Landed in the Land of Aus

Boy oh boy. We made it.

I have been gone for like 2 days and it feels like I have experienced a whole new lifetime within that. Also technically I lost a day on the way down here, so maybe that whole jump in space and time is to blame. Or the 17 hour plane ride. Who’s to say?

Anyway! The journey…

Meghan and I began our journey bright eyed and bushy tailed in Denver at 11AM on Monday(Feb. 17th). We both got our boarding passes and our bag’s miraculously under 50lbs(Meghan much more successfully than me) without issue. Backpacks were heavy but we were ready.

We made it to our gate without a hitch and enjoyed a little wine tasting. The 1.5 hour flight to Dallas flew by(haha). It was such an insignificant part of our travels in retrospect but I mention it purely because Meghan and I played Angry Birds the entire time and got rather heated.

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Dear Dallas Fort Worth International Airport,

You are not our friend

Once we landed in Dallas, we had about a 2 hour layover till we would take off for the big flight and struggled to find our gate. The Dallas airport had something real off with its feng shui and we began to feel really nervous. Both our airline(Qantas) and Dallas Forth Worth would soon betray us, but we wouldn’t know that for many more hours and miles later.

Once boarded, we had to wait almost an hour before take off due to wind or something but the biggest blessing to happen to us came in the form of an empty seat. Meghan had been given aisle and I the window and as we waited to take off we realized that the middle would remain vacant for the next 17 hours, and let me tell you! That was a MIRACLE! Thanks to that empty seat we slept like BABIES and the flight went by impossibly fast for something of that magnitude. Also the beautiful Aussie flight attendants treated us so beautifully – luxury 🙂

Dear Qantas,

We could’ve been great friends.

Despite the beautiful and nearly ideal plane ride, we were in for a nasty surprise. Upon arrival, we were told that our perfectly packed luggage had been left in Dallas. So Meghan and I were left to wear our already 24 hour old sweatpants to greet the 80 degree sunny world of New South Wales, Australia. But we were given these SICK Quantas PJs as retribution so like all is well?

On our ride to Wollongong, our bus driver Dave(who taught us a lot about the world of Australia in our 1.5 hour drive from Sydney), took us to a lookout to check out “the best view of the Gong.”

The rest of the day was full of small misfortunes and general annoyances but was also spent by riding the bus system all around the city, meeting roommates and new friends, buying bedding and short term necessities, and being in awe of the foliage, the weather, and the ever beautiful and ever mesmerizing Aussie accent.

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And such concludes the first day in the marvelous world of Aus. Straya has tested us already but so far we love her.

Signing off, a smelly American in Quantas PJs