Manly Beach and Cruise Day 1 - Departure

I woke up on time thanks to Matthew loaning me his second phone to use as an alarm and we met up with Mom just as planned. It was so great to see her! Lots of hugging going on and i'm pretty sure people were staring but oh well haha. Was very nice to see her again! We met at about 9 am so we went and ate breakfast at a place on the Harbour. When we were finished we still had time to spare so the three of us hopped onto a fairy to go to Manly beach for the morning. Mom's one and only beach experience in Sydney! We lugged all our luggage on the ferry and thank god for Matthew because I don't know how I would have handled mine and moms ;) She was so exhausted I felt bad for her and we offered to help out. We didn't actually go swimming but just walked over there and sat for a while, had a coffee, and chatted. The water was fairly calm and there weren't all that many people in the water.

When we decided we had enough we jumped back on the ferry and had lunch in the harbour. After lunch Mom and I said goodbye to Matthew and we got in line to board the cruise ship. That was quite the process. First dropping off our big bags, then Australian Immigration, then security, then finally we got on board and found our rooms. The ship is massive! It's going to take some getting used to, figuring out where everything is. When we found our room we settled in as much as we could while we waited for our luggage to be delivered. Mom was so kind as to bring me my old S3 so that I can now be connected to the world! We bought an internet package, the most basic one, so I'll be able to keep in touch periodically :) It seems to work okay, and honestly I've been surprised by how well the S3 is functioning... It works about as well as my S7 was in it's final days, guess I really didn't notice how poor the performance was, probably the first indication it was going to fail on me.. Anyway, we ventured out for an early dinner at the buffet as we didn't want to deal with the dining room. After dinner mom crashed and I went out to explore a bit. I met my first friends here, at the bar of course. I walked by and smiled, then decided to be bold and go over under the pretense of needing another drink (which I actually did need). They're two guys close to my age, from Australia, that are moving to Vancouver to work and decided that cruising over was the way to go. Names are Adrian and Pods, and I think that we're going to get along splendidly! We all seem to be on the same page with our attitudes, mindsets, and drinking styles... We had a couple drinks at the pool bar, got the awkward small talk out of the way, and then went to find the "night club" on board which had a whopping 8 people on the dance floor. but that's okay! We had our own fun. Great times. Closed down the bar at 1 am and were told there was another bar open until 4 am. I guess because it was the first night it wasn't actually open which honestly was probably a good thing.. No need to be too out of control on the first night ;) Oh, I had also bought the unlimited drinks package, which pays itself off after only 4.5 drinks sooooooooo seems to have been worth it so far!Read more