Home again, home again, jigitty jig

It's strange to be posting about my journey back to the U.S. Well, maybe not so strange. I moved out of my apartment 4 days ago and I've been sleeping at my neighbors. And I am no longer a happy houseguest- I've been dying to get out of there and happy to go back to the States.

Of course, I'm now delayed an hour and a half. My flight was supposed to depart Sydney International Aeroport at 2:40 p.m. and will now not leave until 4:30 p.m. How tedious! But I've only had one smooth journey across the Pacific Ocean and that was my first one. I've become pessimestic about my chances of everything going to plan.

I feel like I should have something brillant to say to sum everything that I've experienced in the last 5.5 months into a neat little package. Unfortunetely, I don't have anything so clever. The good news, I have about 24 hours on a plane or in airports to come up with something.

Leaves are falling in June

In the Northern Hemisphere it's not uncommon to experience sunny and warm weather in January. You can go to Florida or Cancun and have a sweltering Christmas. So, when I first got here in February, it was a nice change of pace to deal with the very hot Australian summer. I like hot weather. It means I can go to the beach!

Now, even in Florida leaves on trees don't turn colors and crunch on the ground in June. This is weird. Like, Twilight Zone weird. I wear a coat and closed-toed shoes every day. I had to buy gloves! Who wears gloves in June? The space heater is on high every night. I crave hot chocolate. It's winter! In June!

At least it doesn't snow in Sydney. Like ever. Then I'd really be flipping out.

Other than the twilight zone seasons, I've been chugging along. My knee is getting better! I have my last physio (that's Australian for physical therapy) appointment on Friday. I'm walking and running (in short spurts to catch buses that I almost miss because I don't want to get out of bed because it's cold) and doing squats to strengthen all the weakened muscles.

My studies are almost done too. I'm giving a presentation about my internship on Friday for university faculty and then my last day at ActNow is next Wednesday. It's strange. I feel like I'm just getting started and it's already over. I have been very thankful for this semester, though. Easiest finals week yet: no caffeine pills or venti lattes with three extra shots of espresso involved!

I'm going to have three and a half weeks of nothingness to bum around Sydney. I'm pretty excited about it, except everyone is going to start leaving pretty soon. I'm not excited about leaving. Not that I don't want to go home (which surprisingly, I do), but going home means I'm five weeks away from starting my last year of college. How freaky is that?

Real friends visit you on the other side of the world.

I HAVE A RIGHT ANKLE!!! It’s not swollen, it’s visible like my left one. My knee is still swollen, but not nearly as bowling-ball like. But I am walking rather normally, and can bend my knee past 90 degrees. I’m doing squats for my physiotherapy every day. I even walked on a treadmill today (I’m not running yet, but I was never much of a runner any ways). And I’m not moping anymore (and believe me, I was moping).

In other news, I’ve had a very eventful two weeks and even had a companion: Katy came to visit! Katy, for those of you who read this but don’t really pay attention anything I say, was my freshman year roommate at Mizzou (that's us making monkey faces at the zoo. And she graduated this month! She left Sydney on Monday but the week and a half she was here was full-on. I was actually kinda glad to see her go because I was so tired. But even if she is living in my apartment for the next few months, seeing as I’m alive and well and not dead, it’s not like I’m haunting it so I won’t see her for a while. It was really good to see her.

But, speaking of haunting, we took a Ghost Tour of the Rocks, which was one of the first areas of settlement in Sydney and was a slum through the 1920s. It was really interesting. A little creepy, but very fun. Our tour guide wore a long black overcoat and bowler hat, and had a definite flair for the dramatic. He was good at telling some awfully gruesome ghost stories. Like the story of Mrs. Greenway, who after being discovered in bed with a sailor with her husband, was strangled by him. Only the screams that children hear aren’t exactly said to be her dying screams. Or the cabin boy who was the first person to be hanged in Sydney, at Observatory Hill. Or my personal favorite, the ghosts of those shanghaied from the Watson Bay Hotel. It’s actually where the term shanghaied came from, because people shanghaied from the Watson Bay Hotel often ended up in Shanghai. And I walked the whole way, which was two hours, so I was very pleased with myself!

