Australia

Our time in Australia has been a lot of fun, but my partying came to a head in Sydney. I gave myself a walking tour in a silly disguise (hat & sunglasses), believing that, if I chanced upon anyone from the pub debacle from the previous evening, they wouldn't recognize me. What were the odds that I would pass one of them anyway? City life is a life full of anonymity, or at least it is in Chicago.

As you may have already guessed, I ran into someone from the pub. As I was making my way through a crowded street, doing some window shopping, a young gentleman appeared at my side and kept pace with me. Of course this made me uncomfortable, and I prepared myself for any number of nasty things that can happen, even in a crowd of people with the sun shining high in the sky (at that moment I missed my apartment keys, which make a handy makeshift weapon). Instead of mugging me, however, the young man said hello and reintroduced himself. He said that we'd been merrily singing about drunken sailors the night before, and even remembered my name. I was still dubious, but no longer at red alert, so we ducked into a touristy cafe and got a light lunch. We got along very well, and he didn't seem to really mind that I didn't have a distinct memory of him. He said that his name is Dewey and that he's lived and worked in Sydney for the past four years. I told him that I was a spy from America and that to know too much about me would be to live in danger. =)

I spent the rest of the Sydney trip with Dewey (we even caught that IMAX movie, which was very cute), and when we both decided that it would be worthwhile to spend the rest of the Australia trip together, snuck him aboard during the cruise to Brisbane and then to our current port. This involved a lot of hiding from the crew, but since I'd already developed a shipboard routine of finding private niches and enjoying them in solitude, it wasn't that much of a problem to bring a second. I do owe a lot to my suite mates, however, who helped us along (even if such help was giving with a rolled eye or two).

We're back on the sea now, however, and I'm back to my solitary rambles about the ship & reading novels in the sun. I'm trying not to write silly letters, and have so far been able to avoid doing so by trying to finish the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I'm almost done with it now, and can worry about my own little drama later.