First Day in Australia!

I have finally arrived in Sydney, Australia!! I had no idea it would be so humid here. I have heard from a few people that the other cities are not nearly as bad.

I am insanely tired but I am trying to stay awake for several more hours so that I can try to convert to the new time zone. I got here at 8 am, which I think was about 2 pm back home. The 14-hour flight felt like eternity. I was stuck in the middle of a row in coach. My hopes of being able to fly in first class with my buddy pass were not fulfilled. After customs I tried to get a temporary phone. My sister-in-law gave me her old phone she had in New Zealand but it won’t turn on or hold a charge. I think the battery is completely dead. I tried charging it for and hour and ended up buying another phone and some minutes. If people call me from the USA it is free.

I am staying in a surprisingly nice hostel that is right in the middle of the city. I will be here for four nights. The room I am in has 8 beds and a bathroom in the room. I told the guy at the reservation desk that I was new to hostelling so he kindly upgraded my room to have a bathroom. Before I came here I didn’t know that you often have to pay for Internet in Australia. I guess it is very expensive to run the Internet here and so they charge for it everywhere. Oh and to do a load of laundry at this hostel, it is $3.00 to either wash or dry. Yikes.

When I got here I went and walked around for a little while. I believe I was in China town but I am not really sure. I went into this mall that had grocery stores inside. So odd to me! I also saw some pre-cooked eggs in that store that were not refrigerated. I would think like they would rot? They had some fun candies I had never seen before. So far in my room there is a girl from Norway, Canada and two girls from somewhere in Asia that do speak enough English to communicate with me.

Oh, I ate a “meat pie.” I was disappointed. I didn’t know it had gravy in it. But the meat and the crust were tasty.

The coin system here makes no sense to me. The twenty cents coin is about 4 times the size of the two dollar coin.

Tomorrow I am planning to go tour the Sydney Opera House (perhaps book a performance), visit a botanical garden nearby and go to the aquarium if I have time. I don’t know what exactly I will be doing on Monday (probably the zoo and the beach) but Tuesday I am doing a tour to the Blue Mountains.