Day 9.2 - Montauk

I got to Jamaica a little after 3pm, needing to connect with the train that leaves at 4:25pm. I found a spot on the floor in the AirTrain terminal, with good wifi and wrote a bit more on my food post. I was hoping to meet victoria and bing-o at the station, but with very patchy wifi on the platform, and texts/SMSs between our phones taking so long they probably not only had to go to Australia and back, but through LAX customs each time too. In the end, we didn't meet up on the train, but did when we pulled into Montauk.

The train journey itself was a very painless two-and-a-bit hours. Express for the first hour or so, then stopping all stations through the Hamptons. There were eight carriages, all double decker, and there were a few empty pairs of seats in the carriage I was in. I perched sidesaddle on my seat, with my iPad balancing on my bag and keyboard on my knee to finish my food post (published when wifi restored).

victoria and bing-o (their nom de nets are all lower case) and I shared a cab with some others and were delivered to the motel where we were staying. A friend, Harri, who is hosting this weekend has an old family house nearby. (I'm not going to give specific names to avoid giving away Harri's address by inference).

Here's the view from the door of my room. Probably all you can see are the cars and the power cables and the other stuff, but look past that and you can see the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is just across the street from us.




After a restorative cuppa tea (the rooms have kettles as promised; I had tea bags, and I begged some milk from the proprietors), we joined the others at Harri's house.

Can you imagine eighteen or so 30-something to 50-something women in a few rooms together, all of whom know each other virtually, but many of whom are meeting in the flesh for the first time? Lots of loud talking, shrieking, laughing, smoking, drinking, snarking, and the rest. I think the full complement is just shy of two dozen once the late stragglers got in.

By morning, I was (am, as I write this) decidedly hungover. I didn't even have that much to drink - only three glasses, but the glasses were, um, rather big, and I may have overcompensated for the flow restrictor on the big-ass bottle of vodka, by being rather generous in my pouring. Despite Snarky Bean's best maternal efforts in feeding us a bunch of finger foods, and the rather good red velvet cake with the Union Jack on it (in honour of the Royal Wedding) that Harri organised, and a variety of corn chips and NZ confectionery delicacies (Pineapple Lumps!!! Wine Gums!!! Jaffas!!! No L&P ) imported by Simnel, I didn't really have enough to eat to compensate for the alcohol.

At least I did sleep well. Two cups of tea, a little delicious poppyseed cake baked by, heck, I can't remember now, and a shower, and it's time to rejoin the fray.