I'm Not in Kansas Anymore...

Wow. Can you actually believe it? I am writing in my blog! I am deeply sorry for how long it has taken me to post. Things have been both new and exciting, but here goes...

About a month ago I got on the plane with Dan and his family to come and start my adventure in the Land of Oz. The flight to L.A. was about 7 hours and we had a 2-hour lay over there. We got on the flight at about midnight and we were on the flight to Sydney for about 15 hours. I know it may seem extreme, but speaking from a first hand account it’s not so bad. Qantas keeps you fully entertained with a video in every single seat where you have the option to create your own play list with the music selection, watch a TV show or watch a movie. Oh! The best part of the entire flight was the fact that we were flying on the 4th of July at night and the entire way to L.A. you could see fire works. It was unbelievable and it just added to the sheer happiness of what was to come! Qantas did a great job of entertaining me for 15 hours as Dan and his family slept for about the majority of the flight. In the beginning it was pretty scary to think that I was going to be alone for half a day in the dark on a plane to entertain myself. I watched a lot of movies, but didn’t finish them. I tried sleeping, but it just wasn’t happening. I think the anticipation was far beyond me and sleep was out of the picture. I watched Madonna and her confessions tour a couple times (hehe Sean ;-) ), but before you knew it the sun started coming up and the flight attendants brought out breakfast and tea and within hours we were arriving in the destination that would be my home for the next five months.

We arrived the morning of July the 6th. (We missed July the 5th because we crossed the international dateline.) We had a very spunky driver that picked us up at the airport and were off to our hotel in Darling Harbour or how the Sydneysiders like to say it Daaaaaling Haaaabah. It certainly sounds like a Boston accent. We checked in and located right around the corner from the hub of the city and Sydney’s Chinatown. We headed out for the day to fight our time change, loss of the day before and everything else that goes along with traveling for about 24 hours. We headed down to Dan’s school UTS and then to my Uni, the University of Sydney. I will go more into detail about my school a little bit later. Dan’s little sister Spencer wanted to eat at the tower located right in the center of Sydney so we had lunch at the revolving restaurant. It was awesome to see all that I would be discovering in the coming of months. I saw the church that my dad wanted me to visit, the Tiffany apartments in the far distance (my future home), the harbour bridge and the opera house. It was all really overwhelming and you couldn’t help but be speechless because the views were so spectacular. Then after lunch we walked down to Darling Harbour (that’s how they spell it here.) and went to the aquarium. We were seeing all that Sydney had to offer in a swoop because Dan’s family (His mom, dad, and sister Spencer.) were only going to be here for about 5 days so they were seeing all that they could while they were here. After the aquarium we went to a local eatery and just grabbed a bite before we headed back to the hotel to call it a day... I don’t think I've ever been so exhausted in my entire life.

The next day I woke up and it was my birthday! Weeeeeeeeee. Can we say a birthday that is pretty hard to top! (Don’t worry Lexi and Sean New York can not be beat! Oh and Dan DMB Fenway was fabulous, but they all fall into their own categories!) We headed out to LiveEarth Sydney. I don’t know if you all know, but I feel very strongly about the global warming cause and ever since I saw the Inconvenient Truth I have wanted to do something to help. Just you wait! I plan on running the Boston Marathon my senior year of college and running for this cause... but we will cross one bridge at a time. Thats another blog. ;-) Anyways this concert was put together by Al Gore and a whole bunch of talented artists came together to support it. It was on 07.07.07 and took place in seven continents all over the world in hopes to raise awareness for this cause and change the outlook of our future that we all can fix if we change our ways. All of the artists were Australian except Jack Johnson. The set included Missy Higgins, Sneaky Sound System, Blue King Brown, Crowded House, Wolfmother, and an artist that is blowing up in the states as we speak John Butler Trio.( There were many other artists but that was most of them) All were unbelievable. It was really fascinating to see the youth of Australia in one venue and see the people that I would be mixing with for the coming months. It was a fantastic day. :-D I highly recomend checking out all of the above artists. I love love love Missy and John Butler. Missy Higgins has a new album out here which I think is better than her last, but I have it and promise to share when I get back to the US. That about sums up the day beacause it was a 10am to 8pm event and still adjusting to the time change so we got back to the hotel and passed out.

