Corse

The weekend following my trip with my family was a weekend cruise to the island of Corsica. This years Rotary District Conference was a lovely little cruise out to the island. I was extremely excited to go for a few reasons. First of all, I've never been on a cruise. Then, we were going to get to see some of Corsica and finally because I got to miss school that Friday. Paul, Cara, and I left with a rotarian and his wife for Toulon where the boat debarked. We spent about an hour or so in Toulon, taking a quick spin through the mall, before heading over to the dock where our big, yellow, Corsica Ferry cruise ship awaited us. As we were signing in and getting our name tags we saw the other exchange students in our district and got to catch up a bit before heading up the big ramp. Once inside, we looked around just enough to find our rooms and relieve ourselves of our bags. Our rooms slept four but fit about two (no, I think we managed to squeeze all ten of us in one at some point). We then set out to explore our weekend home. We managed to figure out how to get to the dining room and then to the "Dancing Palace" where the welcome speech would be given that night. After a good hour or so of walking around and catching up we went and grabbed our lovely Rotary blazers to go have a cocktail with the rotarians. The ten of us found some tables in the dance hall, which had a huge window showcasing the Med. We were served champagne as we listened to the District Governor give his welcome address to the rotarians. Note: the Governor was, from this first night onward, called the Guhvnuh *cue British accent*. Following the opening words was our first buffet dinner in the dining hall. The Corsica Ferry was loaded down with food from main dishes to cheeses to fruits and desserts. I knew I wouldn't starve on this trip to say the least. Most of the night was spent hanging out with one another and talking into the next day. Sleeping on the sea was very bizarre. I didn't really notice the movement of the ship until I was lying down in my little fold out bunk bed. But, I made it through the night without problems.

The next morning we had to wake up at the crack of dawn (six to be exact) in order to make it to breakfast in time. We grabbed our plates with half-open eyes and sat in the dining hall looking out at the beautiful water underneath us. Soon we would arrive. However, once we got to Corse we could not get off the boat. We sat in conferences for the majority of the morning, and then we had lunch. That afternoon we were given some free time, but we were too exhausted to head out on the island for an hour or so. We ended up napping for a bit then had some time to shower before heading off the boat and seeing some of Corse. All ten of us walked around a bit and went to a café with our youth exchange district rotarian and his wife for a drink-yes, there's always a lot of café-ing and coffee drinking. After this little break and moment on the island, we went back to the ship just to change into nice clothes in order to be presentable for the evening's activity. We had the opportunity to meet the mayor of Ajaccio, Corsica at the town hall. It was actually quite a spectacle. We walked up a large staircase, flanked by snare drummers and horn players, until we made it to the reception type room with large portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte and his likes hanging on the walls (he was born there). The mayor gave a speech addressing the Rotary and also a few other people/organizations. He called all of us (us being the exchange students) up to the front of the crowd to applaud us and give his thoughts on the importance of youth exchange. Overall, a very nice little function. Afterwards we found ourselves among finger foods and live music but only for a minute; we had to head back to the boat for the night's event. We got back on the boat and headed back to our rooms for just a minute before going to eat our last dinner on the cruise. The meal the last night was a sit-down dinner, not just a buffet. It lasted a good, long while like most French meals do. That whole afternoon Cara, along with two other girls, had been preparing to sing at the event of the evening. So after dinner we went back to the "Dancing Palace" to join in the fun. The only problem was that it was rather late already and we were all completely wiped out. Lack of sleep, apart from common thought, does not always work so well for teenagers. We get tired too. It turned out that the three could sing tomorrow since the docket was already full that night and because we were all half asleep. We called it night to try and catch up on some sleep.

The next morning we all woke up, again at the ridiculous hour of six, to go to breakfast and then get ready for some free time on the island before leaving. Paul, Cara, and I went out on the beach and found some sea glass, walked around, and took some pictures. We ran into everyone else and saw a little bit more of the area before getting ready to head back to Toulon. It would take about six hours to get back which meant that we still had a good bit of time on the boat. The rest of our time on the boat consisted of starting a mambo line across the Dancing Palace and going out on the deck of the boat and nearly getting blown away. The wind was INCREDIBLE! We had to hold on to the rails just to walk. It was absolutely ridiculous and so much fun. We were all shouting and cracking up while trying not to get blown into the Mediterranean. As the sun went down we packed everything up and went into the lobby of the boat. We were expected to arrive in Toulon around six, but we soon found out that there was a delay due to weather I believe, and we wouldn't be getting in until around eight or so. We sat in the lobby with our bags, for a couple of hours and then arrived back on solid ground. It was about an hour and a half/two hour drive to make it back to Cavalaire and to our houses. But, we did and were exhausted from the weekend excursion. The next week was a short one of only three days though because we were leaving Wednesday evening to start our twelve day adventure across Europe.