Finally in Australia!

I finally made it to Australia!! Believe it or not, the plane ride was not bad at all. I actually thought the 4 hour flight to San Francisco was worse than the 14 hour one to Australia. On our flight to Australia we got fed a hot meal right away. It was kind of weird eating at that time because it was about 1:30am Chicago time! After the meal I decided to watch a movie and found out that my tv screen on the plane didn't work. Luckily the flight attendant moved me to a new window seat with no one next to me  I watched part of World Trade Center (great movie to watch on a plane right?!). I only made it about half way through when I started to get tired and decided to go to bed. Having no one next to me meant I could lay down the whole time and get in a good 8 hours of sleep. By the time I woke up there was only 3 ½ hours left of the flight. So by the time they fed us breakfast and I watched The Devil Wears Prada there was only about an hour left of the flight. I moved back to my original seat and got ready to land! Oh and thanks to Mike, my ipod was wonderful on both flights 

me and viv on the plane to australia!

We finally landed in Sydney and got right through customs with our lovely "Augie in Australia" shirts. Beau was waiting with a sign to welcome us! I couldn't believe how wide awake I was when we got there...most likely it was because I was too excited to be tired.

our sexy group after a 14 hour flight!

We took a bus to our residence at the UniLodge and put all of our luggage in our rooms. Of course, me and Stef have the smallest room!! It kinda stinks because it's about half the size of everyone elses. We also don't have air conditioning...so that should get interesting when it starts to get really hot. Right now the weather is really nice. It's not super hot, but you can get by in shorts and a t-shirt...perfect for walking around. Almost everyone did not bring any toiletries so we all headed to K-mart to pick up all the essentials. Boy we were in for a shock...things are so expensive here!! Shampoo is about $8 instead of $4 in the US...everything seems twice the price of stuff back at home. I guess Sydney is the 6th most expensive city in the world! I'm really going to have to budget my money when I'm here. Luckily, I had brought all of my toiletries with me so I only needed a few things.

Ryan and Beau (our director)

At around 2pm Beau came back and took us on a small tour of the city. We walked around the Sydney University campus and it was beautiful! We also walked down by Darling Harbour and had a beer with Ryan to celebrate because he can drink legally here (he's a junior, so he's only 20). He's also the only boy! He's going to have a tough job watching out for us 13 girls! On our walk back to the UniLodge it rained so we ended up taking the bus. I guess it's supposed to rain for the next few days. When we got back to the room we unpacked and got everything together and finally showered! Yes, we hadn't showered since the plane ride...we were quite an attractive bunch.

the UniLodge (our residence)

For dinner all 14 of us went out to dinner at this Italian place. The food here is alright. Things are very plain here and not flavorful. The service is also not very good. Here you do not tip the waiters and waitresses so there is really no motivation for them to be perfect or fast. By the time dinner was over we were sooo tired that we came home and crashed. I think I fell asleep 30 seconds after my head hit the pillow.

waiting at the San Fran airport