Sydney dinner cruise

My lovely former co-workers, as a going away present, gave Toby and me a dinner cruise on the Sydney harbor. This was an awesome, amazing gift! The dinner cruises are a very popular thing to do, both for tourists and locals. And the guidebooks I've read all said its a great way to see a different side of Sydney. So we were super excited for it to finally be the day of our dinner cruise!

We took the opportunity to dress up (sorry, all the pictures from the evening are a little blurry & out of focus since it was dark):

Thanks to all these mirrors in our apartment, we'll get really good at self-portraits

We left from Circular Quay, which is a main wharf area between the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. So we got there a few minutes early and walked around to snap some shots.

CBD at night

Harbor Bridge from Circular Quay

Our cruisin' ship

Also, from our tickets, it looked like we were going on the dinner cruise with Nancy Daniels! Thanks, Nancy, for ordering the tickets!! =)

Too bad Nance wasn't really there! 

The ship was really cool inside.

And there was delicious food to choose from.

Toby's entree (appetizer)

It was dark while we cruised, so we saw the lights of familiar scenery.

Our food was delicious, we bought a bottle of wine to celebrate being out on the town/harbor, and it was just a really fun, nice date night!

There were two moments from the evening that made the highlight reel:

1. The entertainment (a singer and a singer/guitarist/pianist) stuck to mainly classics like Rod Stewart, Righteous Brothers, etc. that were meant to encourage dancing. But at one point, they busted out with a rendition of Sweet Home Alabama! It was sort of surreal. I took a crappy video of the performance, and once we have real Internet, I'll add it to this post. (Fun fact: that makes the second time we've heard that song since we've been here.)

2. Our server (who spoke very poor English) was astounded that we were Americans who also were vegetarians. He asked us all kinds of questions about what kind of food we ate growing up (specifically, "Did you eat hamburger as a baby?"), how long we'd been vegetarians, etc. He also brought the singer by on one of her breaks to introduce her to the vegetarian Americans. At first I thought that they visited all the tables to get tips, but no, we were the only ones with the honor of being introduced. And, finally, as we finished with the check, our poor, sweet server said "I hope you start eating meat." I don't think he meant it that way exactly, but regardless, we definitely made an impression!

Anyway, a huge THANK YOU to Nancy, Patrick, Kelley, Anita, Sarah, Jorts, Melanie, Frankie, and Jo (and others if I left you out - very sorry!). Your kindness touched us so much, and we thank you for welcoming us to our new city from the other side of the world. Here are those beautiful people that I had the pleasure of working with for so long:

I miss you guys so very much!