We also went to a show at the Opera House, which I’ve been waiting to do for years. We were bummed there wasn’t an actual opera on; apparently May is a traditional break in the opera season. We saw Ting Tong, a Walk With the Goons, which was about the madness of Terry Milligan, creator of the Goon Show on the BBC in England and a Monty Python writer. The Opera House made us buy the playbill (cheap bastards, considering how much I paid for the tickets!), but the show was quite entertaining. And it was a thrill just to be in the Opera House, although I suppose that it’s the thrill of being a tourist as well. We had coffee at the Opera Bar afterward, because Katy was still jet lagged, but it was a great night. Except for the fact that the zipper of my dress ripped open at intermission, and I couldn’t fix it until after the show. Of course that happens when I’m trying to be classy at the Opera House.

We also went to the zoo and saw the marsupials and Asian elephants (I am, as you can see, shorter than a baby giraffe), and we went to the Barracks Museum, which had lots of nifty things from all the convicts. We had a long walk around the Domain and the Royal Botanical Gardens. And it was warm and sunny all day. Which was really really lucky because it rained every day for a week before Katy arrived. We went bar hopping at the Rocks and at Darling Harbour. And Katy spent a lot of time running around being a tourist while I was at my internship and uni classes.

But the topper was Melbourne.

I have been wanting to go to Melbourne since the last time I was here four years ago and was obsessed with The Secret Life of Us (an Aussie television show set in Melbourne that I could gush about at length but is now, alas, canceled). We, inadvertently, booked flights to and from the wrong Melbourne airport. For future reference, do NOT fly into Avalon airport if you’re ever in the pleasurable situation of being in Melbourne. It’s in the boonies about an hour drive from the city. Fly into Tullamarie Airport! We were on the airplane, and saw the city and got excited.... and then flew over it.

Katy’s dad has a friend and colleague who lives in Melbourne, and he and his wife were really super to us. Alan picked us up from the airport in the boonies (and drove us back), and helped us get acquainted with the city and took us to Philip Island to see the penguins. And I didn’t even know Australia had penguins. About 900 of them came to their nests at sunset on Philip Island- and it’s quite a nice set up. There’s bleachers on the beach so you can watch them come out of the water, and then you can watch them wander to their nests as you walk back to your car. These particular penguins are the smallest variety in the world, and are about a foot tall. We think the stuffed penguin Katy bought for her sister is bigger than the actual ones we saw (JakeMonster is getting a t-shirt).

Melbourne the city is really great. It’s nightlife is a little intense. Me and Katy were feeling not-hardcore enough (about music) to truly go into the clubs. Maybe we weren’t wearing enough black or have enough visible piercings. But we did find a bar with very cute bartenders and excellent and expensive cocktails called Ginger on Brunswick St.

We stayed at a backpackers called The Nunnery in Fitzroy, which was actually once a nunnery. We chose it only so we could holler at each other “Get thee to a nunnery!” every time we were headed back to the hotel. We even got upgraded to a room with two single beds instead of bunk beds because they stuffed up our reservation (or we made the incorrect one, whatever). But it was very charming, they’ve done a good job of preserving the feeling of the place. Homey, but not to Catholic and scary.

And the shopping in Melbourne is definitely nice. There’s lots of very pretty boutiques that we could not afford- we had the most luck at Myer (which is like Dillards but Australian). I bought a coat as my major purchase. The Arcades are really fun, and I got an amazing hot chocolate in a shop at one. And there are TRAMS! It’s the most amazingly interesting form of pubic transportation- and one of the oldest tram systems in the world. The trams were really cool.

What, I dig the trams.

While I wish we could’ve had more time in Melbourne, some things can’t be helped. I can always go back. I think it’ll be the next Australian city I live in. Haha.

Katy, if I’m forgetting anything, let me know!

This is why I shouldn't be allowed to dance

Friday night I went to a party thrown at a friends house for the 20 April birthdays hanging about in our little community of crazy international students. I was dancing, and there may have been cheap wine coolers involved. And we were about to leave anyways, but I thought, one more dance couldn't hurt.

I have rarely been more wrong. Because about one minute in, my knee dislocated and I fell over. And that was the end of the party.

