There is no wireless in the hotel and I have had to choose to either a) have no internet access at all and thus no real connection to the outside world (especially to York City scores - with an important FA Cup match coming up) and b) paying a huge weekly fee to stay connected.
I have, as you might have guessed chosen b) and so the blog looks set to continue. I had thought about writing it every day and then putting it all up when I got home, but that would mean 28 Twitter notifications would appear all at once (one a day for regular users and one a day that is iPhone friendly) and I don't think I could cope with losing all the followers who would desert me for that.
So it's going on.
I am a failure.
It was very hard to sleep on the plane as I had anticipated and my back was hurting so I had to keep shifting position. Though I did at least get to see the best films they had on offer on Air Mauritius, Angels and Demons and The Proposal. Honestly those were the best on offer. Oh dear.
Finally we got to our destination, unblown up by pants bombers or nyum nyum nyum bombers (sorry to Andrew Collings that I failed to mention that we'd recorded another podcast two days ago - listen to it to understand that reference), exhausted, but happy.
As it was New Year and we wanted to be awake at midnight we went to sleep pretty much as soon as we'd checked into our amazing hotel, which of course left us groggy and confused for most of the evening.
Somehow after a buffet dinner (goodbye diet plans) we managed to stay awake for the next two and a half hours, avoiding the main bar which had a big and loud music show and sitting on a chaise longue overlooking the dark Indian Ocean drinking champagne.
Last year we had
stood alone on a beach, marveling at the Heavens above us, tonight we were surrounded by people and the sky was cloudy and we could see no stars and Michael Jackson's entire oeuvre was playing in the background. But it was warm and as tired as we were it was cool to reflect on another year (and decade) passed and think about what the future might bring.
At midnight an impressive fireworks display started up out over the sea (presumably a boat was hidden in the darkness). It was loud and bright and a bit of a surprise and whilst perhaps not as magical as the shooting stars we'd seen last year it started 2010 with a memorable spectacle.
But we couldn't stay awake too long. I had intended on coming out a couple of days earlier to acclimatise, but hadn't been able to get a flight. It was not ideal to be seeing the New Year in on so little sleep. But we were away and on holiday and although today had been spent sleeping in whilst it rained outside it was great to be here.
Happy New Decade everyone. I wonder where we'll all be when 2020 slams into our faces. I can't believe the embarrassingly named Noughties are over.
