Upon Arrival

July 16th

We were all very excited to finally be on the ground at our final destination! After getting of the plane we were headed to the longest line ever for customs, which we all seemed to be a bit nervous about, not knowing what we could and could not bring with us; however we all made it through just fine. Then it was time to stand and wait for our luggage, and as time went on we seemed to be the only people left standing their waiting for our luggage and the next flights started to come through...of course why would something happen the way it was suppose to!? So after talking to someone from the airport, they directed us to the baggage desk only for it to be confirmed that our luggage had not arrived in Sydney with us. We had to give them our information and we were told that our luggage would be delivered to the University the following day around noon. Then it was off to find Laura!

Once we told Laura what had happened to our luggage we went to see if we could get vouchers from Qantas to use to pay for some new clothes since I was wearing shorts and it is technically winter at about 60 degrees. However since our flight had been changed to an Air Canada flight, Qantas was unable to help us out with anything. We then headed to find the bus of the other people on the trip, so we could be off to the Featherdale Wildlife Park.

Featherdale was awesome! Most of the animals there were all native to Australia and not only did I get to pet and get my picture taken with a Koala (don't add the word "Bear" they get mad for some reason), I got to feed Kangaroos that were just hopping all over the place! You could by an ice cream cone full of "Kangaroo food" for $1 and they really had no problem coming right up to you; some of them even tried to grab the cone right out of your hand. This was just what I needed after everything we had gone through the last couple of days, I may have been exhausted but after doing all of this it started to sink it that I had finally made it, and was really in Australia. One of the other things that I thought was neat here were the Dingo puppies that were there! They were super cute and were all wrestling around with eachother.

After leavin the park we went to Manly which was a little town that was right on the ocean; it kind of reminded me of Scharbeutz, which was this little town by the sea that Helena's family had a "get-away" apartment at. Not only did the set up of all the little shops and places to eat remind me of it, but I got a chicken Kebab with Tzatziki sauce on it, and Scharbeutz was the first place that I had experienced this food! There were also a lot of people along the beach surfing and playing volleyball which was surprising since it wasn't exactly warm outside. We were only given a little time to find some food to eat before it was time to head to a place called (I think) North Point. This was just a little trail through a wooded area that lead you to a cliff with a great view of the ocean and a distant view of the harbors.

After taking some pictures, the plan was to go back to Manly where a lot of people planned to go out for the night. We however were completely exhausted and still had yet to see where we would be staying for the next week. Once we dropped everyone off, we went with Jen, Laura (our professors) and Laura's son Jesse to the ferry in order to get to the train that we needed to take to get to the university. Our plans were to get somewhat settled in, shower, then head to the store around the corner to get shampoo and other essential things that we needed. This plan did not follow through at all though; we all were too tired to go anywhere and I ended up sleeping by 8:30.

After leavin the Park we went to this place called ...... it was just this little trail through a wooded area that took you to the edge of a cliff