My friend Tam, while I was freaking out because my tibia was no longer in line with my femur and not underneath my patella, made me straighten my leg and pop it back into place. Someone got me ice. And eventually, I was helped off the ground and slowly hobbled back to my place. Which is where the cheap wine coolers come in because I'm fairly certain that they helped in my mobility that night.

And then I spent the weekend on the couch, with three cushions stacked up for me to elevate my knee (which was about the size of a small bowling ball), bags of frozen peas to keep it cool and my laptop propped on the cushions so I could watch the entire first season of The O.C. I'm a little ashamed of that last bit, but that show is like a religion: opiate of the people.

And that was how I spent my weekend! My knee is better, but stiff. And now only about the size of a softball. OK, maybe a little bigger.

I have a feeling that I'm not going to be going salsa dancing any time soon. Which, by the way, there's a really cool salsa club on Darling Harbour that's free entry on Thursday nights. We went for the first time the night before my knee dislocating.

Moral of the story: NO DANCING.

A small sidenote: my video about living on 40 litres of water for 40 hours is completed and up on the web (which is a little scary for me so please be nice.) You can view it by clicking here.

Missing Posts in Shots.

I am attempting to get back in every one's good graces by posting too many pictures of my latest adventures. I actually just worked on my feature story for class for an hour or so (about blogging, ironically) and it disappeared. Reminded me of Crash Different, because, excuse my language, the file was fucking gone. So I'm posting pictures. Or attempting to.

These first three are of the 75th anniversary of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was a really cool day. I got to walk across the Harbour Bridge with about 100,000 other people without any cars on it. Which And we got temporary tattoos. In lieu of a huge fireworks display, they opted for lighting up the Harbour Bridge at night, which viewed from Mrs. Macquarie's Chair is quite the sight.

My free trip to Byron Bay was awesome (see pictures below!). The overnight 12 hour bus rides were not. But Byron is a nice little hippie-ville on a great bay. Non-locals call it the berg of "thongs, bongs and sarongs." It's the most easterly point of Australia- up by the lighthouse it literally looks like the Edge of the World. I got to kayak on the ocean and there were dolphins about 10 feet from the boat. I also got to remember how awful of a surfer I am: I can catch the wave, but stand up on the board? I can barely stand up on dry land without falling over. Not that you didn't already know that.

OH NOOSA!! It was a really really great week. I've discovered that the best way to take pictures of myself is to take pictures of my feet, so there seems to be many photos of my feet covered in sand. Saves me the trouble of finding someone else to take my picture. So, I stayed with Rachel, my former youth exchange counsellor and her husband Phil and their nine year old niece, who was also visiting. Noosa has changed a bit, there's a 7-11 there now! And a real shopping mall (complete with Big-W, which is Aussie for Wal-Mart, ick). But I took their niece to the beach with me, and went for walks on the Noosa River (it's still salty and flows inland, which freaked me out when I first arrived) and caught up with host families.

I did go to the Rotary meeting (7 am Thursday morning). I forgot how early that was. OH! A note on those horrific school uniforms. Four years ago, everyone was so reassuring about them. "Everyone will be wearing the same thing, and it makes getting ready easier..." blah blah blah. NOW I heard more than once: "those uniforms from the Lutheran College are so unattractive!" I knew that. I had to wear it for a year. And I knew it was fugly.

So, tonight I'm off to an April birthdays party! Despite my feature story disappearing, I am trying to make a good evening of it. Hope the pics make up for my absence.

I'm not lazy.

OK, that may be a lie.

I've been slacking. I should be writing about the amazing time I had at the Harbour Bridge Walk. Or about my free weekend at Byron Bay (which is where I'm going to go slack for two years after I get my masters degree). Or how about the night I was thisclose to going to Tokyo? But I am going to post this.

It's going to be featured on the main page soon!!

And yes those are my feet. I was shooting the photo illustration for the opinion piece I just linked above. Or attempting to. This shot was an accident. But I kinda liked it.

School Daze

OK, so I'm exhausted. How about you?

I started my internship this week. Which means that my alarm goes off at 6:45 am, and I haul my bum out of bed at 7 am, and then I get on a bus at 8:10 am, and I arrive in Balmain at 9:15 am. I then research all day, with various other fun bits in between, and hop on a bus around 6 pm and depending on the route I take home get back to North Ryde anywhere between 7 pm and 7:30 pm. And this is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, except that Wednesday I leave the office at 1:45 pm because I have class at 3 pm. But the point is that it's freaking early in the morning and a long commute and we all know how I love being awake before 11 am.

