Some Pictures

This is the view from outside the door to my room. As you can see the room opens straight onto a covered walk. Those stairs head down to the kitchen area. Yes I live in a tropical paradise...if only it would stop raining.

This the view of the Kitchen, the door to the right is to the courtyard. We all get our own bins for food and such.

This is only one of the MANY awesome buildings on Sydney Uni's campus. Notice the really cool pedestrian walk signs.

This is the really great overlook from the Law building on Sydney Uni's campus. In front is this really awesome park with some huge trees and in the back there is Downtown Sydney. You can see Sydney tower on the left. The harbor is in the back (you can't see it from here).

Food and Other Such Minutia

I thought I'd update you all on a few minor things relating to my daily life...

Food is KINDA expensive here, so we are all planning on eating in a lot. The hostel has pots and pans and other such items to cook with, and we all get our own buckets to keep food in the communal kitchen. They also give us small buckets with a plate, bowl, cup, fork, spoon, knife. This morning I had Corn Flakes.

Baggage issues: WELL so I may be a bit in trouble when it comes to flying Qantas airlines within Australia. The baggage requirements are a bit confusing and it seems that I may have to pay because I'm not going to be within the weight limits. Michael said there is a chance they won't actually weigh mine...so we'll see. The issue was that I was under the impression that I could check up to two bags at 50lbs each but after further review the real requirement is two bags with a total weight of no more than 50lbs. So I'll keep you posted.

The final two member of our group are getting here today. Gretchen is here already and Jul is coming later today.

We received our transportation passes yesterday which means of course we went to the harbor yesterday. More on that to come soon.

Sydney Uni Rocks

The University of Sydney, or 'Sydney Uni' is really, really cool. We spent the morning wandering as we waited for our rooms to be ready, and we spent a good deal of the time at this university. I shall post pictures sometime in the future...

Also, we are staying in the suburb/district of Sydney called Newtown. Newtown has sort of an artsy, hippie, college town vibe and is a perfect place for us to stay. We actually enter our Hostel complex through a gate and garage on the ground floor of this really cool narrow street. and again I promise to post some pictures soon.

Poo Tickets

Just so you all are aware, Toilet Paper is occasionally referred to as 'poo tickets.' We had just read about that in a guide book when one of the male flight attendants actually said it. It's a real thing, I think it's awesome and I thought you'd like to know.

Plane Rides

On a typical Tuesday afternoon in Cincinnati Ohio...

My ride, Emily Craig's wonderful parents, pulled into the driveway around 12:35 on Tuesday June 16th--and of course, I was still not ready to go. So I stuffed my face with the wonderful and nutritious Ham and Cheese grilled sandwich my father made for me and through the final things together. Long story short...we were on our way to Dayton, OH. About halfway there I realized that I had forgotten my Australian money at home, so I was not off to a good start. As it turned out, there was a 5/3 atm at Dayton Airport and a nice lady at a currency exchange booth in Chicago O'Hare that saved the day. So crises averted.

We were lucky enough to have an Australian Flight Attendant on our flight from Dayton to Chicago. She was really cool and very jealous that we got to go and she had to fly to Seattle. We got a lot of stories and advice from her and I was feeling pretty pumped. We were pretty disappointed that not one of our other flight attendants from Chicago to LA or from LA to Sydney was an Aussie.

There was only one real speed bump on the road/airway to Sydney... DUE to the AMAZING (and please note the sarcasm) AMAZING weather in Chicago they were only using two runways and our captain notified us that he couldn't even see how many planes were ahead of us to take off. It turns out our plane was delayed about 1.5 hours and we were scheduled to land in LA around 10:10PM west coast time and by the time we taxied to the gate it was 10:30. This caused a problem because our flight to Sydney was expected to leave at 10:30. We were very lucky, apparently the Sydney airport doesn't allow planes to arrive before 6 AM and so our flight was delayed which gave us just enough time to meet up with our friends in LA and board our plane.

There were six (of the ten) of us on our flight out of LA. We had planned our seats so that there was a clump of us within a few rows. I was sitting next to my friend Jenna. The 14 hour flight seemed to fly by, we watched a few awful movies, had two meals and a snack that were actually pretty good, and tried to do some reading for school. The goal was to try and spread out the amount of time sleeping so that we weren't so jet-lagged the next day. As I said earlier the plane left at 10:30 LA time, which was 1:30 Ohio time, so we were already pretty tired from a day of traveling. We flew in over the harbor and landed at 6AM thursday, Sydney Time or 4PM Wednesday Ohio Time (getting the hang of this yet?). We were pretty delirious. We got off the plane, grabbed our checked luggage, made it through customs, and crammed into a large taxi-van to take us to our hostel, Billabong Gardens (google them to see pictures of where I'm staying)

sorry this post was so long and boring, I promise I'll get better.

Traveling Down Under

G'Day Mates! It is currently about 3:30 pm Australian time (Thursday) in Sydney. Which means yes I am coming to you from 14 hours in the future.

so....I'll be using this blog to post pictures and travel stories (and perhaps some quips and fun anecdotes) to record my travels throughout Australia this summer. Please feel free to follow along and see just exactly what it is I'm doing on the other side of the world!