Sorrento!

So much has happened that I barely have enough time to sleep let alone type. I'm sorry it's taken me a few days, ie 4... It doesn't feel like it's been four whole days, but it has. Four days of just craziness, that I will explain in the next few blog posts!

So Sorrento, I think when I last left you all off, we got off the plane from LAX. Okay pick up, it's still the 19th of February, we all hop on the bus; I still can't believe that I'm actually in Australia, and that it's not covered in two feet of snow. And the sun is shining and it's warm. I was in jeans from the plane and let me just tell you, it was HOT! I was sweating like a turkey on Thanksgiving. We travel out in a pack headed for some tapas at a place called Phamish. We had a little food and drank amazing fizzy lemonade, that I honestly couldn't tell you the name of, and then we were off to explore St. Kilda on foot! We walked around the streets for a bit and then walked back toward the beach. Let me tell you, the streets were so quiet. It was definitely obvious that we were not from the area.

But the beach was awesome! Took some groups photos of all of us new friends, and waded in the water. And that's when I saw them; my ankles had swelled and it was incredibly unsightly. Very traumatic experience to say the least. And we walked around some more, got to know everyone, spoke in accents, made people laugh, and then went to take pictures of creepy Luna Park. Which apparently is a replica of the one on Coney Island. Doesn't make it any less creepy, but there you go.

We then hopped on the bus again, lots of bus travel, and ventured about two hours till we got to our hotel in Sorrento, we unpacked relaxed for a bit then went to the beach. It was fantastic up until it started raining, but we still stayed for a bit to take some artsy shots, then it started to down pour and we left. We had dinner, met up with the rest of the group then went to watch the sunset at the beach because it had cleared up.

It was absolutely beautiful, I can't even tell you how gorgeous it was, it was unreal. The colors just lit up the sky and even turned the typically blue sea water, pink. After we hiked up to a lookout point and took loads of photos, we climbed down a ways to get closer, we tried to go down to the beach, but it was far too windy. The sand was hitting us in the face, so we stayed for a bit, found out everyone had already left, and then left. I could just sit and watch the sky forever. So that was our Wednesday, I'll be posting one about Thursday-now soon, so much is happening, I have barely enough time to type it all, let alone trying to recall what exactly had happened.

Until next adventure: stay classy, be cool, don't be stupid.

xxo
Christina

Landed in the Land Down Undah!

It's happening. I'm actually here. The other side of the world was just a few plane trips away. And yes I'm alive, and yes, this place is UNREAL!

I'll guess I'll start with the flights. So I woke up at 7:30 am on Monday the 17^th, got the the airport for my shuttle at 8:45. The shuttle arrived, said goodbye to my parents, and met a girl who was also going to Australia. (This is a common theme, apparently almost everyone going on study abroad were leaving that day.) We talked about everything. And then before I knew it we were in JFK and arrived at our terminal. It was 1:30 when we had arrived and we were all set to get our bags checked and to go through security, but we had found out that the counter didn't open till 2:45. Cue boring montage of us just sitting outside the bathrooms till 2:45.

Finally 2:45 came and we got our bags checked, mine biggest one was 21.8kg, just .2 under the limit, thank the gods! Security was fine, then we waited some more, I watched Megamind. Fantastically underrated film btw. Then 6:45 came and we were boarding. I was on a flight to LAX, the first stop before the long haul to Melbourne. The only interesting part of that flight was that I had two empty seats next to me, no one was there! Score! So that part ended, got to LAX, first went the wrong way to the gate and then sat for another hour and a half, my flight to Melbourne wasn't until 11:30 pm PST. So I was listening and watching all the people, and then you see all these college students, and they all are studying abroad, and it's all through Arcadia.

So I get seated on the flight and there are 2 girls and a guy that are also in my row. We all start talking because Rob says, “I'm pretty sure everyone in these few rows are with Arcadia.” And he was 100% right. The girls introduced themselves as Tory and shoot now I'm spacing on her name, but she was an Aussie from Adelaide, heading home from 3 weeks of skiing and touring America. She was telling us all about what we need to see in Australia, like Bondi Beach and Byron Bay are musts apparently! And she was just really awesome and it made me even more excited for these months ahead.

Now the flight itself was long. It seems like forever while you're on it, then all of a sudden you're off and have to go through customs. I tried to stay up for as long as I could, to avoid jet lag as much as possible, but I was out within 2 hours. Now the flight was going to be 14 hours and 30 minutes long. And the captain told us that this was fast, and once we had gotten to the end, he said we were 40 minutes early. So in a matter of speaking, we were actually flying.

This flight was a bit of up and down, and no not just from turbulence. Every time I went to sleep I would wake up expecting a lot of time to have passed to only look at the monitor and see that there were 11 and a half hours to go. This happened all the time until we were half way through. Tory was kind enough to give me both Benedryl and Advil, a few minutes later, I was out; and I didn't wake up until there were 2 and a half hours left and it was 7 am Melbourne time. I was out cold, Rob tried to wake me up the use the bathroom, but ended up just climbing over me, and I didn't even know till he told me after I woke up. Yeah it was a good sleep.

Got off the plane, went through customs which was super easy, then just got my luggage, told them I had nothing to declare, and I was out. I was actually in Australia. And the first thing I saw when I stepped outside was the sunshine. THE SUN! Going from negative degrees back home to this is just amazing! So warm, and it was a mild day, which I am very thankful for. All I needed was to get out of the jeans I had been wearing since 8 am 2 days ago, yeah I time traveled in a plane, kind of a big deal.

I was just so ready to go. And I am just so excited for the next few days in Melbourne and Sorrento! I'll post another blog with those few days on it as soon as I can! And just as an FYI, it's already becoming my favorite place, the beaches... alright well I'll talk to you later, it's breakfast time!

xxo

Christina