The trip here to Australia was, in one word, ridiculous. Even though it began almost a week ago, it feels like forever ago since I just really want to put it out of my mind. Apparently the travel gods weren't shining down upon us since everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Well, mostly. In the way of times, at least. Out of the three flights that we had (Chicago to LA- 4 hours, LA to Brisbane, - 13 hours and Brisbane to Perth- 5 hours) two of them were late leaving (aka the first two). The one that we wanted to leave late so we could not miss it, left promptly on time, thus causing us to miss it and wait around the airport for 3 hours for the next one. Go figure.

I had been mostly dreading the flight from LA to Brisbane since that was the longest one but I think that was the least bad one. I don't know why, but the two shorter flights were torture. It could have been that I was stuck in the middle seat for both of those, but man, they sucked. I'm not saying that the long one didn't suck though- it did. 13 hours and I slept for maybe 1.5-2 of them. I ended up watching 3 movies and that barely put a dent in my need to waste time. I will say, however, Qantas is very good about feeding you and the food was honestly not as bad as airplane food usually is. Well, that or I was completely starving since I was on a plane for 10 hours with nothing but Sour Patch kids and a weird-tasting trail mix.

Trust me. It was a long trip. I was in O'Hare at around 2pm Tuesday the 7th and we got to the university at around 4pm? on Thursday the 9th. We should've gotten in around noon instead, but had to get a new flight since going through customs took ages. Plus when we got into Perth, we tried to see if our ride from the university was there, but we couldn't find them. We tried to call all these numbers they gave us in case of a situation like this, but none of them worked. It ended up that the numbers that were given were all wrong and we had to take a $35 AUD taxi to the uni. That was annoying.

That night I managed to unpack everything and put up a few pictures before passing out around 7pm. I'd like to say that my sleeping patterns have improved and reached normal-ness but...yeah they haven't. I've gotten into the habit of getting exhausted around 4pm, taking a nap, and then waking up at 7pm just in time to miss dinner. And then I'm bored and hungry and drowsy and just fall asleep again anyway, waking up between 4-6am and being wide awake. It's a vicious cycle and I need to RESIST the nappage today. It's already calling for me and it's not even 3pm. I think it might be because I haven't had a single bit of caffeine since Thursday and I am a coffee and Diet Coke fiend most of the time. Hmm. I ought to seek some out.

I've met a few other international students and a couple of Aussies too. I'm sucky with names though so it's kind of hard to remember them all. There's been a bunch of British girls, a British guy or two, I think a guy from Scotland, a guy from Germany, a guy from South Africa, a girl from Canada, and a guy from the US that I can vaguely recall from off the top of my head. Basically you sit down at a table in the dining hall and say "Hi, I'm Anna, I'm from the US, what about all of you?", listen to everyone say, and then vainly attempt to keep them all correct in your head. Some people may be very good at this, but I'm...not. It's terrible haha.

There really hasn't been much to do which probably has been affecting my tendencies to sit in my room and read all for the past few days. I explored the campus a little bit and today went for a walk in another direction in a hunt for food (found a grocery, woohoo). Friday night, one of the RAs in a different building from mine, took pity on some of his newbs and took us to the city for a night at a club which was interesting. A vodka and lemonade cost $8 AUD which would be around $6.30 USD which I found absolutely ridiculous. A glass of wine was only $6 AUD, not like that's much better. I ran out of money pretty quickly and one of the British girls that had come out with us kept trying to give me her drinks which was nice of her, but I kept refusing since I didn't want to take her money haha. It was an interesting experience and so like and unlike the bars we have in Champaign. There was very loud techno music instead of rap music and everyone was extremely well-dressed. Also, I was told that grinding is extremely unacceptable. Sorry, Gen.

Tomorrow I have orientation and then registration on Wednesday. It's sad to say but I'm really looking forward to having stuff to DO. I've been getting rather bored. Trying to keep up with the lingo has been interesting though. I really like saying the phrase "Car Park" even though it just means parking lot. It's just fun to say. Chips are crisps and fries are chips. There are more but I can't remember right now. Oh, and I was told that since I'm American, I would be getting a lot of crap for it. I'm not very surprised.

I really want to get internet in my room but I think I have to have someone set it up for me, which is impossible on a Sunday. I am getting very tired of this computer lab!

Time to avoid sleeping somehow. Cheers.