I'm making this sound a lot worse than it is. It's not actually bad at all. In a way, I like getting up and doing something productive. It makes me feel like I'm not completely wasting my limited time here. Do now, sleep when you're dead.

And I like my internship. It's in a really cool suburb that has great Thai food and an amazing strip of shopping. And the bus ride gives me time to keep up with the readings for my two classes. Or, just listen to music on my iPod. Whatever. But please don't get me started on my classes. I sat though a lecture on the history of the computer yesterday for my multimedia class. Which is much better than what I'm sure I will endure on conducting an interview tomorrow. I should've signed up for 20th Century Australian Lit. Or something where I'd be learning something. OK, I shouldn't really say that. Did you know that the first computer took up three levels of a standard city-sized office building? I didn't. And I do need to take the writing class. I just don't want to because while I am capable of reporting I simply dislike to. And I am learning how to code HTML, which I suppose will eventually be useful.

I think I just need to stop being a J-School snob.

So, this weekend is not only every chick named Erin's favorite holiday, but also the 75th birthday of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It should be a pretty nifty day. The city is closing down the bridge to all traffic. But the thing is, they decided to sell something like 200,000 tickets to walk across it on the birthday and everyone's hacked off about it. I know I am, because I didn't know they were selling tickets and now I can't walk across the bridge on it's birthday. But I am going to go into the City and take lots of pictures. It should be pretty sweet.

We ended up having a huge pasta party last night. We invited a few people over for dinner last night, and ended up with about 15 people in our apartment! And we still have leftovers. But it was a good time. There's a small movement to institute Wednesday Night Dinners. Which would be amazingly fun because 1. big meals are cheaper, and 2. the bar everyone else goes that night stinks. And speaking of food, I found really tasty grapes for A$2.94 per kilo! Which is probably the most bang for the buck I've found around here. Things are expensive. I've been job hunting.

In other news, another one of my roommates is moving out. Apparently walking 10 minutes to class is too much of an inconvenience. Or I smell. Actually, I think Adam smells (he's the roommate who hasn't moved out yet!) So, if we don't get another roommate, it's going to be the two of us in a 4-person apartment, which isn't too bad at all.

MARDI GRAS!!!

It’s a different vibe in Sydney during Mardi Gras than in New Orleans or at Carnivale or other cool places with massive festivals and topless women. In Sydney, you’re much more likely to run into men wearing nothing but a g-string. Because in Sydney Mardi Gras is known as a homosexual festival, with a huge parade on Oxford Street and general insanity ensuing throughout the city. But everyone dresses really crazy, with special fondness for feather boas, regardless of sexual orientation, and has a blast. It’s just a huge party! My personal favorite sight was the Surf Lifesaving float, with a bunch of dancing men in speedos and surfie caps (I have one of those caps!). Or possibly the group of drag queens dressed as different incarnations of Kylie Minogue.

But we left the parade and followed a bunch of people to the other side of the city. They chose an outrageously expensive restaurant, and me and my flatmate Adam, Yuki from across the hall and Anne-Marie from the next building decided to find a McDonald's. We were feeling the urge to be as stereotypically American as possible. And it was a mission to find one! We walked all the way back to where we were! But it was yummy. And really cheap, which was nice.

We eventually met up with my other flatmates Doriana and Phil (and a few other people), by way of a pub by the Maccas, at a club where we danced until after the last bus left the station. We left the club at 4 a.m.! After hobbling back to QVB, we realized that the last bus left at 3:20 a.m. on Saturday nights (why there wasn’t special accommodation for the special event I have no clue). The city was still almost as crowded at 4 a.m. as it was at midnight, although we got away from Oxford Street to avoid the bulk of the crowds. So we called two cabs (there were eight of us) to split back to campus. Only one showed, and then the others thought we could get a free ride, so I hopped in a cab with Adam, Yuki and Anne-Marie and got back to the apartment at about 5 a.m. Turns out, the others ended up waiting at QVD for the 7 a.m. bus (honestly, I’d have rather waited for the bus and saved the money). But the cab was about A$40, which isn’t too bad split among 4 people.

