Christmas on the Explorer and other interesting things

I know, I know, it's been over a month now that I've updated my blog. But believe it or not, I really do work once in a while and the last couple of weeks were pretty busy here with lots of kids and even more activities.

Christmas Eve as well as Christmas Day seemed so fake to me because I didn't sing a single Christmas song! The weather was fabulous (we were in St. Thomas for Christmas Eve and at sea for Christmas Day) and I had great friends around but it felt more like a show than the Christmas celebrations I'm used to.

For Christmas Day all the Youth Staff got dressed up as elves in order to help Santa distribute all his presents to the kids ages 0-17.

Laura and I as eager Santa helpers

Santa surrounded by all the presents waiting for the kids big and small to sit on his lap

here in action

A few days later Laura and I went on a catamaran to go snorkeling in St. John, Antigua.

here on the catamaran all excited to go snorkeling

Did you know that Antigua has 365 (!) beaches? So you could spend a whole entire year going to a different beach every day without getting bored...how does that sound?

this is one of the 365 beaches

here in Barbados next to a german boat

sea turtles not afraid to swim with us and be touched

That was it for the last month. I hope everyone had a good start into the new year. God bless you all, my friends. Hope to hear from you.

Snail Mail on the Explorer

Hello everybody, I thought just before Christmas I should send you my snail mail address so you can send me postcards and/or German chocolate....haha. No seriously, I would love to receive some "real" mail. And yes, I'll be running low on German chocolate soon.

So here it is:

Anna Esau
Youth Staff
Explorer of the Seas
14 Terminal Boulevard
Bayonne, New Jersey 07002

Please make sure you copy it correctly otherwise it won't make it all the way into my precious hands.

So I went to this really amazing beach in St. Marteen like 2 weeks ago and it was very cool, something completely new to me. When you see one part of it you might think it's a normal beach:

Maho Beach in St. Marteen

But when you turn around you see this:

an airport!

small jets flying in...

...and big planes taking off.

Some of the guys holding on to the fence while the plane is taking off right in front of them, causing the sand to hit our faces and the rest of our bodies so hard that it hurt.

And when I'm not on beautiful islands in the Caribbean I'm actually working and enjoying different kinds of skylines, like the New Jersey one.

Newark, New Jersey

Or I hang out with my friends after work, here with my german/dutch friend I roomed with the first two weeks we got on board.

And yes, I dyed my hair :-) And Julia doesn't always look that scary. She is just really excited to take that picture with me...

So that was it for today. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends, einen schoenen ersten Advent an alle meine deutschen Freunde, and hope to hear back from you!