G'day!

Well everybody, I’ve made it down under! And based on the adventures we had just getting down here, I’m positive there won’t be a dull moment this entire trip.

The flight from Grand Rapids to Dallas was scheduled to leave at 3:35 on Saturday February 2nd. Perri and I said goodbye to all of our friends and family and waited to board our flight. We met Jillian and Joanie, two other girls originally from Grand Rapids who go to school out in LA. They were also heading out to ICMS. Their flight had been delayed, which was leaving from our gate, hence ours was delayed.

After boarding our for our flight finally began, we were patiently waiting to hear “group 3” to board. The intercom clicked on and instead we hear “Will passengers Makay and Neirman please board the plane; the gate is closing in one minute.” Oops! Once the plane was de-iced, we were on our way.

Now, when we first booked our flights, we only had a 50 minute layover in Dallas, so by the time we landed, we literally had seven minutes to make our way across the entire airport...After being told the wrong gate number, we figured it out, jumped on a tram and crossed our fingers. Our gate was completely empty by the time we got there, and we asked the desk clerk if we’d missed our flight. She radioed out to the plane, but they’d given our seats away. But she found us two seats, so we ran on and started looking for them. We realized very rapidly that we’d been bumped to first class.

I sat on the window, enjoying the absolutely delicious complimentary food and drinks. (Did you know that they charge for food now in economy on domestic flights? Three dollars for a bag of cashews. Reeeediculous.) My seat folded down all the way into a bed, so after dinner I just slept, since Perri was on the other side of the plane.

Once in LA, we met up with about 20 of our new friends, all flying out to ICMS. We were scheduled to take off around 10:20; once again we were delayed, then sat in the plane on the runway for quite a while. I slept well for parts of the night, and watched movies on my in-seat TV. We had some crazy turbulence in the night; turns out we were on the edge of a cyclone. After about 14 hours in the air, we landed in a very rainy Sydney at 8:20 in the morning on February 4th.

Then began the wait. The wait for our luggage. (The wait that ended up lasting THREE days.) About half of the people from our group of about 22 had their luggage, so we told them t ogo and tell our bus driver what was happening.

It became pretty apparent our luggage wasn’t coming through as we watched the same six pieces go in a circle. So we went to fill out our lost baggage claim tickets. There was another flight coming in from LA so we decided to wait for it to see if our luggage was on it. But...it wasn’t. We did however find two other girls from Grand Valley who were going to ICMS as well. Out of the seven girls from Grand Valley, six of us lost all of our luggage! We must have a curse. After we deemed our luggage a lost cause we went out to find our bus—Which had left us! We got in contact with the university, which told us we would have to find our own way.

A nice airport shuttle said he’d take us. We’re hoping (but doubting) that the school will reimburse us. Our driver was great though, as we zipped along on the opposite side of the road, for 45 minute until we got to Manly, he told us fun facts and even gave us some watermelon that could potentially rival Doc’s!

We checked in at school, got our room numbers (I’m in 318 in the castle if you wanted to come visit!) and ate a much needed lunch. The school is beautiful, though everyone refers to it as “Harry Potter’s Castle.” The bedrooms are...quaint, maybe would be the nicest word I could use, though sparce and depressing are much more apt.

We took a bus into Manly to buy some essentials, since so many of us had absolutely nothing. We had to bum and share things as much as possible. Manly is a beautiful little town, lots of stores and interesting restaurants.

After returning to school and taking the world’ most amazing (and probably most needed) showers, we had dinner and listened to an acoustic guitar player. Bed time ended up being about 8:00.

Tuesday and Wednesday have been filled with Orientation activities. Last night we had our cocktail reception as our official welcome to school, and then all went down to Manly that night. Today I had some down time and walked down the hill to Manly and did a little more shopping. It was finally sunny today and it was wonderful. So many of the girls got really sunburnt. (No, not me). We had a traditional Aussie party, so for dinner we had all the normal barbeque foods: lamb, prawns, chicken skewers and more. It was fabulous. Then we watched some Aboriginals traditional dancing, and had a reptile specialist (read: crazy Steve Irwin wannabe) come in a do a presentation.

We were in the middle of watching the dancing when we got the glorious news that our luggage was there! It’s just such a relief to actually have my own belongings. Everything is damp like they left it sitting out in the rain, but as long as we have it, that is fine with me.
That’s about it; sorry it got so lengthy. Until next time...
Love, MJ

Fun facts: Aussies do not only drive on the opposite side of the road, they walk on the opposite side of the sidewalk. It’s not a pitcher of beer; it’s a jug. Contrary to popular belief, kangaroos are not hopping around everywhere. A magpie bird sounds like a cross between a dying child and a sick goat-and they start singing very early every morning.