I should also mention that me and my roomies FOUND A$280 Friday night. We were walking from the bar at the Rocks (which is the oldest part of Sydney and has some wicked cool pubs) to the bus stop at QVB and found a garter belt stuffed with money. We didn’t count it that night, but in the morning we were really excited. For the record, we did attempt to find the owner, but there was literally no one around. So we dubbed it the “hooker money” and bought drinks with it all night for Mardi Gras, and spent it on the cab ride home. We still have a fair bit of it left, so we’ll most likely either split it or save it for next weekend. Or Wednesday night. Whatever.

I know that I’ve been mostly writing about parties and pubs and clubs and drinking and having fun (which I am, by the way) but it’s really not as terrible as I make it seem. I do have uni stuff, I’m freaking out about one of my classes (it’s a magazine feature writing class and I am a terrible reporter and the professor is making us have our sources sign a permission slip and they had to explain the inverted pyramid to these kids on the first day of class and it just leaves me with a small rock in the pit of my stomach etc. etc.). And my internship starts next week. And it’s been raining for the past two days, and it’s actually kind of cold here today. But it is mostly wonderful. But I am not always partying it up. Just most of the time.

Adventures in finding one's way around

We had a bit of an adventure last Saturday night, trying to find a proper club in which to get our groove on. We started at QVB in the heart of the City, and walked to Chinatown for dinner. After wandering for a bit, we ended up having a really nice dinner at a place where only the patrons spoke English. But the Mongolian beef was amazing, even if they charged us about A$3 per person for white rice.

We had heard that the place to be on Saturday Nights is Oxford St, and being brave Americans (and Japanese and German, as the case may be) we decide to walk. Which really is a good idea. Unless you're wearing the heels I was wearing. Can you say blisters? But I managed to survive most of the night until the very end when I was walking on rough pavement screaming expletives in the hopes it would stop the burning in my feet. Anyhow, we made it to Oxford St. to find that while it really is the place to be, it wasn't exactly what we were looking for (what is electrofunk, anyway?). While we were wandering about, this guy and his mate stops us and asks if we need directions. He was also a North American and said we sounded like recent transplants. He didn't know much about dancing clubs, but could help us out if we were looking for a cool bar (which after walking from Chinatown, a bar wouldn't hurt). So we had a drink with them at a cool place called Velvet.

We did ask around a bit, and found that George St. was really the place to be for our kind of club (in case you were wondering, we were looking for hip-hop music) so after saying good-bye to our bar guides, we hopped a bus (the driver was nice enough to not make us pay because that would've held up traffic) and landed back at Market & George. And you better believe we found a place to be. And paid heavily for it! The cover was a bit pricey but it was cool. A little hip-hop, a little retro, nice and dark and crowded. It was awesome. No joke. Danced for hours. Until my feet felt like they were on fire.

And that was my evening clubbing in the city. It's been a lot more chill this week. Everyone started classes, and so far I've had a grand total of ONE class. My internship interview went well, though. The internship coordinator gave me a lift to the the interview. I've actually been staring at the Sydney public transport website trying to figure out how to get there on my own steam. There's a bus involved, but then I think I have to walk about a kilometre to get to the actual work (which stinks cos I'm lazy). I know that the only way to do it is to just go and find it but it's a little intimidating. And I prefer to be prepared.

Oh, it's Mardi Gras this weekend! We're going into the city for the parade! And the monstrous party they hold afterward. It's one of the largest Mardi Gras in the world (I think it's behind Rio, somewhere in France and of course, New Orleans).

I was going to go to Manly beach today, but they kept on forecasting rain and it's only now starting to get cloudy. Perhaps tomorrow after my SECOND class. But, I got my hair chopped off instead of going to the beach. And I do mean chopped. Oh, the mystery!

I WON A TRIP!!!!!

I won a free trip!!!! Because I kicked a Weet-Bix's ass in a contest at my orientation. And Weet-Bix, without milk, is like chewing sawdust. So, I get to either go north to Byron Bay for surfing and Gold Coast and beaches, or southwest to Melbourne and culture and all that jazz. I want to do both but know I really can't. But still, FREE TRIP. (Katy- do you still want to go to Melbourne when you're here, because if you do I'll take Byron Bay.)

