Cruises: Same Ship, Different Day

I've never been a fan of cruising as a way of spending a vacation. The idea of being confined to a ship, being let on and off a couple hours at a time and having a buffet for breakfast lunch and dinner just doesn't sound appealing to me.

My mom, sister and I signed up for a cruise from Florida to the Bahamas, St Marten, St Thomas and Grand Turks and Caicos. It was not fun.

This had been my routine aboard the cruise ship: Wake up, eat, go to the pool or get off the ship, eat some more, go back to my room, change, go to dinner, find something to do, go to bed. multiple by 7.

There's a lack of adventure, excitement, stimulation and everything else I expect from traveling.

I was expecting pittsburgh to be a run down city with not much going for it like Syracuse or Rochester, NY but it wasn't.

Pittsburgh has a lot of young adults in their twenties. The population is pretty homogenously Caucasian with quite literally a few Asian females here and there. For the most part I was the only Asian male everywhere I went.

The people there are very plain in a good looking kind of way. I would say it's a very mediocre town. No one is super flashy with their money nor is anyone super poor. Neither is anyone fat or ugly.

You see average cars and no eccentric styles like what you'd expect to see in Williamsburg, Brooklyn or Portland, Oregon. Pittsburgh is pretty normal.

Baseball is nicknamed "America's favorite past-time" where as soccer or "football" is easily "The World's favourite past time" except in America. However the 2010 World Cup this past summer is proving to the world that the US is interested in joining the international community.


No American has caught the eyes of the world like US Soccer Star Landon Donovan has this past summer. He has shown that America is no longer seen as a self centered, self contained culture with it's own interests independent of the rest of the world. We can see what the international community is interested in, we can participate and we will dominate! (one day)

In my travels, I find it rare that I meet people who know about basketball, baseball or NFL football. And when I do, it's very much the same "I LOVE THE YANKEES!" or "I love the NBA"
-well do you know who Derek Jeter is? and you know not to wear your Yankee cap if you go to Boston, right?
-you know Kobe Bryant plays for the Lakers and you know of Lebron James but do you know who Lebron plays for? uhh.... Chicago? What's Cleveland?


Soccer or Football is different. I can meet a person from England and say, "You hear Thierry Henry plays for New York now?" and have an engaging conversation like, "Yeah he totally scored on Tottenham during his first game with New York." or I'd get an America-oriented topic like "That Landon Donovan has really impressed a few people here in the UK. I hear Manchester City is interested in him."

You build friendships with common interests and the international common interest is Soccer or "Football" as the rest of the world calls it. You cannot be a cosmopolitan, travel junkie or open minded traveler and think "Soccer is stupid." or else you'd just be another "Stupid American."