Tuesday, November 20, 2012

D-29 days... birthdays

It's special to celebrate your birthday with 450 people, who sing Happy Birthday to you in the dining room during meal times. It's also special, because we have over 400 people, so we GET TO SING Happy Birthday every day to somebody! Sometimes even more than once a day! Happy Birthday is the most popular song on the ship :)

Usually on your birthday your friends take you out to dinner. This was the plan with Tom as well. We planned to go out today for a good week now and finally people could swap shifts to make it happen. But then, this morning the captain made an announcement that due to some unrest in this part of town our shore leaves have been revoked until further notice. So we waited and prayed.

Shelly offered to cook dinner for all of us (ca. 12 people) if we were to stay on board. We thought that was super kind of her, but hopefully unnecessary. Around 4 pm the captain announced that all was clear so our plan was back on schedule! Yay!

We were about to go out around 7 pm as that's the time the restaurants open here. Around 5.30 pm they announced that due to severe fuel shortage in town (and in Guinea in general) we aren't allowed to take out any vehicles unless it's mission critical. Bummer!

Charles went around the ship and told all of us that Shelly indeed started cooking some of her fav recipes and we are all invited to their place at 7. Yay again!

Here are some pictures of our yet again wonderful dinner party. Having this group as our extended family is really priceless!!!


Shelly made Italian lasagna, Mexican enchilada and tortilla, Greek salad,
artichoke and  shrimp combo, chicken with something great...etc and a few others
that I cannot recall.
 How on Earth did she do all of that in such short time and on so short notice is beyond me!!!
Shelly the SUPERWOMAN!
Luke sitting in the corner :)
Yes, we are already in the Christmas spirit! :)
Our extended family on board.
(from left: Brian and Jen from USA, Charles from Canada, Penny from South Africa,
Darren from UK, me from Hungary, Luke and Tom from USA,
Linda from Holland, Andrew from USA, Johan from Belgium and
Megan and her mum, Shelly (she took the pic) from USA.
Tom's fav key-lime cheese cake. 1 word: HEAVENLY!

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