First Day In Australia

I finally have the internet!!!  YAAAAAY!  I have SO much to tell everybody about these last two weeks!  I was hoping to post everything in one big entry, but it ended up being over 10 pages long in MS word and I don’t want to eat up too much of your time at once.  I figured the best way to handle this would be to post something new every day until I’ve caught up to present time!  So bookmark this page and keep checking back!

 

 

Ok, first I want to give a big shout out to the wonderful people I spent time with and met in LA.  I would could write an entire book on what happened that weekend, but unfortunately right now I really need to focus on the southern hemisphere.

So here is part one of my backlogged Australian journal. I hope you enjoy reading it:

 

First day in Australia:

So where do I begin??  I guess the best place would be walking onto flight 839 in LAX.  I was absolutely terrified about sitting still for over 14 hours, but it ended up being tolerable.  My seat was crammed and uncomfortable, but it was next to a very nice younger Chinese/Australian girl who’s ear I talked off for the first few hours of the flight.  I probably asked her a million questions about Australia and made her give me pointers on what little mandarin I can speak (so far I can tell people that I don’t speak mandarin, and I can order two beers.  Not one, only two).  After that I fell asleep for about 10 hours and woke up just about there! 

Once I got off the plane and claimed my bags I got immediate attention form every customs agent in the airport.  Anybody that had a chance to see my guitar’s flight case will know why!  There must have been 12 different officers that walked up before I even got to the front of the line and asked me what was in the case.  When I would tell them it was a guitar a few got excited and started short guitar conversations with me.  So far people seem nice I guess!

While waiting in line I watched them tear apart people’s luggage, searching every little pocket and flap, open every container, and basically separating everything regardless of whether it should or should not be in more than one piece.  When I got up to the inspection station I expected them to pull out the rubber gloved and lube, but the guy simply asked, “do you have any food from the US? “

“Yes I do” I answered .

I held up my fresh pack of Mentos with a big smile on my face.

Aaaaaaaaand, Freeze frame!

(Yes, I actually did this.  I really hope they have Mentos here in Australia!  It has become an obsessions!)

“Ok, you’re good to go.  Next!”  he repied

“Really?” I exclaimed in amazement!  “You don’t even want to go rummaging through my guitar case?”  Immediately realizing that that is probably a really stupid thing to say.

“Nope.”

I decided not to push the topic and quickly moved along. 

 

I may have moved along a bit too quickly because I forgot to check in at the new student desk to get all of my information and arrival paperwork.  Instead I hopped into a cab and we started driving.

 

“Where to?”  the driver asked.

“Wesley College building in the University of Sydney” I answered.

“Where is that?”

“Um…  I don’t know”

Shit!

“Just drop me off at the University of Sydney.  It is between Camperdown and Darlington off City Road.  I’ll find it from there.”  I finally said.

This is exactly what he did.

 

If you don’t mind I’m going to sidetrack from my story for a second.  Actually, even if you do mind it’s going to happen anyway.  What are you going to do about it?  Travel back in time fly here and stop me??   I’d like to see you try, jerk!  Ha!  Oh geez, I’ve gotten sidetracked from sidetracking.  Ok, back to my off topic topic:  It is HOT here!  The people who live here have been saying that it is uncharacteristically hot for Sydney, but for me it was INSANE!  It was SNOWING when I left Philly, and now it is in the mid 30’s (mid to high 90’s in F)!  I am wearing WAY too much clothing for this kind of heat.  In fact, if I had a better razor I could have shaved my entire body and walked around the streets naked pouring ice water on myself with one hand and fanning myself with my other and I still would have been too hot!  To much info?  Absolutely, but I wanted to make sure I got my point across.  That point being I am unbearably hot!  A roasting inerno!  Ok, back to the story!

 

So here I am somewhere on campus literally dripping with sweat carrying a giant duffle bag, a guitar case the size and probably weight of me, a large suitcase, and a medium sized bag for my computer.  So have one, two, three, four bags and how many arms.  Well there’s one, and two…  hhhhmmm

 

Did I mention I lost the wheels to my luggage so I couldn’t drag it behind me?  I really need to get a picture of all of this later so you can see what I had to carry.  If I get around to it I will post it for you.

 

I need a damn sherpa or something.  I just started wandering around campus panting wheezing and dripping, lugging my bags behind me in all sorts of strange and probably spine damaging ways for what seemed forever until finally I found it, Wesley College!   The building I was staying at looked like a small castle!  I was so excited!!!  I crawled my way to the door and literally collapsed into the entrance.  A man ran out to me and asked if I needed medical help, but I just told him that all I wanted was to check in as quickly as possible so I could shower!

 

A friendly lady walked out to me and showed me to my room.  She opened the door for me and I stepped in.  Picture a closet with a poorly maintained cot, but the cot clearly had been slept in recently and the sheets had not been changed in the last decade or so.  The large windows that looked out to campus didn’t even have curtains!  Lucky for me I think she noticed the extremely disappointed look on my face, or maybe just felt bad for me because I looked and smelled like I was an inch from death and decided to find a nicer room with curtains and clean sheets.

She eventually came back with news that she moved me to room 386 in the “New Wing” (which was ironically a very old wing).

In the brochure it said that all single rooms had bathrooms and linen service.  What this meant was that the building had bathrooms somewhere in it and that they give you sheets when you first get there, but they aren’t necessarily clean.  Even my “clean” sheets had mysterious sticky stains, but I decided to just try and ignore them.  What doesn’t kill me can only make me ill or maybe give me a rash.  Maybe both.