This post is dedicated to the wonderful Laurie Vidal.. For those of you who don’t know, my mom sailed on Semester at Sea in Spring of 1982. It is so cool when I tell people that I have followed my mom’s footsteps onto Semeter at Sea.. they want to know all about what it was like back then and I tell them that our ship is a heck of a lot nicer but they were lucky because they got to go to Sri Lanka, Egypt and through the Suez Canal before it was too dangerous! I tell them all about how I had heard about it my whole life, and how aunt Jana had been my mom’s roommate and how uncle Neil had been on it two years before… They all tell me I’m lucky to have Trevor on board and I say I know my mom left my dad in the dust!! Haha.. Anyways, we were looking in our library the other day, Trevor had found the archive of Semester at Sea Voyage yearbooks--- so of course we start looking for 1980 and 1982 spring voyages.. and this is what we found! Mom, Jana and Neil are lookin good in their photos (it was easy to find them because they haven’t aged much ;) It was so funny to look through the old school yearbooks, where they had pictures of their “life at sea” (Mom I’m pretty sure this one photo is you but Trevor doesn’t think so! But hey, you’re sunning while reading and your smile looks exactly the same so I think it’s a pretty good bet).. theres also all these funny pictures of the talent shows, bar nights, et cetera and they were so fun to look through!
So some days when I’m lounging in the sun out in the middle of this gorgeous ocean, I think about my mom doing the same thing 28 years ago, lounging in her 80’s sunglasses and brightly colored bikinis. I think how amazing it is that my mom paved these travelers’ paths before me and how lucky we are to not only be Alpha Delta Pi sorority sisters, but Semester at Sea alumni together as well. I love you mom and don’t worry I’m living every moment to its very fullest in your honor… Thank you for doing this while you were in college so that I could be here at this very moment (in the sun, on my laptop, about to go swimming in the pool, with all of these wonderful friends around me).
Here are the pictures that I found in the old yearbooks--- of my mom (in her bikini reading in the sun) and Jana (in the middle of the Egypt picture) and neil and my mom’s yearbook photos!
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Christina, welcome back! I really enjoyed your blogs and all the precious photos. What a fantastic journey. That was pretty cool of you finding the Semester at Sea pictures of your mom!
See you back in Orinda soon!
June