Traveling: The joy, The Thrill of Getting Lost

Alright, so this is my first blog post ever (yay!). I'm not very good at writing down my thoughts, ideas, etc. so please bear with me as I try to get past the first couple awkward blogs. I've already re-written the first two sentences of this post 4 times so that should tell you how difficult this is for me. 

Anyways, as I'm sure you've figured out, I have arrived in Perth, Western Australia. After almost two days of travelling I feel like I could pass out at any second, but I'm trying to fight jet-lag and am doing my best not to go to sleep until around 10 tonight. So instead of napping, I've been unpacking and trying to get familiar with my apartment (err, flat). But before I talk about my flat, let's recap the journey. I started at Dulles Airport with about a 6 hr flight to Los Angeles, California. I made it on the plane okay and slept most of the way to L.A. - but then things got tricky.  For those of you that know me well, being in foreign places and trying to figure out where I'm supposed to be is not the easiest thing for me. I mean, let's be honest, I get lost in Virginia even when I have a GPS. So when I got to L.A I attempted to get to the international terminal, but little did I know that my international flight to Brisbane was not leaving through the international terminal (weird) and instead was leaving from Terminal 4. So after asking what seemed like dozens of people at the airport where I should be, and yelling at my mom at 1 a.m., I finally made it past security and to my gate. The flight was about 12 hrs long but, again, I slept through most of it. Then, when I arrived in Brisbane I faced multiple problems (going to international transfers instead of through customs, waiting 30 minutes to reclaim my bags, waiting in lines I wasn't supposed to be in, waiting in security lines when my flight was scheduled to leave in 10 minutes, and being pulled to the side in security so they could swab my bags), but made it onto my flight right as they did the last call. Yes, I was that person they called for over the intercom. The flight from Brisbane to Perth was another 4 and a half hours and then I finallyyyy arrived in Perth. Met Paul Hollick, the CIEE coordinator, in baggage claim and was driven to Murdoch University's student housing with one other girl in the program, Virginia. 

Murdoch is huge, at least to me. Maybe compared to some bigger colleges in the U.S. it's not, but for me it's enormous. The size is definitely going to take some getting used to. Student housing isn't very big, as most students live off-campus. I'm in the older part of student housing. It's pretty simple, a hallway with 8 bedrooms (yes, 8) and at the end there's a living area, dining table, and a kitchen. I've only met one of the people living in my flat so far, her name is Justine and she's from around Perth. All the people in my flat are from Australia (I think), so none are in my program or are other transfer students. Oh, and the flat is co-ed. Justine said that there are 3 girls and 4 boys right now, so one of the rooms is empty. Should be interesting living with 6 other people (....and 4 boys). 

I still need to put up some pictures, so hopefully it will be a little more personal/pretty once that gets done

So tonight all the people in the CIEE program are getting dinner together and I think we might be going to some shops after to get some toiletries and all that jazz. Soo I'm going to go finish unpacking and get ready for that. I'll write again later.

xxx