Merry Christmas! For Christmas and New Years I went to my parents house (they are temporarily staying at Penn State for my dad’s job). My sister flew in from the Netherlands so we would be the complete family together for Christmas, we also adopted Kazuki since he was not going back to Japan for the winter break.

The first thing we did was an escape room in a town nearby and First Night at State College. First Night was an event in which the town converted into a beautiful, merry place with ice sculptures everywhere and music in all the churches. Here, Kazuki and I went ice skating, something that I haven’t done in a long time.

For the last couple of days, I went with my family to Philly, while Kazuki returned to Gainesville. In Philadelphia we went to the art museum and I made a picture with Rocky, the other thing I had to do there was try a Philly cheese steak, which was a bit disappointing in all honesty.

The cruise adventures have ended, but that does not mean mine have as well. I had a flight on Friday the 13th from Miami to Boston. After having arrived to our airbnb I got reunited with the people I haven’t seen in a week. Of course being the 13th, bad luck had to hit me. When I wanted to grab my laptop to work on this blog, I found out that I left it at the security in Miami. Luckily my friends that stayed in Miami were able to pick it up so I got it back the next month.

Cambridge was really beautiful, we went to Harvard and MIT the first day. The day after, we went part of the freedom trial and attended the Boston Tea Party (it was exactly on its anniversary so we got a free tour and museum pass).

The night after, we took a bus to NYC. Here we climbed onto what’s called the vessel, to have a spectacular view of NY. After that we went to the 9/11 museum. We got hot dogs from a stand for the NY experience, and went to central park where some of us did ice-skating. Times square was really breathtaking and the Manhattan bridge was also really nice.

During my stay in NY I was convinced by Maeva, Jyoty and Dennis to join them on a trip to Washington DC. It was so weird to see a city that was (very well) planned from the ground. Everything was very tidy and clean, and the musea and monuments were conveniently placed in park. And the best part, that is all for free! I feel like I did not spend enough time here and actually wanted to be at the Air & Space museum for more time, but I was going up north to stay with my family in Penn State for a week.

This cruise has brought me already to many places, and even more adventures. This is the reason why I decided to split it up in two posts, enjoy!

It’s Tuesday, we would embark on George Town, Cayman Islands. We ended up going to the beach after visiting some shops where we could snorkel for a good bit. The water was really clear and unrealistically beautiful. After returning to the boat we of course made use of the free buffet that’s available almost all day. For diner that day it was Italian themed (I believe most people on this cruise are Italian also), the hall was beautifully decorated and literally everyone (except for us of course…) was totally in a white outfit. This turned to a tiramisu party at the end of the evening, which meant all waiters and some guests dancing to the Italian Eurofestival song, which they really REALLY love apparently.

On Wednesday then, the cruise embarked Cozumel, Mexico. From which we got a ferry to go to Playacar, and a bus to Tulum. Here in Tulum we had an excursion booked with MSC (the cruise company), which consisted of visiting an old Mayan ruin which was very interesting and we had a funny and good tour guide.

There is a lot of entertainment available on the cruise, something which I did not expect but actually makes sense, since you’re on the sea for long periods of time, sometimes even a full day. One of the entertainment options I enjoyed most were the shows, one show was Peter Pan themed but it was actually a cirque du soleil performance. Another one was about Michael Jackson, and I enjoyed this one the most.

On the last destination of the cruise, we went to an island that MSC (the cruise company) had bought in the Bahamas. It was pretty but clearly not finished. We saw stingrays there and they had a lighthouse show at night, which was also nice to see. The unfortunate part is that it started raining in the evening so we saw the lighthouse show from the cruise.