I'm Newi in Town: Hello from the Other Side...of the World

Hiya, friends and family!

Reporting to you live from Newcastle, NSW, Australia. I have officially made it and pretty much recovered from jet lag!

Let me catch you up on what happened since I last wrote. I boarded my fifteen hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. I watched five movies. I slept...a lot. Super interesting, right?

Well, once I landed in Sydney, things did start to get a bit interesting. First of all, customs took no time at all. Since I am used to the lengthy security processes of the United States, this came as a huge shock for me. Honestly, I just walked up to the desk, showed them my passport and entry card, and walked right on through with my luggage. I guess the Aussie attitude really is "No Worries."

After I got into the main part of the airport, I really started to freak out. Here I was, exhausted, holding 100 pounds of luggage, and desperately searching for the shuttle to my hotel.

What I didn't realize, though, was that the shuttle no longer existed, none of the drivers would take me there, and even with a taxi, it would be at least a couple hours before I got the taxi and got to the hotel because of bad traffic. So, I changed my whole plan, got on a shuttle to Newcastle, and rode two and a half hours along the Australian coast to my new city. (I also got a quick view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge!!)

In the shuttle, though, I realized that the shuttle only went to the university. Since I had no idea where I was sleeping that night, I went along with it. Luckily, I texted Elise (one of the other study abroad students in Newi from the U of A), and she had an extra bed in her hotel room. So then it was only a matter of getting there.

After fumbling around the campus and asking for directions from ten different people, I found a bus stop for the bus that could take me to Jesmond, the neighborhood of the hotel. I waited for approximately 25 minutes for that bus, and then desperately attempted to get my luggage into the bus whilst still maintaining my sanity.

Here's the great thing, though--Australians are some of the kindest, most helpful people in the world. With the help of two kind women on the bus, I was able to get in and ride to the hotel.

That was pretty much all the excitement I could handle for the day, so after I went with Elise to the shopping centre, I went to bed at about 6:30 p.m. I did get to eat some Tim-Tams, though, which are downright delicious.