Day one :)

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Greetings from Australia! Where to begin??......I’ve never had a blog before, so I’m really not sure how much to write or how much people are actually interested in reading. Whatever the case may be, Aaron and I have found ourselves with a bit of free time on our hands before we start classes tomorrow, so here’s the scoop so far. Ok, so now it is actually Tuesday and we have had two days of classes, so that just goes to show just how busy we’ve been since we arrived. I promise this time I will get past just an introduction and actually dish out some of the real details you’ve all been waiting for.

Our big adventure began when we flew out of Detroit airport. We had a layover in Denver and then continued on to LA. Both flights went pretty well. The real fun began after we landed in LA and had to pick up all of our luggage and re-check it with Qantas for our final flight to Australia. Aaron and I both brought one 50 pound suitcase, a carry on piece (mine was strategically packed to also weigh about 50 pounds) and a 70 pound bike box. Thankfully the terminal we had to carry our luggage to once we got to L.A. was only about a billion miles away. Aaron might say this is a bit of an exaggeration, but he is strong and I’m the one telling this part of our adventure so for my sake let’s just stick with a billion. Anyways, once we were-checked our luggage it was smooth sailing. We grabbed dinner at a Chili’s in the airport and then headed to our gate. We spotted some of our fellow MSU study abroaders and camped out with them and got to know each other. Our flight was only delayed about 35 minutes so that was good considering the stories we had heard of delays as long as 4 hours. The plane was really nice and HUGE. Aaron and I were both pretty big fans of the full course meals they served us and the goodie-bags they gave us equipped with blanket, socks, and eye masks. A special thanks to Mrs. Bachman for the compression socks she bought us! They were a leg saver!  The flight is self went by pretty quickly. We slept quite a bit and every time I woke they were giving us more food! I pretty much love Qantas. We also watched “August Rush” and started watching “Dan in Real Life,” but then we landed.

All of Aaron’s and my luggage arrived safely and Australia seemed happy to have us. Our program coordinator Russ and his assistant Matt met us in the airport lobby. They are both incredibly nice and very helpful. We had to wait about an hour for the bus that was coming to pick us up because it got stuck in one of the city tunnels just outside the airport due a technology malfunction that locked the whole tunnel down. Once the bus arrived we all loaded our bags and headed straight to the World Tower.

Now is the time where you all have to feel really bad for Aaron and I about the rustic and rough living conditions we have to endure during our 4 week stay in Sydney. I’m not going to lie, 6 people living in an apartment on the 62nd floor with three huge bedrooms, two baths, full kitchen, spacious living room, dining room, two sun rooms, washer and dryer, UNBELIEVABLE views, and weekly cleaning service is not going to easy, but someone Aaron and I will manage. Our roommates are great. Matt and Kristy are a couple I know back from Martin Luther Chapel and they are both here to golf. Our other two roommates are Steve and Louis. Steve is from Brooklyn and has a sweet accent and is here to play baseball and Louis is from MSU and is playing lacrosse.

We spent the rest of the day touring around the city. Ross got us all Subway and we picnicked in the park, walked through a World War II monument, walked through Hide Park, the Botanical Gardens, down by the Harbor, and Past the Opera House. The Park by the Harbor was beautiful and there were a ton of large wild cockatiels flying around. Russ and Matt showed is just how people friendly the cockatiels are by having them land on their arms. Before long the birds were landing on everyone. Stefany -you most likely would have been traumatized by the way they were dive bombing in for peoples’ heads. We finished up our day by taking a boat across the Harbor to a restaurant for dinner. Aaron and many of our other group members ordered Kangaroo and I went with the salmon. Both were pretty good, but the Kangaroo served here is only served one way: RARE, very rare, so that wasn’t really up my alley. Since then, we bought some kangaroo at the grocery store and are planning on cooking it ourselves a bit longer so we’ll see how that goes.
Ok, so I think that should fill you all in up until about day one of our trip haha. So much more has happened since then, and I can’t wait to write about it, but that’s all the time I have for right now. I hope everyone is having a great time back in the U.S. Love you all.

Lindsey

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