May 1st and the end of birthday week!

Birthday week means that for the last eight days, four different people have had their birthdays every other day. This means that this week, when it comes to food, has been amazing.

We have had lots and lots of delicious dinners and ”go-fika”. Though, after today we have to wait nine whole days for the last birthday of the trip. But surely we will have some amazing dinners and ”go-fika” during these nine days too, since our chefs love ”go-fika” too.

The day started with an amazing 12 am to 04 am night watch. I was the acting student watch leader, which meant I was ”in charge” of handing out tasks to my watch mates etc. Of course I had help from Sara, the real watch leader. But I were able to come with ideas for what to do during our watch. That resulted in the best night watch yet! We started with an ”up and over” in the mast, this means that you climb up and down any mast onboard. On the way down we all sat down for a moment, looking at stars and the boats passing by. Then Sara joined us in the mast with a bag of ”djungelvrål” for us to share. Sara really is one of the best officers!

After that we played some traditional midsummer games and different variations of hide and seek. For example, we played a typical Gunilla hide and seek game called ”packa sill”. When you play ”packa sill” one person hides and the others seek. When you find the person who is hiding, you hide together with them. Ultimately the last person to find everyone lose and the game is over. We did a number of rounds but then decided to lay down on quarterdeck for a bit. Unfortunately Maxi didn’t get the message when we stopped playing ”packa sill”. So Maxi went and hid himself in some car decks on the galley roof, a very clever place to hide in fact. But since no one looked for him, he laid inside the car decks for quite some time. Luckily we finally realized he was gone and found him after some thorough searching. We all felt a little bad, but Maxi was happy being so proud over his hiding place.

Then it was time for our midnight snack-pause. After some really good scones made by Livia and Victor we ended up on quarterdeck again and played our favorite question card game called ”tjejmiddag”. A card game we play whenever we have the opportunity. The cards ask different questions about love, life, ethical dilemmas and sometimes even politics! Some of the questions are quite good, some are silly and some are just too weird to ask each other. Suddenly it was 5 minutes to 04 and yet another night watch had come to an end. The time had flown by since we had so much fun!

After some sleep it was time for our 12 pm to 16 pm day watch. The time flew by once again and suddenly it was time for the three o’clock snack-pause! Since it was still Moa’s birthday we had a delicious chocolate cake with frosting as ”go-fika”. The rest of the day consisted of lessons and I were able to hand in a big social science assignment. I was a big relief to finally cross the social-science assignment on my to-do list. When the lessons were over it was time for me and Moa to pop some popcorn, dress up in warm clothes and climb up in the mast to watch a movie. We had planned this cozy-time for quite some time. But since the weather and sea haven’t been in favorable conditions, we hadn’t been able to do this yet. We had a lovely time in the mast with the sunset in the background! The starboard watch working on deck were happy since we dropped popcorn down on them from time to time.

As you might have understood by now, May 1st has been an amazing day. Maybe the best day yet! I would like to underline that having a night watch where you only play games is rare so you don’t get the impression that we only chill around here on Gunilla. Apart from this celebrating a birthday is always fun and of course finishing tasks on to-do lists! All in all, this day was a perfect end to a perfect birthday week!

Stella, Babord