to spend, and started to leave. He called after me, lowering the price. I returned to the shop and for the next few minutes I was unsure whether I was trying to secure the pink monopoly or a bag, but I left pleased with my bargaining skills.

I found the most valuable part of the cruise ship: When we were not out exploring the cities, our time was spent on the ship. I lost to Dan playing shuffle board and then lost to both of them playing mini golf, but I still felt like a real winner because there was an ice cream machine on the cruise and no adults to tell me I shouldn’t go back for my 97^th serving.

It is suspected that President Obama tried to welcome me back: On Thursday I got through customs, got off the cruise ship and was back on American soil. We were in the Los Angeles airport, ready to take-off, when the pilot was told we needed to stay on the ground for a bit. Apparently President Obama was flying into LAX. I listened as people sighed unhappily, realizing they would miss their connecting flights. I could hardly hear them and I pressed my face to the little airplane window, searching for Air Force One. President Obama was flying into the Los Angeles airport. And there I was, sitting on the runway in the Los Angeles airport. OBVIOUSLY THIS WAS NOT A COINCIDENCE. BARACK OBAMA WAS COMING TO WELCOME ME BACK TO AMERICA. But minutes later the pilot was on the intercom again, announcing we could take off. Amid the cheers from the passengers my shriek of “But the president!! He probably saw my tweets I sent him!!” was hardly heard. It is still unknown if when President Obama took the first step off his plane he heard me calling down ideas about education reform.

Although I was sad to return to normal life, I am slowly coping by eating large amounts of ice cream and correcting people on their Spanish. (Do I speak Spanish? Of course not. But I usually follow up my correction with “I was just in Mexico, so I would know.”) Adiós amigos!