Australia!

So I made it to Australia!

I'm a little late on getting an update on here, but since when am I ever on time with anything?  Unless it's an important assignment that's worth most of my grade, then I try to be, but other wise... not so much.

The past couple days have been orientation.  While I had planned on doing something yesterday, I bludgered and didn't, so I had to do it all today.  But I didn't do that either.

Anyways, let's start from the beginning and do a quick recap of this past week.

Saturday afternoon, I said good-buy to Mom and Dad and boarded my plane to Los Angeles.  That was a relatively uneventful flight, besides the fact that I got to see the desert for the first time, as well as getting to see parts of the Rockies that I had never seen before.  I also got to see the desert quickly turn into the mountainous landscape that is part of LA. Which was really cool!

Upon arriving in LA, I found my luggage, hulled it around with me while I took a couple pictures, and then got lost.  When I reach the Air France area, I asked the guy, and he sent me back the way I came, passed where I had started and to the opposite end of the building.  Luckily, it wasn't a super huge terminal!  haha!

And then, of course, the Air New Zealand people were on a break.  So I had to wait.  And so I rearranged my luggage.  And rearrange it I did.  And then, when it came time to check in - finially! - she had me rearrange it a bit more so my carryon wasn't quite so heavy.

Then it was on to security.  For that, I had to go through the body scanner thing, something I hoped I'd never have to do, as I feel it's an invasion of my personal space, thank you very much.

Anyways, after that, I found the gate that my plane was leaving from, and then headed around to see what there was to do for my four-plus hour layover in Los Angeles.  I bought a key chain, and found someplace to have something to eat (a place called Nate'n'Als Beverly Hills) which was really good and super fast.  And wasn't too expensive, either.

And then it was the wait.  I wrote an email (which I couldn't send) to my parents and listened to music while I waited.  And then, I realised I was at the wrong gate.  I was at gate 23 when I should have been at gate 23A, whoops, my bad.  haha, no biggie, I'm sure lots of people were all mixed up between the two gates.

On the flight over to Auckland, NZ, I sat in seat 55B, between two older men, Tony at the window, Paul on the isle.  They fed us shortly after take off, so.... yeah.  And then they dimmed the lights, and that was spectacular, as they went from pink to purple to blue before going dark.  I tired watching a movie, but my headset was half broken, so it was just uncomfortable.  And then, I fell asleep, and when I woke, it was still dark.  I found out my screen had stopped working so that I couldn't track the flight and how much longer we had, but that I could still watch movies, etc.  I ended up watching This Means War, which was pretty good.

When we came within seeing distance of Auckland, Tony pointed it out and let me lean over him to snap a few pictures of what we could see of the lights.  The pictures seemed to have turned out to be not much more than a few blurs in a black screen.  Oh well.  My suggestion is to use your imagination, haha!

Anyways, when I landed, since my bag was already checked through to Sydney, all I had to do was head to the international connection security area.  On the way, I started talking with someone who had been sitting somewhere nearby.  He had been coming from San Francisco, where the weather in the summer was about the same as the weather in the winter where he's from, Brisbane.  Which is kind of weird and kind of cool at the same time.  I was kind of surprised to find out that he knew of CSU, seeing as the few Australians we had previously mentioned to that I was coming here had no idea of the school at all.  Which is kind of funny, seeing at it's apparently one of the largest Universities in New South Wales.

Anyways, the security guys very very friendly, especially for before 6AM.  But it helped keep me going.  When I had finished collecting my things, I ended up a little lost, seeing as I had gone up the wrong stairs without knowing.  I asked someone where to go, and found it after a few minutes of walking.  Shortly after I arrived, they started boarding the plane.  This time, I didn't get to go in the first couple sets as I didn't have a seat at the very back of the plane, but I didn't care.  It gave me a bit more time without being cramped in the small plane seat again....

On the flight to Sydney, I was thinking of catching a nap, as I was still very sleepy, but it didn't happen.  I ended up waking up while I was watching The Lorax and eating the second breakfast I had been served on a plane in just over two hours.  (Did I forget to mention that they gave us breakfast on the flight to Auckland, too?  Well, they did.)  So I had the fruit and muffin from that and not the main part, as it didn't look appetizing.

And then, I decided that I might be able to finish another movie, as I had a little less than an hour and a half, so I ended up watching I Don't Know How She Does It, which was the first movie I had tried to watch, but had stopped.  It was pretty good, though, and I'm glad I did finish watching.  (I'm glad I watched The Lorax, too, as it too was alright.)  Soon after, we landed, and then it was off to customs and immigration.  Since they give you a card to fill out on the airplane, I was wall ready to go when I got there, so I jumped right in line and was good to go.  When I got to the front of the line, the only problem I had was that my passport wasn't reading.  But once that was cleared up, I went and found my bag, so then I was hulling the two of them again along with my backpack.  I didn't have to get my bags searched any more than with the scanner, so I was good to go after that, so then I headed through the airport, finding out where I needed to go in order to catch the train,

And then, once I found that, it was pretty easy.  Once I got to Sydney Central, I got a little lost, as nothing was really marked that well, but asking someone sent me in the right direction.  After checking my bags, I went to see about exploring Sydney a little.  But I didn't want to get lost, so I didn't.  A while later, I boarded my train after I saw that my bags were on the train.  Only, a little while later, they switched tracks, so I was wondering if my bags got onto the right train.

