Still Truckin'

Well, I made it!  It was a long journey but I am finally here.  Remember when I said I hope that packing was the hardest part?  PFFFF, I wayy off by that little statement.  Traveling across the world was definitely a lot harder than packing -- duh, I don't know who I was kidding.

I'll start from the beginning:  First I got dropped off in Chicago and checked in my luggage (luckily didn't have to deal with it in LA and didn't see it until Brisbane).  I met up with Tilly in Chicago and we traveled together until we got here.  She is the only other student that is studying at Uni from Saint Norbert, so it was nice to stick together.  We didn't really know each other until now but it made the traveling a lot less boring to be with somebody, even though our seats were not by each other on either flight. 

We got on our plane that was about 10 minutes late and almost everybody had just sat down and got settled in.  I was about 6 seats away until I got to sit down when the pilot said we cannot take this plane to LA because something was wrong with it.  Luckily there was another one, similar in size that we all had to transfer to which delayed our flight about an hour and a half, which was 100% okay because we had a 5 hour layover in LA anyway.

Our plane from Chicago landed in LA around 6:45pm, so basically just waiting around until 11:50 when we had take off.  That part was pretty uneventful, we didn't see any famous people or anything exciting. We ate at a South American place and I pretty much just read a book and hung out with Tilly and a new friend Jed that I met.  I had no cell phone service inside there and no internet, unless I wanted to pay a lot which was pointless because I was only going to be there for a few hours.

Finally, we got on our plane at 11:50pm and it was HUGE.  There were seats A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I and J. I sat in seat 75G, so I was the last seat all the way in the back, but that was the best thing for me and my bladder because I was RIGHT next to a bathroom.  In the morning when we were still flying it was like a half hour wait for the bathroom so its not like it was quick and easy access the whole time.  We were on this plane for 14 hours.  It was really, really long but it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be.  We each had our own TV which had on demand, games, tv shows, and lots of other stuff.  I only watched one movie though because I just tried to sleep the whole time (I was a failure at that though).  The TV's also told us where we were, how fast we were going, how long till we get there, the temp etc.


 
 
    


14 hours later we finally arrive in Brisbane at 7:30am.  I am so tired and sweaty and all I want is a cold shower and a toothbrush.  I had to wait about another 5 hours before that was going to happen because I had to get through the scanning of the suitcases and the dogs and wait for my three suitcases.  That process was pretty easy and went smoothly, "between me and you, popcorn that isn't popped is not allowed".  That was my lesson learned for international flying.  He was so nice about it though and there were no problems.  Its funny that popcorn isn't allowed but my coffee and tea is.  Oh well.

So me and Tilly hop in with the shuttle Allen (taxi driver).  He was really nice and friendly.  He loves Americans.  He talked about a lot of history with the Americans and went on and on and on about lots of fun history stuff.  He always said "without Americans..." and then continue the sentence, haha.  He was so friendly and he was just excited to have us.  He tried to do his American accent a lot.  Only his redneck accent was a success for him though, haha.

He had a talking bird and lots of horses and was friends with Steve Irwin.  He has land that he has owned for 18 years that is close to a house that the Irwin's own so he has a life pass to the Steve Irwin Zoo.  He showed us all his passes and they were really cool.  Then he was like, "since its Saturday and you don't have school I will take you guys 10 minutes out of the way and show you some stuff".  I was really mad at first because I was just so tired from that flight and nothing would be fun at that point.  So I just kept my mouth shut and was scared out of my life when we went down this dirt road.  I probably wouldn't have been scared but all I could think about was the time that Laurie and her girlfriends got mugged by their cab driver in Panama.  But we didn't get mugged and he brought us to his farm to show us his talking bird that is friends with all of the horses.  There were like 20 people outside playing with the horses and his wife teaches horse lessons so there were kids riding and it was a really fun environment and it really was only 10 minutes out of the way.  The bird loves all of the horses and the taxi driver (Allen) and his wife.  It didn't like me that much.  I wanted it to get on my shoulder but he didn't feel like it.  The wife said that he got in trouble a few minutes before we got there so that was why he was being so attached to them.  The bird was funny and plucked out hairs on the horses nose, haha.   They just told us about that but we didn't see it.  It was funny though, the bird just did its own thing and hung out all around the horses.

