Christmas Day and Flip-flops: Didn't See That One Coming, Did You?

After a long, exhausting flight overseas. I strolled into a cute little cottage that house 5 of my 6 siblings and both parents. Though exhausted, being the person I am, I got straight to unpacking.

I was presented with half of the closet, an armful of hangers, a few bins of varying size, an outlet adapter, and (not to worry) a mattress with a blanket and pillow in the cozy-sized room I will be sharing with my baby sister. Believe it or not, it took me longer than I thought. Adapting to less than half the space I had for so many months previous was strange. Yes, with less than half of all I owned, but still.

The most refreshing thing to walk into was the summer air. Not at all like the weather I left in Utah. The most exciting thing? Christmas Day was forecasted at 90° F and I would be spending it at the beach!!

It's Christmas morning and somehow I manage to sleep in until nine o'clock. I walk out to the kitchen and of course, my mom has baked the family cinnamon rolls from our secret recipe (don't asked me to tell you when you discover how amazing they are, I won't tell you). I'm surprised again that their intoxicating aroma didn't wake me up.
After the quick opening of presents, everyone begins prepping themselves for the beach. Yes, it's very unusual that the unwrapping of gifts in this household should take such a short amount of time, but being in Australia, and being that anything they get here will either have to be used up or thrown away, it went rather quickly.

By how extensive the drive was I was sure no one would have any energy to do anything once we reached its shores, but to my utter surprise everyone popped out of the small minivan like daisies. We marked our territory on the beach and my siblings made a dash for the boogie-boards and waves.
However, I, being a naive, in-experienced boogie-boarder myself, had to ask for instructions and only hoped to catch the smallest of waves washing up on shore. I attempted and did my best, but I never quite impressed Poseidon to the level I'd hoped, because I didn't exactly ever roll all the way back to shore. In return for my efforts the beach thought it would gift me by leaving it's mark. The sand was unbelievably soft, but I still walked away with all these little, tiny scrapes on my knee from bumping the shore every time I surfaced from the waves. Classy.

Blue skies AND blue waves. Nothing better.

While the sand was soft, it was as hot as boiling. Though in the shade of our lovely beach umbrella, the contents of our water bottles boiled as well. Oh, by the way, the sun fries you three times as fast here. Sunblock was applied and then reapplied religiously.

On the return home we found our struggles to shake off were in vain, sand was still very much everywhere. Still, I only had the luxury of a three-minute-shower, because of course seven other people were in line behind me.

Dinner shortly followed, and I was amazed at how many of our "American" dishes we were able to construct here down-under.

All-in-all Christmas was good, I wouldn't say I'd want every Christmas to be flip-flop weather, but it was a nice change.

Cheers,

Jess

One Stressful Semester Deserves a Retreat, How About Australia?

     After one stressful semester, drowning in an ocean of deadlines I've washed up on the shores of Australia. How did I get here, you may ask? I'll tell you...I don't know.

     Getting here was a migraine of its own. After getting to Los Angeles, all I had to do was sit around the gate for five hours until my flight left. Would've seemed like an easy thing to do had there been electrical outlets falling like manna from heaven, and wifi as strong as 100 bulls. Alas, they were about as scarce as decent gas prices and wifi was about as useful as the muscles in my fingertips are for lifting a 50 pound weight. *sigh*

This is what happens when you need to charge,
but all the seats are taken.

     I had it all planned out in my head. As I landed in my transfer areas I would pass the time taking pictures and posting them for my friends and family to see that even while making the longest flight trip in the world all on my own, I was surviving. But no. Once connected to the wifi I couldn't even get an iMessage to send. Useless. Beautiful...

     Upon boarding the flight and taking off, I knew that I had the next 15 hours to fill with...stuff, because I don't sleep on planes, so I was going to keep myself occupied one way or another. My row companions made sure of that. The little boy beside me, who had been so unfortunate as to have been seated apart from his mother, while he managed to fall asleep; kept jumping up awake in a start, alarming me to the very split-ends of my new haircut that he would momentarily heave himself over in a fit of nausea! I would as fast as I could possibly manage (which much to my chagrin wasn't so fast at all) jump out of my seat to make way for him to hurl. Not so.
     For whatever unexplainable reason, after jumping awake, he had somehow lost all awareness as to where he was going or that he was even on a plane for the next 14 hours in the first place. Besides that, for only being about eight or nine years old, he had some pretty choice words to throw out of his mouth in his bouts of confusion. His mother, who while not beside him was in the middle row aside from us would lean over and softly explain to him that he was on a plane and that everything was okay. The sweetheart kept apologizing for whatever inconvenience he was causing me. I had a thought on occasion that maybe I should offer to switch seats, though I never followed through.

Riding on the clouds, so beautiful. Isn't it?

     Needless to say, I was relieved to land in Sydney. From there is was a new headache waiting about 20 minutes for my luggage to appear on the carousel and getting the cart to roll with all of my luggage on it, and another 45 minutes going through customs and rechecking my luggage for my flight to Melbourne.

     When I finally landed in Melbourne, I again felt it rather odd that they had the back rows exit outside the aircraft, walk across the port and re-enter the terminal. I'll pride myself in saying I did all this in a pair of heels. Yes, as crazy as it sounds I had a dream of arriving in Australia looking splendid and ready to conquer the world.
If you thought I was the one out of sorts, listen to this.
     As I did not have a working phone and walking towards ground transportation, I assumed I would just have to spy my mother out of the crowd. I found her. Though she did not see me after calling out her name at the loudest my lungs could manage. In fact, she walked right past me! Ha, silly. After several attempts and resorting to her first name I finally grasped her attention, we grabbed my luggage and headed for the place I will call home for the next few months.

I made it!

Well, at least I made it this far.

Cheers,

Jess