Happy Birthday to…

The first alarm rang at 7 am and I noticed right away I suffered from lack of sleep. When my roommate turned of her maybe 8th alarm 15 minutes later I got out of bed loudly said that “it’s actually time to wake up now” and turned on the lamp. 

All three of us changed into sportswear and walked outside trough the quiet ship. This probably was the first morning in T/S Gunillas history where almost everyone onboard got to sleep in until 9 instead of 7 and the only ones awake was the chef, who told us she was making pancakes for everyone, and the two students who had their early morning shift. We told them we were about to go for a morning run and then took off in a bit cloudy Belfast.

After powerwalking through the dead city, a Sunday morning around 7:30 we once again started to discuss our little secret plans ones again. One of the girls on board turns 18 today and after dancing in another great year for her at 12 pm the night before we decided that she of course deserved breakfast “in bed” as a surprise this morning. So, our secret little mission was to find a café to buy her a coffee. After finally finding a man to ask, we got to know some café’s opened at 8 and after using Wi-Fi at a closed shopping center w started our walk to a recommended café. We all three loved it, it was so much calmer than the other café’s we had been in in the city and after talking to the lovely barista we ordered a cappuccino each, one for her and a avocado toast to surprise her with. When we got back on the boat we all woke her up singing a special birthday song and surprised her with the coffee, the toast, and the pancake news.

The sun was shining, and we took from Belfast right before our watched started around 12, which made our watch very calm with not a lot of work and we could instead feel the warm sun in our faces and just enjoy. After watch I let the tiredness take over and I slept until dinner, now I’m writing my third blog onboard and got to know it’s pouring outside. Don’t feel that excited to start my watch in 50 minutes, but I guess I’ll have to remember the luck I had earlier on watch and feel grateful for that.

Finally, I once again want to say congratulations to my wonderful friend and roommate for 1,5 years, another coming, and I hope you all get to find friends like her and the others on board some time in life. They are all amazing!

Johanna Boström