Cruise Day 3 pt2: Gomer hits The Wall

My Christmas Bell

I've been trying to 'expand my horizons' on this trip. You know, when I'm not sleeping in the sun somewhere... or sleeping in the shade somewhere... or sleepin- well you get the idea... I figured now is as good a time as any to try some different things. For instance, I don't usually eat much (read 'any') seafood, so I've ordered a couple of the seafoody dishes at dinner. My only goal that I had for this trip was to attempt the rock climbing wall on the back of the ship. Mostly because I know rock climbers are dead sexy beasts and I wanted to be one, if only for a few moments before I splattered on the ground.

Don't you wish your boyfriend was hot like... oh, never mind.

People give you really weird advice when you're contemplating climbing a wall. Or maybe it's that other wall climbers are weird and therefor give weird advice. My sister, the yoga instructor who has climbed before, recommended keeping my shoulders in. I'm still trying to figure out what she actually meant by that, but given my prior experience with aerobic instructors, it didn't surprise me that her advice wouldn't be in real English. And speaking of fitness nuts and other foreigners, there was this guy in front of me who claimed to have gone rock climbing before but was asking a load of dorky questions. I mean, stuff even I figured out, like, "Which rocks are the hardest?" Um, duh, they're *ALL* hard especially the ones waaay at the top... Anyway, the worst part was, he really did know what he was doing, he was just in the tourist ask-a-million-questions mode. As soon as he got strapped in, he was all business. He whipped out 2 small daggers and just stabbed his way to the top. So now I know how ninjas spend their holidays. Whoda thunk?

Aaaanyway, Who wants to follow that act? Me, I guess.

So today was the day. After standing in line and watching monkey babies scamper up the side of the wall for 45 minutes, it was my turn. I told my family that they didn't have to come, although it would be nice if someone got a picture. Needless to say they were all there ready to stare, point, throw things, applaud if/when appropriate, and of course take pictures of the whole ordeal.
Have you ever played one of those video games where you pick up some kind of invulnerability powerboost and you've got about 20 seconds to wreak havoc before reality sets back in? Well, as soon as I touched the first handhold, I figured I had about 45 seconds before my muscles would shake and give out or I'd realized what the heck I was doing and do something stupid like look down. I didn't actually time my ascent, but the pictures are all timestamped within 2 minutes, which means I hauled my keester up that rock like a squirrel on fire. The next thing I knew, I heard a voice from the other end of my safety line yell, "You have to LET GO OF THE WALL to come down." Easy for you to say... you're already at the bottom. Thank you Mr. Helpful.

This is me, NOT letting go of the wall.

But I did it. I climbed the wall and rang the bell. I'm no ninja, but I get by.