So, the international party was last night. MQ (that's short for Macquarie University) bused us all to Darling Harbour and rented out an entire night club/bar and had really cheap drinks. It was really a cool bar and a really nice location. I mean, right on the Harbour. Seriously. But my flatmates and I decided that we wanted to meet some other people, not just international students (I live in Americaville) so we met up with a pub crawl that another residence was putting on. A residence with actual Australians in it. We only actually crawled to one pub, Sweeney's, but it had a "Roof Beer Garden" and cheap (for Australia) pitchers of beer. The good stuff too! I had a leetle too much to drink, but so had everyone. And by the end of the night we were chatting with the bartender, who was off-duty, about all the problems in the U.S. and the Dick Cheney visit (he's in Sydney. Good thing you can't have guns here. He may shoot someone in the face again).

And then we hopped a bus back to campus, and were promptly scared by a massive spider in our bathroom. But I'm currently peeling one of my flatmates, Adam, off the floor because he's really hungover. I woke up a bit early and have been chugging water for about two hours so I feel much better. My other flatmate, Phil, wants to go clubbing tonight, while Doriana is sick with a sinus infection. So, we'll see.

I WON A FREE TRIP!!! HA!

They tell you what way to look

I have a problem that will probably get me killed. I look the wrong way when crossing the street. Like I said, it’s a problem. But the cool thing is, when you go into the City, they have which way to look painted right on the pavement. They’ve thought of everything! It’s a very handy thing.

I had the most amazing day EVER yesterday. One of those days that are so wonderful and perfect that they can’t be real because real life never works out this well. It starts with a mission to find the Opera House. My new friend, Charlotte (please note, all my friends are technically new friends) and I took a bus into the city and got terribly lost after getting off at QVB, which is the Queen Victoria Building when you’re not on public transportation. It’s this old building that they converted into a shopping center. It’s nice. But we were looking for the Opera House and I took us in the wrong direction, so we gave up and decided to go to Bondi Beach.

Turns out that finding the bus stop from where the bus to Bondi leaves from is a bit of a mission. We asked about three people for directions, and in Sydney you really don’t need a map as long as you’re willing to ask locals, and hopped a bus to Bondi. Bondi is awesome. There couldn’t possibly be a better place to body surf, or surf for that matter. I think all the waves were perfect. Charlotte and I met up with Yuki and Fiona, who live across the hall from me in my building. Yuki and I then took up body surfing.

When I first caught a wave, and I mean really catching a wave, not just letting it push me along a bit, It was an amazing feeling. It was exhausting. But so cool and so fun. Yuki said that Japanese people don’t play in the water, they just sit on intertubes and float. I had to teach her to catch waves. She was fascinated by the boogie boards! I missed the ocean and the surf. It was great to be back. Fiona and Charlotte didn’t come in the water, but by around 5 pm the sun had mysteriously disappeared and we decided to head back to the city and actually find the Opera House.

We took a bus to Circular Quay (Quay is pronounced “key” in case you were wondering). It’s as beautiful as I remember. Awesome. Cool. Like I said, I was a bit excited. I don’t know how this could ever get old. Sydney is so surreal and beautiful, but at the same time so grounded and real.

My final flatmate arrived! He goes to the same school as my other two roomies, but he’s cool. We’re watching and poking a bit of fun at Neighbors right now. I think he really likes it! I couldn’t get into it four years ago, so I doubt I really will now. We finally went grocery shopping! We have lots of food! I can even cook tonight. I’m going on the more official City tour tomorrow, which if nothing else will save money on public transportation.

Oh, and I may have crashed a party at one of the residential colleges on campus. I feel like I’ve been stuck in quarantine with a bunch of my own countrymen. It’s like Americaville around here and I wanted to meet some Australians! But I think it’s going to work out. My understanding is that there’s some wicked parties.

In case you haven’t noticed, I like it here.

Flatmates, Ants, Tim-tams, etc.

I made it!

I'm having some Internet issues (and a few minor flatmate issues) but other than that, this is so freakin' cool! I went into the city yesterday and it was just as beautiful as I remember. More beautiful, even. Sydney has this amazing blend of modern and traditional architecture, and it's so clean and sunny and wonderful that it doesn't seem like it could possibly be real.

