19 February 2009

I am finally in Australia and finally have a spare moment to write this blog (but we don’t have the password for our host family’s internet so it won’t be posted until tonight); it is 6:30 am. Because of the jet lag my roommates and I were all exhausted at about 9:00 last night and all are up now.
I guess I should start at the beginning, which will be at LAX, where I dragged my over packed luggage from baggage claim, through a long hallway, outside, and to another building that was the chaos of the international terminal. After much searching, and with aching arms thanks to my dear bags, I found my group, checked-in, and passed through security. I now had two hours before boarding time at my gate with the other ASC-ers (Australian Study Center students). We then boarded a bus, which took us to our plane, where we entered our home for the next fifteen hours. My seat was 66C. So yeah, it was a large plane. The flight was rather uneventful, we ate, watched movies, slept watched movies, ate again, and just like that we were in Sydney.
After going through customs and getting our bags, we boarded a bus with directors of our program and some Aussie students and went directly to our school, Wesley Institute, for orientation. We toured our library, lunched, went to a rules and safety information session, and then toured our school and adjacent streets. Wesley is in a quite picturesque neighborhood surrounded by nice-looking homes. Lyons Street, which has a lot of restaurants and shops that the students utilize, is where we will take or bus to and from school.
After the tours, and another information session, we had afternoon tea and met some other Aussie students. Wesley is a commuter school so many students do not live nearby; it is normal for them to travel up to two hours to get to school every day. My host home is only about a 20-25 minute bus ride from campus, and after arvo tea (afternoon tea), my host mom Gerry picked me and my other three roommates up and took us there! Our home is very nice, two girls to a room, and we share a bathroom and a common living area. We do not have many rules or chores, but we are only allowed one five-minute shower a day because Australia is still in a drought even though Sydney did recently receive a great deal of rain. We unpacked, savored all five minutes of a much-needed shower, and ate a delicious dinner where we met our two host brothers, Jared and Conor. After dinner, there was not much activity as my roommates and I were all over due for some sleep.
Today we are going back to Wesley for more orientation, but we are going into Sydney this afternoon! Hopefully I’ll have some great pictures for the next post!