Adventures in Australia

I feel....

I feel ... old. For the past two weeks since I've been in Australia, I've been hitting the pubs and clubs. At some locations I feel young, dancing to the music. At other locations, like last night when a bunch of us went to the Griffith Club, I felt OLD! Everywhere I looked was young women, dressed in scantily clothing, dancing and drinking. I then looked at their faces and realized that many of them had just turned 18, the legal drinking age here in Australia. I just couldn't get myself into the idea of flirting with a girl who back in the states would get me bent over the barrel!

Tonight I've been told that I should expect the same thing for the club that we are going to. I honestly don't think I'm ever going to get used to dancing with these young girls, cause lets face it, the maturity levels of someone who is 18 and the other of 23 is vastly different. I know its only 5 years, but at this point in our lives, those 5 years are a massive hill of difference.

Coins

So on my first day in Australia I had a "god I'm an idiot" moment. This moment came to me when I tried to give someone exact change for something I was purchasing. I must admit that coming from the states, I really had to get used to the coins here. First, in Australia, I've noticed that you get a lot of coins back from the teller. They're really starting to pile up. So, I thought I'd stay on top of the game, and try to give as much exact change as I could.

Well, in the states, we have a 1, 5, 10, 25 cent coins. In Australia, there's the 5, 10, 20, 50 cent coins. They also have a $1 and $2 dollar coin. So, the total was something like $20.60. Do I give him 60 cents? Of course not, I give him 25 cents. At this moment, I'm very proud, thinking I'm picking up these new coins fairly fast. The teller just stares at me like I'm a dumb-ass and cheerfully says: "it's 60 cents mate". At that moment, I was extremely embarrassed, and the manager of the complex who was with me just laughed and told the teller that I was fresh off the boat! I had a really good laugh. The 20 cent piece here is larger than the 25 cent piece in the states, so I assumed it was the 50 cent piece. The five cent piece looks a lot like the dime back in the states. I've now know the coins perfectly, but dear god, I think I must have turned pretty red..

Wow

Wow, the past few days have been very busy. Getting settled in and everything else associated with moving is a lot of work. Add on an international move, and its just a little more intense. I'm glad to say that things seem to be slowly down a bit, and I'm probably 98% settled in, just a few loose ends to tie up, but nothing huge.

Qantas called me and told me that they were looking for the lost hard drive. That was about 5 days ago, I thought I'd give them some time, not come off too pushy. Well, today I'm going to call and ask to make a claim to at least the value of the item that was lost.

I also had a one on one meeting with the head of my program, and it went very well. I think I made a really good impression. We're now working on getting me work as an instructor. I don't need the pay, but I defiantly could benefit from the experience. I am defiantly going to be teaching next semester, but I would love to start now. I should be finding out soon if they need me to teach for this semester, within the next day or two.

Did I mention that Brisbane is frickn' hot?!

Busy

So the past few days have been very busy here in Brisbane. I went to South Bank and Queen Street Mall, which was very cool. Today I had my international orientation, which was okay, a little boring, but I had to go to get my enrollment pack.

The lost bag from Qantas arrived, Damaged. Luckily all my DVDs and my monitor were safe. However, one of my external Hard Drives, the one with my film backup, is gone! Every time I try to call the baggage number, it comes up busy! I'm pretty sure I'll never see it again, but I still want to try to see if they found it. I already have an old co-worker burning it again and bringing it to my parents to mail to me, but it is bummer.

Another small annoyance happened. My ANZ account was never setup right, the 100 point check never went through the correct way, so I didn't have access to any of my fund for two days. A real pain in the ass, but at least its fixed now.

Overall, small hiccups you'd expect from a major move.

I'm Here!!!

I'm here! Yesterday was insane with all the shit that happened. Where to begin? Well, the start I guess..

So Qantas made me check my cary-on bag as it was overweight. So, I pulled out a bunch of stuff to throw in a smaller carry on, and guess what I forgot to pull out, the damn sleeping pill! So, I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked to on the plane, but overall it wasn't that bad.

So I land in Brisbane and go through Immigration, which was about a 30 minute que. I then go to pick up my checked baggage. Guess what? They lost a fucking bag! Not just a bag, but an entire fucking container. About 50 passengers, including myself were left with missing bags. I was lucky, I was only missing one bag, while some were missing all their bags. Qantas assured us that they would find our bags and get them to us FAST. Its not like one bag went missing, but an entire fucking container. It looks bad for them. The box that was missing was my computer monitor, and all my dvds. I'm real bummed that my DVDs aren't here yet, but I'll survive.

So I got through customs pretty fast and then went to where James, the manager of the complex I'm living at was waiting for me. We then loaded his car with my bags and went to the complex, with him telling me some info about the place and Brisbane in general.

We got to the complex, where I started to unpack. Went to the Garden City shopping centre so I could buy everything I needed and open my bank account.

