I'm on a Boat!

Everything is going great so far. We had our first stop in Cabo San Lucas, mostly famous as a place college students go to on spring break. This is my first trip to Mexico (since I was old enough to remember). Although Yelena's been to Mexico multiple times, she's never been to Cabo. Both of us were rather disgusted by the town; it's very clean and all the buildings are brand new and freshly painted and there are cops everywhere, but you still don't feel safe. There are throngs of Mexicans hollering at us to hire their water taxis (to take us to secluded beaches), go fishing, or whatever else. It's all very in-your-face. Then we walked by diamond shops. That is quintessential Mexico: a little bit of first-world class and a lot of third-world seediness. Honestly, we were both relieved when we got back onto the cruise ship at the end of the day. I realized when I got back on the ship that I didn't have to look over my shoulder any more to make sure I wouldn't get mugged.

That being said, we had one phenomenal experience in Cabo that made it all worth it.

We swam with dolphins.

We weren't originally planning on doing the dolphin thing, but as we were eating breakfast we saw a pod of dolphins following the ship and Yelena got bit by the dolphin bug. It's something we both always wanted to do. The dolphin program in Cabo was a very artificial experience: these are privately kept dolphins in a private pool and we paid a lot of money for the honor. The whole facility was very fancy, like something you'd see in California. We got a lot of one-on-one time with our dolphin; we exchanged kisses and got to ride her around the pool.

The ship itself has been a lot of fun. It's humongous - the fourth largest cruise ship in the world. The total population--guests and crew--is around 5,000. That's about five times the population of an aircraft carrier. It really is a small floating city. There's a ton to do--a theater, an ice skating rink (although Yelena complained that they hadn't run the Zamboni), dance clubs, bars, multiple swimming pools, a full service gym, a library, and more. And there's a full schedule of live activities (music, classes, performances) every day. More than you could possibly do. We came to relax, so we've been sampling a few activities each day and spending the rest of the time lying by the pool or sitting on our balcony. The balcony is fantastic--we've got a fantastic view on the sixth floor, well above the ocean.

And the food . . . the food! There are multiple free restaurants and the food is fantastic in all of them. We've mostly been sitting by ourselves which is nice - we didn't come to socialize with strangers. Although, everyone we've met is really nice.

We've definitely been bitten by the "cruise bug" and plan to do more, although probably not to Mexico. As I'm fond of saying, one of the wonderful things about California is that it's always fun to go on vacation, but it's always nice to come home again. We're having a blast but we're looking forward to coming home too.

One final story: As the ship was pulling out of Cabo this evening, the same dolphin pod escorted us out of the harbor, with the sunset behind them. It was pretty magical.