I Made It!

I finally made it to Australia and let me just say it is AMAZING. The weather is absolutely beautiful. It is PERFECT. And the college campus is the most gorgeous college campus I have ever seen. And the people are the friendliest people I have ever met in my life. So to start off, I said goodbye to my family and Jerry at the airport (poor mom...) and I got on my plane to LA. My row was empty until a kid about my age came up and sat next to me. It turns out he was from Sydney, Australia and had just finished up studying abroad at CU Boulder. Talk about a small world. We talked a lot on the trip and he told me a lot about what to expect in Australia. We ended up hanging out and grabbing some dinner at LAX once we landed, and then went our separate ways. I had a 6 hour layover which sucked...I finally get on the plane and it turns out I am in the very last row in a 2-seat section with NO leg room. I ended up sitting next to a guy from Adelaide, Australia who was going to visit his daughters. Let's just say he was quite the Chatty Cathy, and although I was looking forward to watching all the new release movies that Qantas had, I only got to watch 2 because he wouldn't stop talking to me. He was a nice guy except for the fact that he liked to talk about politics and gun laws, all of which we had totally different outlooks on. It could have gotten ugly. Fortunately, I steered him off of those topics because I was starting to get a little pissed having to constantly defend my views and the ways that the US does things. Anyways, I slept a little bit on the plane and watched the 2 movies the other part of the time. It was a 14-hour flight though, and with two 2-hour movies and about 6 hours of sleep, you can imagine how much time I had to spend talking to this guy. Right before we landed however, I looked back behind the plane from my window and saw the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life coming up from behind the clouds. The photos don't do it justice. I finally landed in Australia and had to go through an enormous customs line, in which I ended up getting pulled aside (great.....) because I forgot to write my middle name when I applied for my Visa. It was no big deal. I finally got my luggage and headed out to where my shuttle was going to take me to the university. It took around 2 hours to finally get to the university. I finally got settled in my dorm room after having to drag two 70-lb suitcases up like 4 flights of stairs. My dorm room is pretty spacy as you can see from my video I posted. I made a few friends on my floor. My neighbor's name is Susan, and she has a car and has volunteered to drive to Target and the huge shopping center anytime we need to get stuff. (Awesome!!!) I also met a girl down the hall named Jackie, and a girl named Jade who are all really nice. And they are also all Australian. Susan and I got lunch together yesterday at the Bond Cafe which was really good. Later on last night we went to the Welcome BBQ for new students, and ended up meeting up with a huge group of people and a few girls who I have pretty much hung out with the last 2 days. People are SO extremely nice and helpful here! We went back after the BBQ to our rooms and slept off the jet lag. I slept 12 hours last night! This morning I woke up and met 2 girls named Kathryn and Tiffany and we went to the Bond Orientation session. Kathryn is from Melbourne and has already offered to take me back to see the city when she flies back in a few weeks which is great because that is one of the cities on my list. Not to mention Melbourne has awesome shopping and food. Tiffany is from Canada and is here pursuing a law degree. We are comforted in the fact that we are basically from the same countries, and tend to look at each other with funny looks on our faces when the Aussies say stuff like "I'm cut" and "tick the box." We have managed pretty well so far. We went and got our Bond ID cards, some cool t-shirts, and got all of the administrative stuff taken care of. Afterwards we decided to venture out and go to Target to get a bunch of stuff we needed. Let me just say, Target is NOT like the Target we all know. Target was like a crappy K-Mart that is about the size of a grocery store or smaller. We hardly found anything we needed there. Australia is nice in the fact that they have about 12 different versions of Target. Target, K-Mart, Woolworth's, Cole's, and one other one that I can't remember the name of. So all in all, we found everything we needed by 5pm since the mall closes at 5 which is pretty weird. We ended up taxi-ing back to the school with about 20 shopping bags and then got lost trying to find the dorm. By the time we got back we were about to die. We also stopped off at the grocery store in the mall to grab some miscellaneous snacks for the dorm, and let me just say food is DEFINITELY different in Australia. Kathryn was extremely interested in how S'mores tasted, since she had seen them many times on TV but had never tried one. Tiffany and I became bound and determined to make her a S'more, so we headed off in the grocery store to find the ingredients. Needless to say, Australia does not carry marshmallows in their stores, they do not have Hershey's chocolate, and they have never heard of graham crackers. So we found the best substitutes. Sweet cracker-cookie things, pink mini marshmallows, and Cadbury mini chocolate bars. We have yet to make them. However I did buy a box of Tim-Tams which Kathryn assured us were the best things in Australia. They are chocolate cookies and they are FREAKING AWESOME. Too bad the US doesn't carry them. On the way out of the mall there was a liquor store, and I stopped in to see if they had this Australian wine that I love. I found it surprisingly, and went up to the store to make my first ever legal alcohol purchase...and the lady didn't ID me. I even asked if she wanted to see my ID and she said "Oh no honey. Don't worry about it." Awesome. That happened on my 18th birthday too when I went to buy cigars and lotto tickets. They didn't even ask for my ID. Oh well. We also stopped by the travel office today and got some brochures. Susan, Kathryn, and I are planning on going on a 3-day Fraser Island trip in mid-July. We are working out the details but are pretty excited. I also got a prepaid cell phone today. If anyone needs to get a hold of me in an emergency, my number is 61466020770. Beware though, because calling my cell is about 50 cents a minute. If you want to call my dorm phone the number is 61755954543. And Australian fashion is also quite different. Walking into the stores today was quite a shock. Lots of leotards and pleather tights. Lovely, but you won't catch me dead in those while I'm in this country. Oh and apparently, skinny jeans are all people wear here. Flared jeans are so "not in." So I did find a pair of skinny jeans today that I absolutely love and I bought them for a pretty good price. I did find the most awesome leather purse ever that Kathryn ended up buying today in their department store which is called David James. I thought it was funny and kept repeating "We are headed to Davy Jones' Locket!!!" (ya know, like in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.) I didn't buy the purse which I will admit was quite painful. Dad, you should be very proud. I am still having non-buyer's remorse. Oh yeah, and the weird thing about Australia is they pretty much have the same products except they are different names. Like Rice Krispies are "Rice Bubbles." And they don't have Rice Krispie treats or marshmallows or graham crackers or Pop Tarts or granola bars. And they don't have Dr. Pepper which I'm pretty upset about. I will say, and Jerry should NOT be worried, but just from an observer's standpoint, the whole idea of Australian boys being drop-dead-gorgeous is NOT a myth. Definitely true. Anyways I must get ready to go to the "Rumble in the Jungle" party at the bar in campus. It should be a good time! And sorry this took me so long to write, I haven't been able to get any internet service until day. And I promise I will definitely write some of you back on Facebook. I know Kira is one that is long overdue. I will get to it, but I got internet about an hour ago, and I am supposed to be ready for the Jungle party in 2 minutes, and I definitely am not because I am too busy updating you all on my adventures so far so I hope you are all reading! Make sure to watch the video I posted and keep watching for more pictures! I'm sure a lot more will be posted soon!

Love you all!