I found out in Lithgow, after not worrying about them, that they didn't.  They were on the wrong part of the right train, so they were still at Central Station after the train had left.  Which meant that when I got to Bathurst, I wouldn't be able to go straight to bed.
I found my room once I was taken to campus (I had sent in an arrival request form which meant that someone would pick me up from the station, which is awesome) and.... it wasn't ready for me.  There were no curtains, and there wasn't any sheets or bedding.  And there also wasn't a mattress or a deadbolt on the door.  I met one of the RAs and she helped me with most of that, as well as took me to dinner at the dinning hall.
At six, I re-met-up with the guy who had originally picked me up at the train station so that I could get my bags and so that he could pick up some more international students, who are also on exchange from their school (they're all from the same one) in China.  I met Adam (his English name, :)) before leaving.
Once I was back in my room, I made up the bed, and fell asleep, even without a pillow....  I sent an email off to my parents when I woke in the middle of the night, and then played around before deciding to go back to sleep.


When I woke, I explored campus a bit.  And then I moved rooms.  A couple of the cleaning ladies helped me get my room situation all straightened out and found me a better room that I'd be able to move into.  And they got me a pillow.  Which made my liking of the place improve quite a bit.

Later, at lunch, I saw Adam again and sat with him.  We got to know each other a little while we ate, and then we spent some time walking around and talking.  His English is rather broken, as he doesn't get that much of a chance to use it in China, but for the most part, I can figure out what he's trying to say.

The next day was the start of Orientation, where I found out that the other three from China English names are Claire (not sure if that's how she spells it...), Erin (she's spelled it a few times so we would know what she was saying), and Allen (I saw that him writing it one time). I also met Ida and Camilla, who are both from Norway.


As part of Orientation, we got to see Mount Panorama, a large hill where you can see the whole town and into the mountains.  It's absolutely magnificent.  We were told that it's even better at night.  I can't wait.

We went shopping and were given a tour of the town to show us where some of the things were.  When we got back to campus, we went to dinner with a couple of the RAs from... a dorm that I can't remember.  haha, it doesn't really matter.

Thursday, was the Orientation for anyone new, not just the international students.  So there were quite a few more people.  I found out one of them lives downstairs.  But I don't know his name, haha.

But anyways.  We had a tour of the campus and the library.  I was asked if I was American on two occasions, which I didn't like, but I don't think I showed it, just corrected them.

And like I already mentioned, I bludgered rather than doing anything.  By the time I was about to go get a mailbox, the Mini Mart was already closed.  And by the time I was going to see about getting a book from the library so I could read it before my class next week (where were not talking about it or anything yet, but I wanted to get a jump start on the reading so I could be a little ahead of where I'm normally), it too was closed.  So I just read my book and did a little bot of laundry.  All was good.

Friday - the day I started writing this - was the last day of orientation.  Afterwards a bunch of us headed to town in order to get some stuff and get some stuff done.  Adam and I get a mailbox at the Mini Mart, so now I have an address.  And I looked at a couple more mobile phone stores, but I was overwhelmed a bit.  We shopped at Big W and the Reject Store and Woolworths (or as I heard a local call it, Wooly's).

During our shopping at Big W, we decided that we should have a pizza and movie night.  And we should have all the international students together for the night.  So we're going to see how it goes.

Once we returned back to campus, I found out that there isn't a fridge to keep some of the food I bought cold.  So I ended up with the option of eating it or letting it waste.  I chose the former.  It was alright.

But anyways, I'm going to go.  I've been ready to get into bed (after getting into my jammies, of course!) for quite a while now.  I've got a big birthday present to buy myself tomorrow - a mobile phone.  I think I picked out one online that I want to get a better look at and maybe purchase in store, at Dick Smith's.

Oh yeah, and I found out where the bank is that I wanted to go to.  After it was closed and we were on our way back to the campus.  Haha, oh well.  I'll just go on Monday after class to open an account and see about getting my scholarship transferred into it.  And then I'll have some money again.  Not that I don't have money.  Haha, I'm just running out of small bills, which comes natural when you forget about the fifties.  haha.

Anyways, TTFN!

ps: there are a few places you can see the pictures.  I'm going to try to keep both as up to date as possible.  Flickr is one, and Facebook is the other.  For my videos, there are a couple on Flickr, but all of them are on youtube.  okay.  byee!