The next day we woke up and headed down to the Rocks. This is the oldest part of Sydney and I have to say my favorite part of Sydney thus far. It reminds me a lot of Boston. It has all these upscale shops and hole in the wall but very classy restaurants. Its beautiful and right up the street from the Harbour Bridge. We walked around for a bit and then headed over to the Opera House for a tour. You might not realize this, but the structure is actually modeled after a sphere not a wave as you may have been told. ;-) I learned that on the tour... among other things, but I won’t bore you, you will just have to see it for yourself. Its an amazing structure. After the tour we headed over to the Rocks for lunch at this really great Italian restaurant. We all got individual pizzas and just enjoyed where we were and whom we were with. Then after that we took a ferry over to Manly Beach. It was a rainy day so it was kind of dreary, but no worries it didn’t take away from the beauty. It was also youth day so there was a group of Christians carrying around a cross all around town that is being taken all over the world by youth from around the world to spread the word of God. It was nice to be apart of something I didn’t have any idea was going on here and throughout the world. We romped around the beach and despite the cold weather and the rain there were plenty of surfers surfing. It dumbfounds me how devoted they are. Rain, shine or freezing cold they are out there trying to get their wave. We window shopped and it was starting to get late so we found a place where we could just relax.We found a pub, had some bar grub and just talked about Dan and I's adventures to come and just all that would be happening in the next five months here, as well as the events for the Schloss family back in Connecticut. We caught the last ferry and headed back to our hotel and found our way to Chinatown for dinner. Soon after we headed back to the hotel to collapse and pack back up for the week ahead because the next morning I was off to Cairns for orientation.

I got up pretty early and made my way to the airport where I was to meet the rest of the group that was studying in Australia/New Zealand for the semester through the program Study Australia. I was there before anyone else because they were still coming in from their flight from L.A. So all of them were about to go through the jet lag as I was just recovering from it. All of them came in at once and I made my way to meet them. I found myself among two girls from California, Emily and Caitlyn, and in a week to come my future room mates in Bondi Junction. Soon enough another girl joined us, Sam who was from Oklahoma City and she too was to be one of my room mates. Then right after that came Kimmy, from Virginia, who would be my last room mate. At the time we were all assigned in different room mate situations so we had no idea. I will say this to give you a introduction for our situation, but we all hit it off and felt an instant connection. We talked about it much later, but I knew right then that this was going to be quite an experience and I hadn’t even met all the people yet. So we flew to Cairns which was a two hour flight, we arrived and met our leader, Russ, as well as two others who were going to give Russ a hand at things, Matt and Pete. Pete lives and works in Cairns and Matt was a student who traveled through Study Australia... he’s been here five years and hasn’t returned to the states! Anyways we all got our bags and headed back to our home for the next week, Cairns Colonial Resort. It was this beautiful oasis and it felt as if we were in the rainforest. We all settled in and in a few hours we were going to get together and have a group dinner with everyone. We went to the pool and got our first official legal drink, if you must know I got an exotic dancer. It was delicious and it tasted better because I was allowed to have it! Besides the point and really quite irrelevant we just all settled in. After dinner the entire orientation group all hung out in each others rooms and passed out quite early.

