The Flight (FIRST POST FROM AUSTRALIA)

This is long overdue, and to those of you I promised a blog once I got here I apologize that it took me so long! So in starting I will tell of the ancient days when Princesses were forced into political marriages, men fought with swords for their land, and I flew to Australia. 

It took a long time for me to figure out how to pack for a year in less than 100 pounds. But finally after lots of different things were sacrificed [basketball shoes :( ] I was all ready to go. I didnt sleep much that night, partially because I was excited and partially because I wanted to sleep on the plane as much of the 14 hours I could. 

Thanks to my awesome Aunt Nicole and her wonderful kids I had lots of snacks packed and a gameplan for the 15 hour flight from LA to Sydney. I had enough battery life in my laptop to watch a movie, and enough m&ms and gummy bears to last at least a couple flights. As I went to board my flight in Minneapolis to LA it turned out that the carryon  compartments were full and I had to check my carryon all the way to Australia. So I packed a bag of m&ms and my toothbrush (compliments of the Schmidts :) into my laptop case and sent the rest to Australia to wait for me. 

Everything was going good. I sat next to a nice lady who talked to Vince Vaughn at dinner once and before i knew it the flight was over. Then things started to go downhill. The terminal I had to sit two hours in in LA was a little rough. The AC had gone out a couple hours before that. I got an ice cream cone from McDonalds and it was melted by the time it was handed to me. That wasnt too bad though. 

Out of the hundreds of people in the terminal waiting to board the plane from LA to Sydney, I was probably among the 3 tallest. I boarded the plane and the two men that sat next to me were the 2 that were taller -_- Im about 6' 3", and the others were 6' 4" and 6' 6". No lie. I watched a couple movies. There was a pretty expansive selection but I was pretty exhausted so I leaned against the window and slept a few hours. I felt bad for the 6' 6" guy though so I  offered him my window seat for about 5 or 6 of the last hours so he could sleep more comfortably. 

After landing I saw the skyline of Sydney and had to wait an additional 45 minutes for the plane to park. It was killer. When I got off the plane finally I shared my mouthwash with my new tall Canadian Australian friend (Ive forgotten his name already) and we went through customs. I had to double check that I was in Sydney and not Hong Kong because there was about 40397573 Asians in the airport. 

Since I didnt have a phone or anyway to communicate with the people picking me up I was a little worried when they werent waiting for me after customs. I walked around for about 20 minutes and started getting a little worried when I saw them in the distance. They were riding kangaroos and carrying their pet Koala bears. Jokes. Contrary to popular belief, kangaroos and alligators arent roaming the streets of Sydney. 

That is the story of my journey to Sydney.