Date: 2 December 2019
Author: Florett
Position: Half way across the Atlantic ocean
Geographical Position: 14° 02.8 N/ 042° 14.8 W
Etmal: 122nm

The Tea Advent Calendar

It was 27°C and it felt a bit strange when I opened my advent calendar in the morning, because I always associate December with cold weather.

I have a tea advent calendar and a self-made one from my parents- probably with small pictures of my family and me (I can only guess, because I have just seen the first two, so maybe there will be a surprise).

It was 7 o’clock in the morning and the first thing I did was making myself a cup of tea and sat down on the fore deck, watching the sun and the waves.

Sometimes it is still a strange feeling to know that I’m in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and yesterday on the first advent I was thinking about it again.

Being grateful

These moments I always remember myself to be grateful.

For all the things I have and for this whole adventure, but also for those I don’t have in the moment. Because when I see them from a distance I can see how important they are for me.

So because I wanted to be thankful for what I have I closed my eyes and drunk my tea very slowly.

hen I drink tea normally (what I do very often since I’m here) I just drink it by doing something else.

But now I tried to taste what kind of tee it was – ginger, cinnamon, lemon and something that was very spicy.

I remembered that I forgot to enjoy all the things which are feeling so normal for me.

Happy (Christmas) Hour

During we had to clean the whole ship you could hear Christmas music everywhere (except on the deck because white watch was cleaning it with the fire hose).

Personally, I’m not a fan of songs like “Last Christmas” and while I was cleaning the toilet brushes (a wonderful job) I noticed that all these Christmas songs have something in their key, the melody or the instruments that makes them sound all the same.

Maybe that’s why there are also people who don’t like it.

But we will come to this later.

Preparations

Our one o’clock meeting was also very chrismassy.

After the general information (where we are, how many nautical miles we have done in the last 24 hours, and so on) we were told that we will do “Secret Santa”.

So everyone got a small sheet of paper with a name on it.

For this person we will prepare a present. That’s a great thing, because everyone can prepare and get a present.

And because most of us don’t have something we could present to someone we have to be creative and make things by our own. In my opinion, this can be a much cooler present than a bought one.

Decorations

In the afternoon some people started to decorate the mess.

Now we have a beautiful advent calendar designed by our teachers. It can be opened every day by someone else so everyone, also those of us who don’t have their own one, can have a surprise.

And there are also some people who are making each other calendars with calendar quotes.

Different opinions

I also talked to a person who is not happy about all this Christmas stuff.

She said the most annoying thing would be the music which would be too early.

And it would not be the right atmosphere for Christmas, because it is so hot and sunny.

But I also talked to another person who likes all this christmassy stuff. So we can see how different the opinions on this ship are.

PS: To my parents: Could you please buy me lots of Christmas sweets so I can eat them when I’m back in April!?