New Year's Eve 12/31/2012

Today was a quiet sea day as everyone prepared for the ending of 2012 and the upcoming celebrations

on-board. We docked in Hobart, Australia at dinnertime. Besides the security on the dock we had security boats patrolling the harbor side of the ship. As the hour grew later, the harbor bridge was lit and more and more boats crowded the water.

For this New Year's Eve we had dinner at the steakhouse restaurant and sat with a couple who are retired from working at Bell Laboratories. The gentleman explained to us that he worked on a team that wrote codes that were used in the creation of the Internet. As an aside, the man (who was wearing a red bow tie) and his wife were the other couple on board who shared our anniversary date. For a birthday or anniversary, following the daily program about our current location, the ship puts greetings to you on the television. We knew that one other couple had an anniversary on December 27th, but until tonight did not know who they were. The other couple lived for a short while in Minneapolis and now lives in Palm Springs. They are friends of Myra and Jeff Halpren (Jon's parents and Jeff's parents were very good friends and often hosted parties together). Although we had known neither couple we quickly found our commonality. It was a good dinner because it ended with baked Alaska.

At midnight the captain blew the ship's horn and we watched a magnificent fireworks display that is put on each year by the city of Hobart. Being in the harbor we had a front row seat.

It is now 12:30 am (7:30 am in Minneapolis). Tomorrow at 4 pm, there will be another New Year's celebration for all the American passengers, as the ball drops in New York City. Throughout the day other celebrations will occur to usher in the New Year for passengers of all the different nationalities.

For now, Jon and I, along with the Tasmanian devil are among the first of our family and friends to celebrate what we hope will be a happy 2013! We are headed to bed, as we will start the year with a tour at 8:45 tomorrow morning.