My First Australian Moments

Ok, so I’ve now been in Australia for 31 hours, and I’m not sure if I can remember everything that has happened.

I left my house in dallas at 4pm Monday afternoon. My dad drove my mother and me to dfw. With a very short line, we easily made our way to the ticketing booth. After off-centering our overweight bags on the scale so they measured less than 50 lbs we got our boarding passes and headed to the security line. Here my father parted ways with us. I cried. A good amount. But my mother and I got in line and problem free made it to our terminal. We boarded our plane on time, after I drank about a gallon large smoothie, and we were designated a window and middle seat. But low and behold, a strange little lady was in the window seat, so my mother and I fortunately got the aisle and middle. I slept most of the way on the plane to LAX, but was awoken every now and then when the strange lady at the window would rub my thigh with her foot. She was way weird.
We arrived in LAX in the gate directly next to the gate where our plane for Sydney was departing. Amazing, we don’t have to walk anywhere. We settle ourselves in some seats and I made some calls while my mother walked around investigating the stores in our terminal. When my mother returned she had learned our plane, scheduled to leave at 11:45pm is now leaving at 1:40 am. Shut up. It was 9:30 at this moment. My mother snuggles up on the ground to take a nap and I watch some episodes of ‘the office’ on my new ipod (xmas gift, thanks mom and dad!).

Nothing too amazing happened in those 4 hours at the airport. Saw what seemed to be some undergrad students going abroad to Sydney gathering and meeting one another. Saw what an airport looks like at 1am… closed and empty (I didn’t get to buy a midnight snack). Saw what my mother looks like sleep-deprived (a little scatter-brained). But soon enough, at 1:45, they began boarding about 700 of us, and not in a timely or organized manner. “Line up between the pylons in the center to the right” was repeated over and over. Huh… what does that mean.. no one knew. Well while waiting for them to call our row number, a ticketing agent said my mother’s bag was too large. So she took it. And my mother and I just hoped we’d find it when we landed in Sydney. When they took our boarding passes to shove through the machine, it beeped and we had to stand at the door for about 3 mins after checking out passports. My heart was racing, omg, they aren’t gonna let us on the planes. But ta-da! They handed them back. Eventually we were on a plane, with stewards and stewardesses who spoke with Australian accents. Oh man, I’m really gonna do this.

The flight was more or less uneventful. It was 14 hours long. I was fairly wide awake, so I looked through our movie selection. They had tons! And brand new ones! I ended up watching some episodes of the office they had, watched Marie Antoinette (it was horrible), the prestige (Christian bale is so my husband), and fast food nation (pretty good, except for showing all the beheading of the cows). Anyway, like I said, nothing really happened. And half a day later we found ourselves on Australian ground. Somehow while in the air, my mother and I did not experience a February 6th. This world blows my mind. Once we deplaned, we made our way to the line at customs. Oh thank goodness it’s only 300 people long. And no air conditioning, in 90 degree weather. Amazing.

Because we had left LAX so late, we knew we were going to miss our connecting flight in Sydney. But the airline had already booked us on the next plane leaving. However, customs was taking so long, we weren’t sure we were going to make it. Ok, well we will just try to get our baggage quickly. Btw, the customs lady didn’t ask us anything, she just stamped our passports. What if I had an apple? Or a snake? They would never know. Anyway, at the baggage claim, our 4 suitcases arrived undamaged. However, my mother’s carryon that was taken at the gate in LAX is nowhere to be found. We wait and wait. 10 minutes later with our hearts racing and time wasting, it finally comes strolling around on the carousel. Thank goodness my mother won’t have to wear the same shirt for her entire stay in Australia.
Ok, I realize this story sounds a bit boring. But we were freaking out, my mom’s carry on was missing! we were gonna miss our plane! We had 2 more long lines to stand in! But fine, we make it to the transfer counter to board the next plane. And yes, we missed the flight we were moved to, but don’t worry we now have 28 minutes til the next plane leaves for Canberra. We give her our luggage and she directs us towards security which doesn’t lead to a gate, but to a bus. We are the last to board the crowded bus, and we go on a 7 minute drive around the airport. Are we driving to Canberra? How big is this airport? We get off the plane and walk in, hooray, we see gates! We are at gate 4, we think our plane is at gate 15. the tv says our plane is now boarding. We quickly start to walk towards our gate. The next tv says ‘final call’. So I run. I run as fast as I can. It was like in the home alone movie. I was juking and jutting and jumping and breathing heavily. I see the sign for gate 15. I make my way around the corner… and no one is there. Then an older man in uniform appears and I say ‘are you still boarding?’

