Australia- The Beginning

Hello from Brisbane, Australia!

It is my second day here in Australia and I've already experienced so many things from petting a kangaroo to sitting through my first lecture and having a go at the "aussie lingo." Before getting to the Land Down Under I had one epic large travel day to say the least. Leaving my team in Arizona I had a very quick plane ride (1 hour) only to find myself in LAX at 3pm with...my flight leaving for Brisbane at 11:30pm!!! What did I do for so long? Well, I reached a goal of longest time in my life for sitting at starbucks and at one table. To be exact, 3 or so hours before I saw a few familiar people from my stalking of photos in my course book and quickly, out of pure need of people, introduced myself. Time after that seemed to fly by fairly quick and was one big blur of names and faces to be memorized in the first few days. My anticipation was unexplainable, even though I had a 13 or 14 hour plane ride ahead of me. To my excitement I found out we were on a 747!! Two story plane that I have only been on once before..they are sooo awesome. The plane ride went by so quickly mainly because in an attempt to watch two movies at separate times I got through a combined 2 minutes and slept 9 hours. I was only awake for the last 5ish hours before landing. It was about 8 am in Brisbane so I am really glad I got some sleep and we were off straight away after going through customs, which is always a blast.

Funny story-- So you have to claim food, well of course I said no food was with me. I remembered at the last moment that I had a thing of ritz crackers that I bought in Arizona and so I figured I'd be good and tell the guy and he literally laughed at me and said just go...obviously ritz crackers are of no worry to Australia...just what i thought!

Day 1 (post plane ride)

Went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary! I got to hug a koala and pet a kangaroo...what could be better than that! Walking around I finally began to feel like I was in Australia. Secretly I was hoping that someone in my group would be kangaroo kicked so we had a good story, but all went well. My next hope: that the kangaroos would be like the deer in Nara, Japan and bow to me when I bowed, that was also a major fail...oh well looks like I'll have to wait a few weeks for bowing deer :) After walking around the sanctuary ooing and awing over the cute australian animals (DUH), we headed to the hotel in Brisbane. On the coach ride in, aka bus ride, I was astonished how many hills and city buildings were in Brisbane. Also, the amount of Asians! Looks like my summer will be gloriously Asian filled...can I practice my japanese in australia? HA. Anyways, so we got settled in our rooms: I am with two other girls and we have a little kitchen equipped with everything needed for a little home cooked, inexpensive meal!...perfect. We got some groceries, realized how expensive things were, and got a group together of about 25 for dinner. Food here is about the same but just more expensive compared to home, but I'm sure I'll have some food on the Barbie soon enough for australian-sake! First night done at 10:30pm...so tired and off to bed for the 7:30 am wakeup.

Day 2: First real day in Brisbane

Today all 108 of us met in the lobby to walk for the first time to the area where we will be going to our lectures. Our group got separated about 4x into small groups, all expect the first group that was COMPLETELY LOST in Brisbane until the TA came running back to us. Our first meeting was about Aborigines and these two women, with veryyy soothing voices, talked for 2 hours about their customs and ways. It was very interesting but I quickly ran for coffee in our 15 minute break. Next was a orientation for the trip and then a lecture by Mikell. Now, after our day of lecture and a unfortunate quick trip to the Queensland Museum, I am sitting at McDonalds which has the ONLY free wifi here in all of Brisbane so far. Dinner in about 15 minutes and I hope to write soon! Thanks for checking in :D

In about 5 more days (i believe) we will be traveling to Binna Burra- Lamington National Park and I CAN'T WAIT! before that though, skydiving maybe?!?