In the beginning of November I had really been looking forward to the 10th grade trip to Sea Camp. Since our trip was four days, our break would be prolonged. Within the last two weeks of November we only had four days of school. The trip down to the keys took about eleven hours including stops for food. When we got there we got into our groups, had a tour of the place, and did an algae lab. This was the first impression I truly got of the trip, and it wasn't a good one.
The next morning for breakfast, there was an egg for each person. The table we chose to sit at that morning was the same one we would have for the rest of the trip. My decision turned out to be stupid. At my table were all guys: Mr. J, Jeung Hoon, Apurv, Robert, Jared, Leon, Lucas, and myself. The decision was only stupid because the amount of food they served us was minimal. For every meal, we got at least 3 refills for the platter.
The activities that morning were wading to an island, kayaking to an island, doing a squid lab, and snorkeling in a shark pond. The kayaking was a bit fun because we splashed each other and on the island we got to play tug-of-war. The bottom of the sea was pretty mucky and there were so many jellyfish, probably about 1 per square foot. I can't really say how the squid lab went considering I dozed off for most of it because it was a bit windy and warm outside, so it helped me to relax. From what I heard about the shark pond there weren't many sharks; only a couple people actually saw sharks. The water was also freezing so I didn't think it would be worth going in the shark pond to freeze and not see any sharks.
In the afternoon we went on a boat trip for about two hours. We were supposedly going to go to some beautiful reefs, but ended up going to a regular reef because there was not enough time. So I didn't find it especially exciting. The most interesting thing I saw was a barracuda. That evening was the most fun part of the trip: we went to Key West for about four hours. We ate dinner at a restaurant called "Sloppy Joe's Bar." There were two people playing guitar and singing some country. Before all this, I'd never considered there being a country Jew; surprisingly enough the diversity of the world proved me wrong: one of the guys was a country Jew from Cleveland, Ohio. The lyrics of their songs were hilarious and explicit.
After dinner we all split and walked around Key West. Many stores had shirts with some explicit drawings and words that were quite funny if you ask me. A shirt that had a big rooster on it and under it said "BIG" is one example of a not so explicit shirt. Another cool part about the stores was that many of the workers there were Israeli, which was interesting for me to see. At about nine we all met back at the bus and headed back to the 'real' part of the trip.
After this trip, I truly understand that what I read in a book called "Nineteen Minutes," by Jody Picoult, is true. In the book it said that happiness is measured by reality divided by expectations. If I hadn't had high expectations of this trip, I probably would have been more pleased with it.