It's been a whirlwind this past week. I flew out of Peoria last Tuesday and caught a connecting flight from Chicago to LA. From LA we took a 16 hour flight to Melbourne. Having my luck, there was a power outage while waiting to re-check my luggage in Melbourne after customs. The lovely lady at the desk told me to place my luggage under the paper 612 (our flight number) sign in order to speed up the process once power was returned. Once all was back up and running, I presented my boarding pass and the lady told me the plane was about to leave. So, she called ahead and had them hold the plane for me and then I had a personal escort through the airport so I could catch the plane. I was feeling like my luck with traveling had changed at this point. Until we landed. No luggage. I should have known not to trust a paper sign.
We then took a bus 2 hours north of Brisbane to Noosa for orientation at a resort. It was pretty neat to step off the bus and walk through a herd of kangaroos! We had orientation meetings that day much to my chagrin as I desperately wanted to curl up and sleep thanks to the jet lag. The next day we had surfing lessons. I have some pretty cool pictures to prove that I indeed was able to catch some waves! We then had an aboriginal group come and perform for us. They even taught us a war dance and then had us perform. The next day we went to Fraser Island, the largest all sand island in the world. We spent the afternoon swimming at Lake McKenzie, voted one of the top 10 places in the WORLD to swim. It was incredible. Even 100 yards off the sandy white beach I could still see the bottom of the lake! I tried to swim down and touch it only to realize what an optical illusion it was. That night we had a wildlife man come show us a bunch of different animals, including poisonous snakes and a wombat, the Koala's cousin. He must have done something to my inner animal because that night I was chased by a kangaroo!
That concluded our orientation. The next day we took a bus back to Brisbane, flew to Sydney, and then took another bus to Wollongong. It's been a crazy few days here full of activities. Last night we had a campus sponsored pub crawl. It was a little intense going to a pub at 5 pm! Tonight we're going to see the new Batman movie and then head over to the Glass House, the best club in Wollongong. Then tomorrow we're taking a train to Sydney for World Youth Day to see the Pope arrive! Now that I have internet I'll try to make these more frequent so they aren't so long. Hope everyone is doing well and I miss you all.
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