Safe in Australia

So after over 37 hours of travel, I finally arrived in Perth, Australia yesterday around 3 p.m. (Perth time). There is a twelve hour difference between here and home, which was actually very helpful in that I didn’t have to change my watch, time antibiotics and makes calculations to figure out the time at home a lot easier.

I started my travels from Buffalo on Wednesday, May 21 flying Southwest to Los Angeles via Chicago Midway. Not the best airline, but also not the worst, this part of the trip was terrible as I was still feeling quite sick from the bacterial/viral/allergic (the doctor couldn’t tell) symptoms I had developed during graduation weekend. Landing in Midway, I lost my hearing in a very painful descent and didn’t regain it until I was over Colorado. That led to a very interesting conversation – from what I understood of it – with the Indian man I sat next to on the way to L.A. As I blew my nose for the 20^th time before taking off, I turned to him to apologize and let him know that I was on antibiotics and not contagious. I think he tried telling me that I didn’t need antibiotics because it was probably something else called a schlivangl but honestly, I couldn’t hear at that point and may have filled in the many conversational blanks incorrectly.

I had a decent sized layover at LAX which I have deemed to be the worst airport in the world. After arriving and finding my bag, I knew I needed to find a different terminal and began looking for signs. Most other airports that I have encountered clearly label which airlines fly out of which terminals and where to find them. LAX must not believe in clarity or self-sufficient travelers, so I had to stop some baggage handlers who could tell me the two terminals for Qantas and guess at which one I needed. It took another person to learn I could walk 10 minutes to the terminal or take the free shuttle downstairs, and a number of frustrated shuttle drivers to instruct by then a large crowd of us that we needed to take Shuttle A to our terminals.

By the time I got to the international terminal I was very hungry and tired as my body felt like it was 11 p.m., not 6 p.m. West Coast time. I decided to check-in, get through security and find my gate before eating, though, as then I would have boundless amounts of time to find a sufficient eatery on the other side. It turns out that LAX is actually in the process of being renovated, so once on the other side it was like entering an abandoned indoor work zone for Boston’s Big Dig. Tons of dust, orange signage, fences marking off most of the terminal area and access to few places I actually wanted to be. After stopping off and paying $12.00 for a bottle of water and a mediocre turkey sandwich, I found my gate and enjoyed my gourmet meal. Honestly, though, I’ve flown out of a lot of middle-of-nowhere airports, but none lacked so severely in facilities. We were amazed that the renovations were so widespread, essentially shutting down all services in the terminal and creating a very inhospitable atmosphere for travelers and workers alike.

Gradually a small contingent of Colgate students emerged at the gate. I had been worried as I know few of the people on the trip, but everyone was very nice and in such a pool of complete strangers, being with Colgate faces was like being with old friends. Right before we were to board our plane, they announced a gate change to the other end of the terminal, so several hundred people streamed out of the workzone wing to the far end of the terminal before boarding a bus to take us to our plane.

Honestly, I don’t remember much from that first leg of the trip. After putting on sweatpants and curling up with my blanket and pillow, I fell asleep almost as soon as we were in the air. If they tried to wake me for dinner, all attempts were unsuccessful; I woke up a full 9 hours into the plane flight, though, wide awake and as refreshed as you can be when making such an international trip. I paged for some food so I could take my antibiotic (by that point I’d figured out that lots of water and some easy food made it easier on my stomach) and then settled in to enjoy Juno and 27 Dresses on the plane. I think movies make long plane flights endurable, so I was pretty pumped with the selection and the chance to catch up on movies I have wanted to see but had to put off because of time constraints.

Arriving in Brisbane, Australia was really cool. The sun rose right behind us about an hour before we landed which made the clouds look like pale puffs of cotton candy over tiny glimpses of ocean. As we began to descend, we entered into thick clouds that looked like a mean London fog, but when we broke from those, the tip of Australia peeked out from the water. I took some pictures from my window of these first glimpses of this, my third continent. (See above.)

After Brisbane we flew a domestic Qantas flight to Perth. The flight was pretty empty, so after take off I moved to an empty row a little further back to watch Charlie Wilson’s War. I dozed off after the movie ended, only to wake up to someone stroking my feet. As I opened my eyes, a little two-year-old girl who had been sitting behind me grinned from the end of the row. She must have left her seat and, spying my lime green fuzzy socks that look like Muppet skin, felt the irresistible urge to pet them. It was probably the strangest way to be woken up on a plane, though.

All arrived in Perth safely and we met up with our professor and a van driver from Curtin University, one of the schools at which we will spend a few days next week. They guided us to our hotel which is right on the Swan River in the city, and after showers and a couple of hours to ourselves, our group walked a few blocks to a noodle bar for dinner. Food was good, but I was so tired by that point that we came only to pass out by 8:30.

We don’t have internet in this first hotel, although there are some cafes with public access just a few blocks away. Therefore, to start out this blog, I think I will type my posts when I get a chance and upload when I’m checking email. Posting might be a little more erratic and lengthy this week, but bear with me.

Ok, off for some breakfast (brekkie?) and then to the Museum of Western Australia which hopefully is not as lame as the Coastal Discovery Center in Hilton Head. We are receiving our final project assignment today, so we can work on it over the course of the trip. It is weird to think that I am someplace between a student and alumna – still completing homework assignments, but knowing that I have already satisfied all of the requirements of my diploma. Yikes!

Peace for now,

Jill