Last Night I Had This Dream That I Traveled Around the World

I've been having the strangest dreams since boarding this ship, I think from the constant rocking, and half of my amusement waking up every morning is remembering them. 

There's a Dr. Seuss quote that goes, You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep at night because reality is finally better than your dreams. Ok, so replace in love, with just overall ecstatic with life and listen to this. 

I had this crazy dream that I traveled around the world. And the dream wasn't about me traveling, it was about that overwhelming feeling when I got home of Wow, that just happened. I woke up this morning and was playing through my dreams in my head and caught that one and seriously thought Dang, what an awesome dream; I wish I could actually travel around the world. And then it dawned on me, full force, 

Omg that's exactly what I'm doing... 

I think that was the first time it fully hit me. 

In other news, last night I had dinner with my "extended family." As I'm sure I've mentioned, our shipboard community isn't entirely students, but we have what are called "lifelong learners" as well. Lifelong learners are older individuals who for reasons that escape my comprehension, choose to spend four months sailing the world with a bunch of college kids. They take classes right along with us and are really the most interesting group of people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. 

So the ship does this extended family program where they group several students up with a pair of lifelong learners and we form our own little family in a sense. I initially didn't sign up for this program but then found out someone wasn't going, and decided to show up in her place. The ship had set aside the 5th deck dining room for us to all have dinner together last night, and I walked over to our table and right away my "mom" jumped up and greeted me with a giant hug. This was the sweetest couple I have ever met, and they had no end of stories to tell about all their travels together. In fact, the wife, Priscilla, was actually the academic dean of Semester at Sea back in the 70s. So I have a "mom" and a "dad," Pris and John, who met on a train in Germany many years ago. I also have three "sisters" and two "brothers." Two of them are exchange students from China which is really cool.  All in all it was a really great evening.