I couldn't call home which I'm sure freaked my mom out, as James was all out of calling cards. So, I picked up a card, but as it was too late to call, I just decided to email instead and call today.

At around 7pm I realized that I had nothing to eat all day as I was just way to fucking busy doing and buying everything, so I made myself some food and then went to my room to make my bed, and just sleep.

Overall, a good, but long first day.

It Begins

So, I'm currently sitting in the Chicago O'Hare Terminal waiting for my flight from Chicago to LA. I'm plugged into the only available power outlet in my gate and paid the $5 dollar fee to get a 24 hours access pass to the wireless internet. Little steep of a price, but its worth it compared to just sitting bored.

Saying goodbye to my parents was a little hard. I got a little chocked up hugging them goodbye, but I was perfectly fine going through security and waving goodbye to them. I got really choked up when I turned the corner and walked to my gate. Even now I'm a little choked up, but I will see them soon, and will probably feel fine after the 5 hour flight to LA.

It's going to be a LONG day of travel, but it will defiantly be worth it!

Day of Travel

It has finally come. It feels so odd. Today is my official day of travel to Australia! In roughly 5 hours I will be leaving for the airport for Los Angels and finally from LA onto Brisbane. I'm frickn' excited! Goodbye States, I'll miss ya. Australia, I'll see you Tuesday Feb 7th!

Surreal

T-minus just under 2 hours till midnight. I'm sitting here in my now almost empty bedroom just looking around thinking about how I got to this point. I know the steps I took, but I'm left wondering on how the time went by, and the amount of crap I've piled up. It is a real surreal moment when you are throwing out crap that has just been building up. Things that you haven't thrown away during random urges to clean the madness because they had a "reason" to stay. Well, everything that I can't fit in the suitcases are being tossed.

At this moment, I have no free room. I've packed both of the large allowed suitcases, each coming in at 2 inches below the allowed size and 5 pounds each under the allowed weight. I figured this way if my scale was wrong, I'd have a safety buffer. The two boxes that I'm paying extra to bring along are also under weight. The computer coming in at right around 50 pounds, the monitor and all accessories coming in at roughly 60 pounds. I think the landlord is going to freak out when he sees these four large baggage items, even though I told him in advance. Luckily, only 1 and a half, are clothes. Half of it, and most the weight are my books on film. Then two boxes are for the computer. It's really hard, and frickn' insane, to try to pack your life into 4 pieces of baggage!

I now am starting to get worried about the weight on the flight. The representative I talked to a few weeks ago told me that the flight was oversold, and that if every single person brought 2 bags at 70 pounds each, that my two extra bags would have to be shipped later. However, she pretty much assured me though, that they have never had that happen. My two extra bags come in at roughly 110 pounds, so if two people only bring one checked bag, I'm good. Otherwise, just people bringing less weight than allowed is what I'm counting on. I'm not going to be loosing sleep over it.

Also, I really doubt the flight is going to be completely jammed packed. From what I was told by my father, and a friend who works for America Airlines, a lot of business men and women will book 2 or 3 flights a week and then just pick one to return on depending on what's needed with their business. They then pay a small fee and what they paid for the ticket is credited to a new flight, and the game begins, so hopefully the weight won't even come into the equation.

Have I mentioned yet that I'm tired? But oh yeah, 0 DAYS, 1 HOURS, 51 MINUTES!!!!

Emotions

I feel like I've been riding the wave of emotions all day long. From "Happy" to "Sad", to "Excited" to "Too Damn Tired to Care".

The packing is 99% done. Everyone is calling wanting to hang out tonight. "One Last Time" is all I'm hearing. Its like I'm never coming back, it's driving me crazy!

I'm also getting some shit from my Mom. I understand her being sad and all that I'm leaving, but I finally told her that I don't want to hear "You can always change your mind" one more damn time. She has now stopped saying it, thank god.

Overall, I knew from the very beginning that today and tomorrow were going to be like this. I'm sorry everyone is sad that I'm leaving, but screw it, this is my life, and I am moving to Australia. Pick up the damn phone and give me a call, or how about, come and visit? I'm not in a bad mood, I'm not pissed, I'm just tired.

And then I remember something that wakes me right up: 0 Days, 6 Hours, 39 minutes till Australia!!!!!

21!!!!!

I cannot believe how fast this week went by. Most of my packing is done. I've pretty much finalized everything here in the States. Today I just have to finish packing, box up my computer, and go make some absolute last purchases.

But the big thing is this: my countdown is now in HOURS.

Thats right baby, hours. In 21 hours it will be midnight Feb 5th here in the States, the day my adventure begins. I can't believe it's finally here. Am I excited, scared? Nope, still stressed and tired! However, I am 100% confident that when I walk through security at the airport, I will be really frickn' excited, and fucking excited when I step on that Qantas airplane!

0 Days, 21 hours, 11 minutes till Australia!!!!