That horse was named Jimmy, he was really friendly.  If you cant tell he is smiling :).  We stayed there for only 10 minutes then were about 15 minutes away from the school.  He said if we ever wanted to go to the zoo then he would take us for free.  He has been there 100 times so he had no interest in going with us but he said give him a call a few days before hand and he can give us a ride and get us in free! That was a nice offer, especially since the Steve Irwin Zoo is pretty expensive.  I gave him 3 American dollars because he was so nice and went out of his way to show us around.  3 American dollars doesn't really sound like much because normally for an hour long commute you would tip a driver probably $20 depending on how nice he was but nobody gets tipped here, not even waitresses.  He thought that was the nicest thing ever and he said he was going to keep it to show everybody.

We finally made it safe and sound to our apartments.  UniCentral.  They are awesome and so nice and everybody is unbelievably nice.  I love it!  We got here and it was still hours before we got to check into our rooms.  We had to go over a bunch of papers and then we got keys to our rooms.  It took forever.  Plus it even took longer because I was starving and tired.  It was probably around noon when I finally got into my apartment but it seemed like it was 4 and I was up for days straight.

I had no interest in taking a nap and wanted to stay awake until around 10pm so that I could be on a normal sleeping schedule right away.  Right when I got here I met my first roommate Lucy.  Her parents were in town also and they are so nice and fun.  She is from Australia, about 6 hours away.  They invited me to go to lunch with them right away so that was really nice because I was starving and they told me to go take a shower first and they will wait for me.  I took a quick REFRESHING shower and felt 100 million times better.  We all went to lunch and talked about everything and I learned so much!  It was great.  They showed me around and it was just awesome.  We ate and then drove around for a little bit and I just kept on learning and learning more and more every second.  It was a lot of fun and I have a lot to look forward too.  I am glad that I have great roommates so far.  We came home and I unpacked more and they left and I unpacked more and more and I met my other roommate Sebastian.  He is so nice also.  He is from Michigan and has been here for four days.  He is all unpacked and helped me with stupid little stuff that I needed help with.

Little toad we found on our walk, they're  everywhere

I started to feel a little tired so me and Sebastian went on a little walk around and he showed me more.  My little town is SO awesome!  Everywhere you go there are just friendly people all the time.  We have a swimming pool in our apartment complex, lots of cool wildlife , an awesome "Pavilion" where people go to drink, play pool, ping pong, music all the time, couches and lots of other things.  You can drink if you bring your own drinks but no glass.  That's the rule.  The Pavilion is right by my apartment.  There are also tennis courts and cool walks everywhere and again fun nice people.  There is lots to do here and it is just like one big friendly community.  We walked around for awhile and then it started getting dark so we were on our way back to the apartment when I ran into two German boys that I met earlier in the day.  They invited us to their friends house at Varsity Apartments which is across the street from Uni Central where I live.  We stayed there for a little bit but then I got starving and had to go home to eat the rest of my sandwich I got in the afternoon.

"Dinner stalker" outside our back patio

I have met so many people already.  I have met people from Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, America and.... I think that's all so far.  It is also really nice here because I don't feel so old still being in undergrad and being 24.  There are other people that are 23, 24, 25 that are from other countries still working on their undergrad also.

Today I get to meet my last roommate.  She is a girl and we are not sure where she is from yet.  They mix boys and girls in their apartments.  We all have our own bathroom, full size bed, desk and two closets.  They are really nice. Poor Sebastian, it sounds like he will be the only boy.  Luckily he has 3 older sisters (I think 3) so I am pretty sure he is really used to it.

I woke up at 5:20am this morning and I am not even tired at all.  Today I am going to try to sign up for a gym membership and go to the grocery store to get food.  This morning I am going to eat Sebastian's cereal and milk (upon approval).  I am also going to hang out with Ryan who is an Australian that graduated from Uni and went to Saint Norbert to study for a semester.  We have never met but it seems like we know each other because we have been talking on Facebook and Skype.  He is going back to the US in April to spend a few months there.

Sorry this post is SOOO long but my day was SOOO long and never ending and I wanted to write about it all :).  Hope everybody has a good day!