Jeans, Exhaustion, and a Lost Suitcase

Day 1. Saturday.

As we crossed the bridge, the ship came into plain sight. My heart skipped a few beats and did somersaults in my ribcage. The ship was massive. So massive it caused me to forget to breathe.

The Norwegian Star. She would be my home for a week.

I had no idea what to expect. Bring on the adventure.

After we parked, a lady helped us with our luggage. She was wearing a jacket and gloves. A jacket and gloves in 80 degree weather? Seriously? She was very nice though.

"Lucky you came on such a nice day to travel. It's not raining today. Where you folks from?"

Utah, I told her. We had escaped the snow and we were quite enjoying the pleasant California weather.

She let out a cackle, "Oh, so this is nice weather for you people!"

We waited in a long line of people, anxious to get on the ship. I could feel my jeans clinging to my sweating legs, suffocating them. Why was I wearing jeans? My skin felt sticky from the unusual heat that was so foreign to me.

I called my mom to pass time and to let her know we had made it safely. After going through several people, showing them my passport and such, I finally found myself on board 'The Star'.

Once on board, we ate some burgers and fries. We watched other people play in the pool as we ate. I was so jealous. I found myself wishing I had worn my swimsuit under my clothes. Instead, I had to wait for my suitcase to be delivered to my cabin.

Once our bags were finally delivered, we changed into our swimsuits. Except for Brian. His suitcase was no where to be found. He seemed to almost enter a panic over his missing luggage. He told us to go enjoy the sun while he hunted down his bag.

So we went to enjoy the sun. But by this time it was setting. So we wandered around the ship, getting ourselves lost several times. We also discovered that many things on the ship required more money. This upset us. Of course, we didn't know what we were doing or where we were going. But we jumped to the conclusion that the people on this ship were only trying to rip us all off. We were angry. I think we were mostly just tired though. So we watched a movie and retired early for the night.

When Brian came back with his bag, he was quite upset. Apparently, he had been accused of packing a knife. After searching his bag several times to find no knife, they were still not satisfied. Finally, they came to the conclusion that Brian was, in fact, not a crazy killer with a knife so they returned his bag. I couldn't believe how furious Brian was about the incident. Brian being Brian, got compensated for this incident by getting a free unlimited soda card, and ship credit. Little did I know that Brian had gotten so worked up because there was a lot more in his suitcase than swimsuits and toothpaste. There was a one-of-a-kind, stunning diamond ring in that bag. A ring Brian had designed and was planning on giving to me only days later.