The next day I woke up early and went for a run to just get a feel for where I was and wake up to the realization that oh my gah! I am in Australia and in a beautiful oasis. It was a shock that as I ran that a lot of the rivers around me had warning signs and a hilarious illustration of a crocodile with his mouth open and a human above it with a line through it warning you that you should not go in the waters there have been sightings of crocodiles. Wonderful I know, but I took it with a grain of salt and just quickened my pace. The birds, the trees, and just everything surrounded me was gorgeous. This place is beautiful. I will tell you this right now although it is pictured as always sunny it does get cold here! The days we were in Cairns were the coldest days that were ever recorded in history. Granted compared to the weather that I am used to in New England it wasn’t bad at all, but coming from summer and expecting really warm weather it came as a bit of a surprise. Moving on. We headed off to an indigenous park and spent the day there. We had lunch there which was so yummy and just got to do fun things like throw a boomerang and launched aboriginal weapons at heaps of hay. We watched presentations and ceremonial dances as well as the story of how the aboriginals came about... as in their history and their beliefs in the spirits and sacredness of their cultural heritage. Oh! I licked an ants bum too. Its green and they actually use them to make lemonade. It tastes like citrus and it actually stung my tongue from the zest. I’ll bring one home for you dad so you can have a taste. ; ) Then after a day with the aboriginals and playing some digiridoos we headed back to the resort. We hung out and relaxed before our night out. We had dinner at a place called the Woolshed where Pete our tour guide worked. The dinner was really good and after you ate the place turned into quite a bumping scene. There was music and for the majority all American tops hits and then the event of the night, gold fish racing. Yes, gold fish racing. It was hilarious and Pete our tour guide did a great job of keeping us entertained. You had to set a wager for each one and you got to race it if you won it. It was set up like an auction. One was George Bush, Paris Hilton, among many other entertaining characters and I promise you the lead up to who was who was much more entertaining and engaging than what I just described. After that it followed with a night of dancing.

The next day was our day on the Great Barrier Reef. When we woke up it was quite cloudy, but by the time we got into downtown Cairns it was clearing up. We had a boat to ourselves which they served us lunch and entertained us with live music. It was a great crew and you can tell they love what they do. We were to snorkel first, scuba, and then romp around on the catamaran companies cay. So we just relaxed and had some tea on the boat as we set out to the reef. I met a group of elders who were just spending the day on the boat and not partaking in the events. They were the sweetest and they kept me entertained throughout the day. They kept telling me have fun but make sure you come back up. On our way out to the reef we got a lesson on how to dive by the crew and the safety behind it as well as snorkeling. After that we were suppose to sign up with Matt and decide what adventure at our own expense we wanted to do on Friday our day off. Sam and I signed up for sky diving and heaps of others did too. You had the options of white water rafting, bungee jumping, sky diving, going to the rainforest, and just having a day of leisure. I know you probably all think that I am absolutely mad, but this experience out here is to just living it up every moment I have and I wanted to do something extreme so I signed up for just that. Soon after that we got suited up and headed out to do our dive. They split us up in different groups and for different times. When it was our time I started to get a bit nervous. I don’t know what came over me, but I just wasn’t prepared. They put on my gear and said ok now just go head first into the water.... I don’t ever do head first so I was like uhhh head first? and once they nodded yes they gave me a push and I was in the water. This is when my Nana’s ring that I always wear on my ring finger and received after she passed away last July slipped off my finger. Immediately after I freaked out. Ok not completely because I don’t freak out, but I was breathing really fast and started to cry. They asked me if I wanted to get out of the water which I really didn’t, but I was not about to dive in these conditions. I felt awful and sick to my stomach and completely lost it. I know not one of my finer moments, but it was something that had become apart of me and was really important... you may ask why where it then, but I had no idea that it would slip off because I wear it everywhere including the shower. I thought it would be gone forever, but my friends convinced me to ask the crew to dive for it. I asked one, who we gave the nickname of jellyfish... don’t ask why we just did! I decided I couldn’t dwell and hey if I were to lose it at least it had a resting place in the great barrier reef! It felt almost like Titanic when the old woman at the end drops her blue emerald neclace to rest in the ocean. We had some lunch and just enjoyed the unbelievable surroundings. Its gorgeous, breathtaking and all the descriptive gorgeous words you could imagine.. thats what the great barrier reef is. You must see it. I have great pictures so if not you can live vicariously through them even though they don’t really do it justice. So after lunch we just soaked up the rays. I was kind of in my own world when jellyfish came over and stated that I couldn’t find your ring, but I did find this and what do you know it was my Nana’s ring. It was quite a feeling. So I’ll have you know it is safe and sound. After that our catamaran headed over to the cay where we just laid out and soaked up the rays for a few hours. After that we headed back to downtown Cairns and headed home.

... I got a little side tracked by my lovely sister Jen so I will finish the rest of this blog tomorrow. Hope you enjoy it for now. : )