His response: ‘well if you have a boarding pass, of course love’. My mother comes around the corner a little bit later, and we go through the door… to another bus. Ok… where is this plane. Oh, it’s 30 feet away. Glad we got on this second bus. The plane is one of those baby planes that holds maybe 40 people. Then we were delayed another 20 minutes waiting on passengers. I wonder if they would have waited for us. Anyway, let me just say, the ride was a bit bumpy. So we finally make it to Canberra. We go to baggage, I meet the ANU greeters (who were very nice) and our baggage doesn’t show. But since our plane took off so late, the next plane from Sydney is only 5 minutes behind us. And hoorah! Our luggage was on that plane.
The ANU greeters give us almost like a gift card for a taxi. He takes us to my dorm hall, we don’t pay any money, and we walk in. yayay! I’m here. I then stand in line at the front desk for about 15 minutes while the workers are having language barrier problems with the new students ahead of me. I make it up there, and thank goodness they know who I am and they have a room for me. Oh but wait, ‘you paid 927 dollars, you still owe us 9.” 9 dollars. I owe them 9 dollars? Fine.
So I go up to the 5th floor, find my room, and it’s cute! Brand new, clean, but HOT. Take a quick look around… no AC. Internet doesn’t work. Hhmm… I don’t know how I can live like this. We check our watches and it’s 5:40. apparently all stores in Australia close at 5. well, my mother and I have no food, no linens, no towels, no shampoo, we better find something. We find the new mall, only a 10 minute walk. And it’s like a real mall, in a real city. Amazing! We find The Big W (kinda like a wal-mart, but smaller, and strange with what they offer) and luckily it is open until 6! And right now it’s 5:58. we rush in to get the basics, they start turning off the lights, but we manage to walk out with a pillow, linens, towels, toiletries, and a fan. However we look at prices, and this place is so expensive, and this is the cheap store! 8 dollars for a can opener, 16 dollars for a plastic filing box. But seriously, what is wrong with these people. Everything else in the mall is closed. And it’s 6:05!
We start walking back to my dorm room, and on the basement floor on the parking garage next to my dormitory is an IGA; a small grocery store. Here we spend 100 bucks getting the ‘necessities’ for a kitchen… and they have strange products in here as well. No juice but cheese flavored ‘tasty’. I don’t know what that means. I grab the Colby cheese.
We get back to my room, unpack our goodies, and walk over to my mom’s hotel on campus. It’s beautiful. A huge courtyard in the middle, with a koi pond, statues, and her room is rather large! With her own patio! This should be my dorm room. Anyway, it’s 9:00, we haven’t rested or eaten. The hotel has a restaurant that closes in 30 mins, so we make our way over and we don’t care how expensive it is, this is all we have. Looking at the menu, I could have ordered kangaroo, lamb brains, or a mussel salad, but I went with asparagus wrapped in spinach. It was so good and 13 dollars.

Anyway, that was my first day in Australia. Full of tense moments, anxiety, sweat, confusion, long lines, achy feet, and non-stop movement. But I’m here. I leave my mother at her hotel and walk back to my dorm in the dark at 10 at night. But don’t worry, I walked with a ballpoint pen in hand to stab an aggressor if necessary.
So I’m sorry if this was boring, nothing too humorous happened on the way over, just a lot of delays, but so goes traveling. However, do not fear, the next few days were quite ridiculous. My most favorite moment was pushing a big w shopping cart (full of bright pink accoutrements) the 10 blocks through the city from the mall to my dorm room. And one more thing, my television has 5 channels of basic television… news and thank goodness some reality television, but it has 5 more channels of security feed around the building. One at the front door, one in the common room, and 3 for elevator waiting areas. I can watch people fumble with their belongings searching for their card key to enter the building, wait for the elevator, or play ping pong downstairs. This is totally weird. But I’ve watched, don’t think I haven’t.
Thanks for reading, and I assure you my next blogs will have better stories, because I’ve been making quite a fool of myself. And I have a lot of questions. Maybe y’all can help me answer them.

I love and miss you all!