After 2.5 fantastic days in Barcelona, it was finally time to board the cruise ship, the Ruby Princess. I spent my last day in Barcelona touring the Barcelona Cathedral and exploring Old Town. By 1:30 it was time to head for the boat and get settled in our rooms.
Once aboard the ship, I took the liberty to venture around and get the lay of the land. This boat was huge! From what I heard there are around 2000 people on board! After I figured out where everything was, I sunned myself for an hour or so at the pool and then headed to the fitness center for a workout. I got in a nice 3.5 miles before I jetted back to the room for a quick shower and to get ready for dinner.
By the end of the day I was pretty tired, but very excited to be underway and heading to our next destination, Monte Carlo.
We dropped anchor in Monaco at about 11am the next morning. I decided to take advantage of the later docking time to catch some extra ZZZs, before I ate breakfast and headed to the gym. By about 10am I was up and ready to cross train for the upcoming fencing season and Northwestern.
I focused on muscle confusion and toning my body, working my legs and abs as well as my arms in a fast pace workout routine. I started off with cross slashes (8lbs), sumo squats (10lbs), punches (5lbs), and crab crawls all in reps of 16. From there I decreased the number of reps by 2 until the final set of 6 reps per exercise. After this set of exercises, I moved on to abdominal work. Supporting my head with my hands I did 20 sit ups to start. Once I completed those, I moved on to cross leg raises (each time trying to bring my leg close enough to touch my toe with the opposite hand) at 20 per leg. From there I did 20 reverse crunches, making sure to really raise my hips. Finally I finished the set off with a 1 minute plank-my least favorite :P
For this group of exercises I did 3 sets. By the end of this workout my abs were pretty soar, but I wanted to make sure a did a little more cardio work before lunch, so I ran a quick mile.
After lunch, my family and myself went off to tour Monaco, a country within France. I was able to see the casino where the James Bond film Casino Royale was filmed and ventured up to the Prince’s palace. This quaint little town was pretty cool and it was really nice to get off the boat and explore a different culture!
To wrap up the day, we headed back to the boat after exploring the city to kick back and relax before we departed for our next destination later that night.
