Universal Day and Night

Another way to look at Genesis 1 is that Aleim is describing the day circling the earth, in other words, the day relative to the entire earth. 

After the day passes any given point evening comes.  As the day returns to that point dawn breaks.  The first cycle of day around the entire earth would have been the first day, a unique day, never to occur again.  "And there came to pass evening" could describe the back edge of that day and "and there came to pass morning" could describe the front edge of the new day 2 ready to make its circuit around the earth.

I actually think that midnight factors into this.  When it is midnight at the center of the earth (Jerusalem's meridian) there is a new day beginning opposite for the entire land mass of the earth.