Because movies in Australia come out on Thursdays (instead of Fridays like in the US) and Australia is 16 hours ahead of the US, I got to see Breaking Dawn on Wednesday night / Thursday morning at midnight. At that time it was 8am Wednesday morning and my friends back home wouldn't be watching it until Thursday night / Friday morning at midnight. I'll admit once I found out I'd be in Australia for this release and then I discovered just how much sooner I'd be seeing it than everyone back home... I was pretty excited.
I organized an au pair outing for the midnight release of Breaking Dawn. The kids went to bed at 7:30 and the girls arrived between 8 and 8:15. 4 of my friends (2 I knew previously, 2 new) joined us for the first portion of the night which consisted of way to many yummy munchies and watching Part 1 of Breaking Dawn in my living room.
Jen and Daniel were so excited to finally meet some of my au pair friends and it turns out Daniel could speak with 2 of them in their first language (Dutch and French) and Jen is from the same country (South Africa) as one of the other girls, so conversation was pretty easy between all of them. Michelle was so cute when my friends arrived. I just so happened to look up and see her little face peering over the stair banister. I ended up letting her come down for a quick hello because she was so desperate to meet "The Big Girls". No matter how many times we told her to get in bed she would come back out ever so quietly and look over the banister or sit on the stairs and peek through the ballisters. Only once the doors between the front hallway/stairs and living room were shut did she finally go to bed. Jen and Daniel were amazing host parents... Just like any other mom and dad would do, they spend the evening/night in the front portion of the house (in the study and their room) so that I could have the living room with my friends. I was so very grateful for this. Later in conversation about the night they said they figured it was just practice for when the kids get older. This is one of the many ways I feel like Jen and Daniel think of me as an older daughter more than an employee.
Once Part 1 finished we worked out driving arrangements and Penelope (one of the new ones, from South Africa) said she could do it. I was extremely grateful for this too, because I despise driving so this took a lot of stress off my mind. I am very good at giving driving directions though, so I sat up front and became the GPS. We drove the 30 seconds to the train station to drop of the other new girl (Leonie... I think) and pick up Alice (another au pair I have met before). We then headed off to the theater. The theater was practically deserted. There was nobody else around but us really. There were a few other cars and some people inside eating, but it certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I've been to 4 other midnight premiers for Twilight and there was always a mad dash to be first in line and then you waited a couple hours until the doors opened. There were always tons and tons of people... Here there was maybe about 20 of us waiting outside the theater doors and maybe about 20 or so more already inside watching Part 1. I missed the hype and excitement that having all those people around and waiting in line creates, but I did enjoy not having to worry about getting a good seat or with all the twihards and their ridiculousness. Speaking of twihards... the age of the crowd was much different as well. The majority seemed to be 20s and early 30s.
After the movie finished the 5 of us girls were escorted out by a security guard. We drove Sidsel (one I knew previously) home, then Penelope dropped me, Alice, and Claire (one I knew prviously) off at my house, and Penelope drove home. Because Alice and Claire live quite a ways away and they have no car and public transportation doesn't run at 2:30 in the morning, we had planned for them to stay with me in my room for the night. We finally headed off to sleep around 3am at which point I was laying in bed wishing I could throw up every lollie (skittles, sour gummy worms, and hershey kisses) I had just eaten over the past 5 hours. Apparently after eating healthy for 4 months, my body doesn't handle massive amounts of candy as well as it used to. After 3 short hours I had to wake up to walk Alice to the door so she could get home for work. I then went back to sleep only to wake up at 7 to start work. At around 7:30 Claire came down and said good-bye and left as well.
Unfortunately it was a Thursday which meant a FULL 12.5 hour day with the kids. Fortunately, I have an amazing host mom who took a bit of the load off by picking up Michelle that afternoon and an amazing Benjamin who managed to entertain himself all morning. I was exhausted but it was so worth it because I got to see it before anyone else I knew back home, I made new friends, and I was reminded of just how amazing my host parents really are. I made sure to thank them for helping make my friends feel so welcome and for giving me the back half of the house to myself. And again, they told me they are just practicing for later.
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