The Beginning

The morning of my departure was crazy!! The night before I had one suitcase packed with all of my clothes perfectly weighing 45 pounds and I had laid out everything to pack in my second suitcase and carry on. When I actually packed them in the morning, they were both overweight and could barely close. My parents and I spent all morning moving things around to balance out the weight. Unfortunately, we hadn’t solved the issue before it was time to leave so I threw everything into a bag and brought it along to figure out in LA. After everything was settled we had some family bonding time while we waited for our flights. We tried to figure out how I’d carry all of my suitcases by myself. My dad had bought two belts that we used to tie the carry on top of a big suitcase and then tie the other suitcase to the first one to carry them kind of like a train. Soon, it was time for my parents to leave and they bid me goodbye and hugged me several times. It was weird watching them walk away knowing I wouldn’t see them for 4 months.

Once I got to my gate, I found a group with the Arcadia program and sat with them. Unfortunately I had a middle seat on the 16 hour flight. There was a guy in my group sitting in the row in front of me who had an aisle seat. He asked the lady next to me to switch places so we could be together but on the other side of her was her friend so she said no, then I asked the girl sitting next to me on the window side and she was a mess but said yes. Then I asked the guy if I could have the window seat and smiled innocently, and he let me have it and he had the middle seat. The flight wasn’t as bad as I thought; I talked to people, slept, and watched a movie. The plane had a skycam, which was really cool because we could see basically what the pilot can see! We landed in Melbourne in the rain and waited forever to get our luggage. Then we went to find the Arcadia staff and headed on our 2 hour bus ride to Sorrento.

We stopped in the middle of the trip for lunch and saw a guy walking around with an Alpaca!! We tried to take pictures but he wouldn’t let us and said we had to pay, people are so weird. We continued on the bus and then stopped in a national park and went outside to look for kangaroos. We only expected to see a few but after we spotted one, suddenly about 40 heads popped up and a huge bunch of kangaroos were just staring at us. Then it started raining and all I wanted was to be back on the bus.  

Our “hotel” in Sorrento was kind of like a bread and breakfast type thing. I stayed in a room with two really nice girls from Ohio. We walked down to the beach and it was FREEZING!!! I definitely was unprepared and all I brought was one jacket because it’s supposed to be hot in Australia!! I borrowed a cardigan from one of the girls and basically wore that and my jacket 24/7. We had lectures for the rest of the day and by about 9 o’clock we were all falling asleep because of jetlag. We went back to our rooms; I took the COLDEST and SHORTEST shower of my life and then went to bed. In the middle of the night I had a dream I was driving a racecar and was turning to the right and then suddenly I woke up halfway falling off my bed!!! I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. Anyways, the next day we had a few lectures then had free time for a few hours to walk around Sorrento. This time, I was smart and took a shower when no one else was so I had hot water. After dinner, we had a Shwazee band play and we all danced and it was really fun! One of the guys in our group was drunk and he made everything hilarious.

Sunday we headed back to Melbourne for one night. Our hotel in Melbourne was GORGEOUS! We had suites this time with 4 girls to one room. There was a kitchen and living room; it looked like an apartment. We also had balconies with beautiful views! We had free time all day so the first thing we did was look for a place to eat. We are an indecisive group so we all split up. After lunch, we just walked around the city and then made our way to watch an AFL game! It’s kind of a mix of soccer and football. I never quite understood the rules. It was Richmond vs. Port Adelaide. The stadium was huge and shaped like a circle. We sat in general seating way on top and then a group left but we decided to stay. Just when we were about to leave, one of the guys in our group found us seats in the front row! At first we had cheered for Richmond but then the front row was on the Port side so we cheered along with them. The people were very nice and welcoming. They even invited us to an after party! We joined them and some people entered a raffle and one guy in our group won a bottle of wine! After the game, we walked home 30 minutes in the cold and then got ready and went out to dinner. Everyone wanted to go to Chinatown but me and another boy decided to go on a “date” to Greek food. Little did I know this kid was going to be wasted and tell me his life story, interesting experience. After dinner we went back to the hotel and waited for the rest of the group. When they all got back half wanted to go to a rooftop bar and the rest of us decided to stay in and drink wine since it was freezing outside.

The next morning, we got up early and headed to the airport. We flew from Melbourne to Brisbane and then drove an hour to Gold Coast and finally made it to BOND UNIVERISTY! I had a lot of trouble carrying my bags, but I used the engineering strategy my dad taught me before I left J Once we checked into our rooms, there were roommate issues and we got switched around and I ended up with a girl who wasn’t in our group. Luckily, she was American as well; she’s from Nebraska but goes to school in Colorado. Being the neat freak that I am, the first thing I did when I got to my room was go to the front desk and ask for cleaning supplies. They looked at me like I was crazy and told me the rooms were already clean but I insisted so she gave me some spray and a towel and I wiped down all the furniture and left all the drawers open so the smell of chemicals fade for the next day so I can unpack. We went to dinner and found a really good Thai restaurant walking distance from our school. I got pad thai, my favorite! After dinner I came back and took the best shower I had in days and then got ready to go to bed.