SeaLife Aquarium

It's not very often that I get to go on a field trip with work, since I'm usually at the front desk.



But every once in a while I get to go with these blue shirted beauties someplace spectacular.



There's magic about witnessing a child see something new and beautiful for the first time.



Being able to breathe while being underwater was pretty magical too.

What is not magical is being stuck in a 4 foot wide tube that's about 80 degrees fahrenheit with Italians with questionable personal hygiene and vastly different concepts on where personal space bubbles should start and stop. American personal space bubbles are about 3 feet from the person in front or behind you. Italian personal space bubbles are more like "just so long as you're in my back pocket and not down my pants" we're cool.

Believe it or not it's really easy to pick up these cultural differences in personal boundaries. The first time I went home to the States I was standing in line at Target to check out. I was an acceptable Italian distance from the person in front of me. You know, about 6 inches away from them. They threw me the dagger eyes over the shoulder and passive aggressively scootched closer to the check out. I blurted out in my typical socially awkward way, "Sorry, I'm just getting back from Italy." I now realize why that probably didn't help the dagger eyes I continued to receive from Americans respecting American cultural customs.



Oh, and by the way? This aquarium had one special display full of the full cast of Finding Nemo.