09 January: Sydney Arrival

Man, I have put off blogging long enough so here comes the onslaught of Caitlin’s Australian experience!

Transit to Sydney was actually pretty uneventful. I slept all through the flight from Portland to LAX and slept 10 of the 12 hours to Auckland, NZ. When I was awake, I got to experience the luxury and way updated technology of Air New Zealand. International flights are really where it’s at when it comes to on-flight entertainment, enjoyment, and okay food (they had bacon and tater tots for breakfast…I’m happy with that!). They have a huge database of movies and music that you get to choose from with your own little remote. And, if you’d like, you could plug in any media using the USB outlet. Fancyyyy.

Once we were off the plane, we went through customs with no problems and all my bags were safe. We met up with Nat (Natalka), one of the co-founders of Global Education Designs (GED) that is running our program. Walking out into the humid, hot Sydney air was a little disgusting after flying for so long and feeling greasy and stinky, but it was good to be in 80 degree and sunny weather. Boarding a charter bus, we made our way to The Arundel House where we’d be staying the next month or so. We were greeted by a girl that works there, balloons, and chalk writing that said welcome home with all our names! Sooo cute.

After showering and putting on some clean clothes, Nat took us on a walk to show us where the nearest supermarket was and oddly enough…it’s in a shopping center (aka mall). This place is called the Broadway Shopping Centre and houses WAY too many Forever 21-like stores that are not at Forever 21 prices. There’s a food court, two grocery stores, two electronic stores, computers that you can pay $2 for a half hour, and escalators that aren’t stairs…they’re slopes which is REALLY awkward. Oh, there’s a liquor store. I, of course, stopped at the liquor store only to be SHOCKED by the crazy prices. A fifth of Jose Cuervo for $46...no lie. The only thing affordable was boxed wine...which I don’t mind at all. I grabbed a 4 liter box of Coolabah Rose. It tasted like fruit punch. When we got home, Claire Martin and I started drinking and from there it was pretty much a crazy first night in Sydney. Some of us went to the opening night of the Sydney Festival that leads up to Australia Day and there were musicians (Al Green, ha) and acrobats and lots of drunk Aussies. Magnificent!