My apartment is all too real, though. It's not horrible. It's got carpet and a washer/dryer and a dish machine and I got the best room with two windows, it's just a little bare. Shawshank, if you will. And I like my flatmates, they're very nice, but they're a little negative about the Aussie experience and they complain about it. If it's not the prices (things are expensive, the Australian dollar is very strong right now!), it's the accents they can't understand, or that they can't find Clorox wipes, or how people look at them funny when they hear them talk, or how hot it is (uh, SUMMER!) or the television programming is horrible and so on and so forth. I'm really hoping that it's the jetlag and a bit of culture shock and they'll get over it. I can't take this for 6 months! It's just such a downer.

I will say that they're right about one thing: we have an ant problem in out kitchen. So, I'm off to buy ant traps. No worries.

It probably doesn't help that I'm super-excited about everything. It feels really natural to be here, even if it still feels like a dream. It's a strange feeling.

So after subsisting on two packets of Tim-Tams and a large bar of Cadbury chocolate with hazelnuts for a day and a half, I bought some real food. OK, happy Mom?

But here's the major bummer: I can't watch Grey's Anatomy online!! I am freaking out! I mean, the third season starts here tonight, but the last episode I watched was a pseudo-cliffhanger (seriously, like Meredith is really going to drown) and this is killing me! But that's really the only thing that's bothersome. Classes start next Monday, and I've got orientation on Friday so I've got a few days to kill bumming around the beaches. And don't think I won't!

International Travel, 24-Style

Louisville, 3:43 p.m. EST Finally sitting at the gate, waiting for my boarding call. The wait yesterday was horrible. Of course, this morning I awoke to “I think your flight’s been canceled” from my mom. So I yelled at an automated voice system at the airline, and then found out my mom had looked up the wrong flight number. So here I am. Waiting. But this isn’t so bad. Now, all I have to do is get to Sydney. Everything else is in place.

Chicago, 4:50 p.m. CST. I made it to Chicago!!!! Triumph!! Now, if I definitely make this connection (which I will) I will be on my way to San Francisco, and then to Sydney. I think my flight is about an hour delayed (according to the boards) so I’ll be here for about three hours. I’m currently sitting right outside the concourse bar on the floor, because it was the only electrical outlet I could find in this place! People are looking at me a little funny, but I don’t really care all that much. I refuse to deplete my laptop’s battery when there is power to be had in the terminal. I think I’m the only one in this place without a rolly carry on bag. I do have two of them, but they’re both checked to Sydney. I think I’ll have a drink when I get to San Francisco, because I can. That’s the fun part of being 21-- I can drink anywhere at anytime. Which may lead to a little unnecessary expenditures, but the drinking age is 18 in Australia so it’s not like it’s novel to them. No, I am not an alcoholic.

7:48 pm CST I think I’m going to puke. My flight’s been delayed, and it’s looking likely that I’m going to miss my connection in Sydney. Shit. Fuck. I’m going to murder someone. After I puke. The good news is that I’m going to make it to San Francisco tonight. I don’t know if they’ll hold my Sydney connection. There may be a later flight, but perhaps not. And if I miss my flight, then, well, at least I’ll be closer than I was before. Like I said, I still may puke.

The Pacific Ocean 4 a.m. CST, 9 p.m. AST-- So I’ve been on the flight to Sydney for over two hours now. I’m sitting next to some pretty cool cats. The kid on the aisle is from Chicago, and usually goes to Univ. of Michigan (that’s my hometown!!!) and the bloke next to me is going home to Melbourne after traveling the world for a year. We barely made this flight by the skin of our teeth. They did hold it for us, coming from Chicago to San Francisco, and we were the first off the plane and then drug into the dungeons of the airport, onto a shuttle, up an elevator, through the international wing of the airport, and onto the plane. We delayed this flight by over an hour! There were about 30 of us making this run, and you better believe that I was going on ahead of the crowd. I didn’t want to risk being left in San Francisco!

What is amazing is how many people on this flight are Americans studying in Australia this semester. I’ve counted at least 10, and there’s probably more that I haven’t chatted with yet. Not everyone is going to Macquarie. But that’s cool. I’m excited. It really, maybe, just perhaps, is going to happen. Finally, the travel Gods are smiling on me!!

