Alright, so I'm here...

I made it to Australia. And boy is it surreal.

The 6 hour flight to LAX was a piece of cake, I wasn't even scared at aaaaall (a lie). Just slept most of the time. Not that I had any real time to think about it, I just had to go go go and not let myself think about all who I'll be missing (Andrej!).

In between LAX and the Quantas flight was horrid though; an awful migrain and an upset stomach. And we had to wait in the terminal for quite a few hours. At least I found a girl in my group pretty early on, so that was nice. We got some sushi and finally made our way down to the departure gate where the group was gathering.





The Quantas flight was both very pleasent and horrible at the same time. The service was excellent: a free goodie bag with assorted travel items, lots of free food, LCDs on the back of every chair playing a choice of around seven new release movies... that was great. The rediculously long 14-flight and the constant indegestion... not so great. lol. That made it feel like a torture chamber. Hah. Then, we finally got into Melbourne (pronounced Mel-bin, guys, don't forget.. lol) it was around 80 degrees and beautiful. I definitely over-packed. Carrying my luggage was HELLish. But I got it done.

We had to pick up our luggage in Melbourne before our domestic flight to Perth. Katie and I got yelled at for taking pictures of the group picking up rediculous amounts of luggage.. oops. The guy just made us delete the pictures? Weird. Also, there was an illegal-substance-sniffing beagle. Rediculously cute and tiny... So cute and tiny, you had to wonder how many people he actually sniffed out, because it didn't seem like any single person got stopped.

Then, back through security in Melbourne my bug spray got confiscated. Imagine that. Throught two other airports already and it gets confiscated here. hmm.. the dangers of bug spray..

Well, finally we made it to Perth, watching Pride and Prejudice most of the way. That six hour flight seemed to fly by. Hah, no pun intended.

We had bus-like vehicles to take us to City Stay. Another girl and I had to sit in the front with the driver, but he told us a bunch of cool insider info.. mostly about gold mines and the Chinese and of Northbridge, where the nightlife is. Funny. And he was originally South African, but moved to Australia, which took 8 years to get official residance, and finally settled in Perth with the family. Then, surprisingly, when we arrived, the front desk wasn't expecting us? As in there was serious confusion about who we were and how all of us were going to fit, etc. They weren't expecting us? Weird. But it got figured out after another girl and I produced the list of roommates and explained it was only eight rooms. Room 207.

Right way we went swimming. Because it was 95 degrees out. Delicious. And someone bought
a case of bottles of wine? Sick. But me and the roomies went to Center Perth to look for groceries instead.. and all the stores were closed. Because apparently all stores close around 6pm here, even on a Saturday night. We made dinner when we got back to the apartment, then Maria and I were just gonna chill while Jenessa took a short nap, but we ended up passing out as well. So around 9pm I woke up and Maria decided to go to bed.. so I went to go check out what other people were doing. Loic (pronounced Louike...or something) had found some Australians and started a poker match in their room. We hung out there for a while, but then just ended up going back to our room pretty early, and here I am now. Like it's about midnight.

So, ok folks, I'm headed off to bed. Just had to unfold my travel with you. Ta ta for now.

<3

ps. forgot my camera cable at home, so I either have to try to borrow someones or prob go buy a new one. Most likely the later. Boooo.

Two days.

So, two days left folks. Tomorrow I leave for Long Island where Andrej, my dad, and I are spending the night at his parents' house. I'm glad for that. I feel bad because I kinda of told my mom I'd rather just go to LI and the airport with the three of us only, but I didn't mean it anything to do with her, I just need a very calm and peaceful take off. I'm just gonna need to feel in control of the day myself. Whatever that means.

I was going to post last night, but I read Colin's blog first. I gotta not do that. Because his last post was about his last day or two before he took off and it was prety much all my exact feelings. The part that hit home the most was the bit on being excited. Or saying you are. I mean, I definitely am. So excited. But like, I've been telling people that for three months now and lately it seems to just come out of my mouth without even any kind of feeling behind it now. Like when people say "How have you been!?" and you reply with "Great!" even if you woke up late for class that morning and then found out you got a low quiz mark.

We went to Crossgates today to do some last minute shopping. I finally got my hiking boots, so that's real cool. And a cute pair of jeans and a black top. Hawt. Tante Ieva got out of work early and she works by the mall so she stopped by and we got Orange Juliuses and chatted for a while. I love her so much. I guess they're supposed to go visit Krista soon, I really need to call that girl asap.

My grandmother called and would like me to stop by. I should do that still tonight. I'm exhausted.

I've also got to stop by Kerry's. I promised her I would stop by before I left but I just keep getting so caught up by my family and getting ready that I feel like she think's I'm avoiding her, but I'm really not!! lol. It's just so difficult to get things done around here, that's why things always seem last minute.

Ok, well that's a long list of to-dos. Better get off my butt here at the comp and get cracking at it. Just needed a minute to release my thoughts and regroup. haha.

<3