Day 1 (AustraLearn Orientation) - Cairns, Queensland Australia

Exhausted is an understatement of what I feel like right now. I guess the day started on Thursday at 8AM when I got up and took off to Spokane Airport. From Spokane I flew to Seattle, then to LAX, sat in LAX for about five hours, then took the 14hr flight to Brisbane (pronounced Bris-bin), and then ran to my next flight to Cairns (pronounced Cans). It's now Saturday evening. The big 14hr flight was better than expected. Once again I was very fortunate to get an aisle seat so I could spread my legs out. I was dead tired when I boarded so I figured I would have no trouble trying to sleep.As soon as we took off dinner was served: cooked chicken with pasta, carrots, and peas, with a biscuit, a salad, and choice of beverage.After dinner I think I "slept" for about 5hours. I say "slept" because there were two infant twins two rows in front of me and not only did they decided to cry (which was screaming at the top of their lungs) every hour, but it was also very uncomfortable sleeping on the plane - the ground is so much cozier. After "sleeping" I decided to stay hydrated, and this decision left me with having to use the lavatory hourly. Everyone had their own TV in the seat in front of them, so I watched an Australian movie (they had a very wide selection of up-to-date movies, as well as TV shows, radios stations, and other shows), listened to my iPod while trying to snooze (another failed attempt), watched a nature documentary about how global warming is killing the polar bears (duh), and read my book until sunlight miraculously started to drift into the cabin. Soon everyone on the plane who was fortunate to sleep for like 10hours started to wake up and breakfast was served. When we landed in Brisbane we had to go through customs, which wasn't as nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, collect our checked baggage, get our checked baggage x-rayed through customs (they had a quarantine dog I think they called it, he/she was a beagle puppy who would skip to people's bags sniff them and jump to sniff the bags on people's backs, so cute!) then we had to go to the domestic checked baggage counter to re-check our bags, ride a bus 2 miles to the domestic terminal, and run to our next flight out of Brisbane to Cairns. The whole process became easier as we moved on because there were like maybe 50-some of us from the US studying abroad in Australia on the same flight. We met up with AustraLearn Reps at the Cairns baggage claim. 10 members of our group (myself included) received the unfortunate news that our checked bags missed the flight and would be delivered to our hostel when it finally got here. This was when I officially adopted the "no worries mate" attitude. Once we got to the hostel everyone went to take showers and went swimming, while me and this girl I met by the name of Sydney (I know right!) sat on the pool side wearing jeans and other clothes that were extremely sweaty, stinky, and that we've been in for the past 48hours.I guess I should go back and explain Australia's beauty…

Flying into Cairns was awesome, the scenery was unreal - green mountains surround the area, and there was green foliage everywhere.As soon as we stepped out of the plane the heat hits you. The first thing that came to my mind was Florida - due to some of the sights and smells. Our AustraLean guides informed us it was 34 degrees out - I know, my immediate reaction was that's chilly!But they use Celsius not Fahrenheit. It was very hot and humid - so whoever told me Australia wasn't going to be humid-hot, just hot air hot, you lied! After pool time we had sausages (they don't do hot dogs here) on the grill, eaten on a piece of bread with tomato sauce (ketchup) or bbq sauce. For dinner we (by now there's about 90-some of us AustraLearn students studying all over Australia) proceeded to a pub where we were fed. With the drinking age in Australia being 18 this was the first time minors were able to buy drinks - and it was fun watching them trying to look cool doing it. At 8:30pm we got bused back to the hostel where everyone showered and went to bed because most of us have to be up at 7am for our first day of adventure.

So far it's been kind of awkward, a bunch of excited college students who don't know each other thrown into living quarters together in Australia (sounds like a bad MTV show). Once again I've been lucky once again; I just have one roommate in my room whereas everyone else seems to be living in a room with five others.There's been a lot of: "Where are you from? What school are you studying at? What are you studying?" etc. etc. I kind of feel out of place because a lot of the people I've been talking to and listening to are very wealthy and from uppity universities - but I'm not going to judge them just yet (practicing those life lessons Christina!). I think I am one of the only students here who lives in the same state that I go to school in. At Central I felt like it was a big deal if you came from a different state, and it is a big deal if you live in Michigan and go to a different state to study (at least that's what I've been experiencing at Central). But a majority of the people I met here lives on the east coast, or in Colorado, lives in one state and goes to school in another. Weird.