Ahoy! (or something!)

Well, the girls are finally asleep after a huge day and a very tiring night! Noel's in the stateroom with them but I felt like a walk on the decks for a bit (I love the ocean at night!) and then I thought I'd pop in here to post about the day.

We all slept pretty badly at the hotel the last two nights. The girls both wanted to party from about midnight till 4am, obviuosly still thinking they were at home and it was lunch time. So this morning we were all tired and cranky with each other but excited enough to get over it and get ready to go. We packed all our things and left them with the hotel reception people while we found a nice little place for breakfast. We took our time and ate heaps, then wandered around the neighbourhood. Tali kept staring at everyone we walked past; I think she was interested in the accent. Most people were friendly enough and didn't seem to mind a little girl staring and saying "mummy what did he say?" a million times.

After a good bit of wandering and a small bit of getting lost, we found our way back to the hotel, got our things, and headed out to meet the others. We were early but the girls were starving by then so we ordered them some chips (sorry, fries!). Meredith arrived and figured out that we were the ones with two girls and a mountain of luggage! We got along really well and raved together for a bit about how lucky we are and all that before Connor and Jess, then Amber and Clara arrived. Tali repeated her staring/questioning routine but the others seem to think she and Bea are cute so they don't mind. :)

At this point I started getting incredibly excited because it suddenly felt real (I know, having travelled halfway around the world already you'd think I'd have realised that before today!) - anyway I obviously got carried away with my excitement because there I was singing Crocodile Rock, terrible karaoke style!

Geez, I'm rambling and I need to get to bed!

We all got down to the dock together, took some photos, and because we're so darn special (ha!)we got to board almost first! The rooms are awesome! We've got one of the staterooms for sleeping, and personally I'm planning on invading the suite for partying and general frolicing with the others. (all artistic and constructive frolicing, of course!)

As we were starting to depart, I glued myself alongside the others and they told me all of what we were looking at - none of which I remember - Manhattan something, Brooklyn something-or-other...

Dinner was fabulous! We all felt a bit silly I think, mingling with all the high-faluting, rich, well-dressed types. But I reckon we all scrubbed up pretty darn well for a bunch of artistic types! Noel and I took took the girlies off to bed and then I went back to have a few drinks and a bit of a chat with the others. We're getting along really well which I'm so pleased about - it's not much different from all the online chats and phone calls. People don't seem to mind that I'm more of a listener than a talker in real life.

Ok I'm really going to bed now - with crossed fingers hoping the girls will stay asleep!

Oh, I was going to post about my artistic/actor-ish/researchy plans for the trip but I'll do that next time... too tired...