AUSTRALIA CHRONICALS: PART 1!!! Preparation and the voyagé
Well.... the day finally came. I'm currently writing from Sydney, Australia! Me, Matea, Nevaeh, Mia, and Sophia are staying in a hotel near the airport, it's pouring rain outside, and humid.
I spent the whole last week nervously preparing for this 3.5 month adventure, packing my bag to the point of zipper strain and trying to figure out how many pairs of shorts I should bring. Maggie was visiting so the time was bittersweet, as I was getting ready to launch into something really exciting (and super scary), while knowing that was the last time I was going to see her for a while. It was so nice to be home because lots of my friends were there with me, all our breaks overlapped.
I spent the night before the flight in LA with Matea's family and it was sooo nice, I stayed in their cozy little den that had dark wooden ceilings and they put unicorn sheets on the couch for me. We watched H20 to prepare our accents, and I did lots of stretching to get my back ready for the 15 hour flight.
I was feeling kind of sick as we drove to the airport, and when I went to check in, the ticket drama started. I had put Kate on my boarding pass, but Katharine is on my passport, so the names didn't match. I stood in line to try to get it fixed for an hour, during which I got the shakes and super scared because online it said that that was a really big deal and hard to fix. I really thought I was going to miss my flight and have to buy a new ticket, but they were able to change my name to match. I felt so much relief, but when I got to the gate I realized I wasn't assigned a seat, and when I asked the people at the gate about it, they told me the other lady hadn't changed my name on their internal system, and that they might not be able to let me on the flight. My swamp ass returned in a severe way!
Somehow, by the grace of whatever, they were able to get me on the plane!! I secured an aisle seat via finagling with the people sitting next to me, two Aussies, and got up every hour or two to stretch my legs and back awkwardly and walk around.
I watched 3 movies on the plane: Catwoman (2004, Halle berry, insanely hot, was rapt), Marcell the Shell (lame, didn't finish it, weird one for A24), and Terms of Endearment (really sweet, made me cry, I hate straight couples). It was a super random assortment of movies, but kept me thoroughly entertained.
I tried melatonin gummies for the first time on the flight, but I still couldn't really sleep because the seat in front of me was reclined for the whole flight and my knees were all jammed up. I dozed on and off, and would wake up whenever a particularly loud song blasted through my earbuds.
When we landed, getting out of the airport was fairly easy, and we took a taxi to our hotel where I hung out in the lobby and looked up places we could visit up and down the coast, and read the travel guide book my dad got me for xmas.
We've all been snuggled into our beds for a while now, resting from the flight and destressing a little, doing little crafts and watching Australian tv. And I've been working on writing this, my first adventure blog post. Hopefully I don't lose steam and keep posting. I also hope to find 'my voice' as corny as that is.
During this trip, I want to work on:
- going out of my comfort zone
- embracing uncertainty
- being present
- making connections with the other people on the trip
- learn more about myself
Ciao for now!! Ta babes!
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