Sydney 7:05 a.m. AST Landing in about a half hour. Watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I’m looking forward to standing up, and sticking on my flip flops. Of course, customs currently stands in the way of all that. It’s been a long night, but worth every minute. I hope. I really really hope.

7:15 a.m. AST- Check this out: LAND AHOY!!!

Delayed

I hate blizzards. No joke. Big Blizzard in Chicago = Erin goes to Sydney TOMORROW. I should be half-way to San Francisco right now, not back in Georgetown watching The Colbert Report rerun and pouting about it. My lil' bro is looking at a second day off from school (you wouldn't believe how mild the weather has to be for him to get off school: it was just raining today!) and I am not looking at the Rocky Mountains from 30,000 ft. Like I said, I'm pouting about it.

We drove all the way to Louisville to be told that my first flight was so delayed that I'd miss my connection in Chicago. And all the airlines were up the same creek, so I couldn't hop a flight on another airline. I will say that the booking agent was very helpful, and did his very best to get me to Sydney today. This is on top of the freak-out that was last night, after I got a call saying my flights had been cancelled (I rescheduled, and then this happened).

The bright side of all this is that now I know one of my bags is 4 lbs. over the weight limit of 50 lbs., so now I can remove the many offending items. I do not want to open those suitcases! I've got them packed so tightly I'm a little scared it's more like a time bomb than a vessel of my wardrobe. When I went last time (4 years ago now) I got 70 lbs. per bag! I would've been doing very good by those standards.

To illustrate, a phone conversation between my mom and dad while Mom and I were at the ticket counter, as follows:
Dad: So, is she freaking out?
Mom: Well, she doesn't have any fingernails left.

I had plans. Lots of them. And nothing worked out. And I know that I have to take it as it comes, and that there are things beyond my control, and that I am incapable of following my own advice. It didn't feel real. It didn't feel like it's actually going to happen. Like I was going to Sydney in real life. And when I finally allowed myself to really get excited (right after I checked in, but before the ticket agent told us the flight to Chicago was delayed and I'd miss my connection), it all gets put off.

Madness is fleeing the country

I've been packing and doing laundry and ensuring I have the correct balance of warm-to-cold weather clothing (under 70 lbs. per bag) and tracking down every last sport sock and not sleeping much for about the past 24 hours. Actually, I do sleep, I just don't fall asleep until past 4 a.m. and the sleep 'til noon (bad time management!!)

And despite all that you see above(that's what my suitcases look like, in case you were wondering), it really doesn't feel real. It's insane. I know in my head that I'm leaving, but my gut is saying, "HA! You're very funny, Brain. You know this isn't actually going to happen." So, perhaps it'll all align when I'm actually in Sydney. I hope it will.

So... it's Georgetown-Louisville-Chicago-San Francisco-Sydney in about 23 hours. Have I mentioned that I get to skip Valentine's Day? I leave San Francisco at 10:30 p.m. on the 13th and arrive in Sydney at 7:50 a.m. on the 15th. Which is exciting. YAY!!

Winter of my discontent

It's cold tonight in Kentucky. I'm leaving for Sydney in a week and am really excited, but mostly shivering because my father won't turn the heating on. I have my passport, my e-tickets, my e-student visa, and even most of my reading material for the trip all set. Now, I just need to pack my bags and get to the airport in Louisville. It's been a tough few months. I'm not going to lie. I've been living at home, and washing dishes in a bar, and pretty much attempting to not go insane. Or freeze, as the case may be.

It looks like I'm going to be interviewing for an internship for Act Now, an Australian website aimed at getting young people involved in their world in general. I'd be a researcher and content for the site. It looks like there's a lot of opportunity to be creative, use multimedia and work on journalistic pieces about things that interest me. I'm pretty excited about it. I think that in the J-school we get a little snotty about where journalism can come from. This could be a great opportunity to craft some awesome, informative journalism from a non-traditional source.

I can't wait to get out of winter. It was so cold tonight that I couldn't get my car to start. Of course, after dragging my dad out of bed to come pick me up at work he started it on the first try. The second I get to Sydney I'm finding a beach with lots of sand and sun and sleeping off the jet lag on it!