So we have been at sea for a couple of days and we dock in Ghana tomorrow morning. The days at sea have been marked by class and my two tests that I had today. They weren’t too bad though. The highlight of this time at sea, though, was the Semester At Sea’s Got Talent Talent/No Talent Show. There were 26 acts and lasted about 2½ hours in the union. It was probably the best time on ship by far. There were so many different acts and I never realized that there were so many talented people onboard. Even some of the staff and LLLs participated. I helped Mackenzie get ready by doing her hair. She was in the talent show doing the Single Ladies dance. Luckily, I was VIP and got to get into the Union before everyone else and managed to snag front-row seats. It was pretty entertaining to watch everyone flood into the union and fight over seats. I wish I would have video taped it. Not everyone fit in the union so they had it broadcasted in the other classrooms and in the piano lounge.
The show was kicked off by the Ship Kids (aka the dependent children). They sang their own version of Yellow Submarine (We all live in a University. Semester at Sea. The Best Place to Be). It was awesome. They did such a good job. They had instruments and everything.
Other highlights included Mackenzie’s Single Ladies dance, which was pretty much amazing. Also, another person did a tribute to nutella and peanut butter. There are no words to describe what that entailed so I will try and upload a video. The sweetest thing was when Ray Fifer played the saxophone. Ray is one of the LLLs. He and his wife Gretchen have been on Semester At Sea five times and they pretty much the cutest things ever. Gretchen is so sweet and so cute. Ray and Gretchen have got to be some of the coolest grandparents ever. Anyway, I digress. The shipboard community found out that Ray has some sort disease where he still has the same mental capacity, but he can’t articulate the words and he is slowly losing his ability write. He played the saxophone and as soon as he was down the entire union (and I am sure everyone else who was watching) jumped to their feet and there was a thunderous applause. I almost started crying. It was just so touching.  Also, all the guys that are from Spain aka the Latin Lovers did a hilarious song and dance to a song that only people who knew Spanish could understand it, but it was actually about tennis. It was hilarious. George did some hilarious voices including Captain Jeremy’s, he went on to win the Talent Show. Benno and Paolo did some amazing dancing and Caroline and Alyssa rapped to Lose Yourself by Eminem. Another kid re-did “I’m On A Boat” and played it acoustically and edited it. A professor told a story about biting himself in the balls and another gave a yo-yo demonstration. Apparently he used to compete.
The show ended with all the LLCs doing a skit called “Chez Ali at Sea.” My stomach hurt I was laughing so hard. They were making fun of the Medieval Times like place that apparently a ton of people went to while we were in Morocco. They were unenthusiastic; Eddie was even on the phone at one point, just like all the performers were. They even had the Darth Vadar theme music when they came riding out on their “horses” which were rolling desk chairs. They ended the skit by getting everyone up to do the Macarena with them. It was a great way to end the night and spend an evening.