Travel and First Day in Australia: 9-11 July

Like everything I do, I got ready for Australia at the last possible minute. I turned in the applications past deadline, I only knew for sure I could come to Australia about a month before I had to leave, I booked my plane less than 2 weeks in advance (which made it quite expensive, in case you were wondering), my apartment was still full of furniture and other items when I left Kirksville for St. Louis (and still would be if not for the help of Shaun, Kent, Lisette, and possibly others so thanks if you are reading!), I didn't buy a camera until the day of my flight, and I didn't start packing until 2 hours before I had to leave for the airport. I packed about half dirty clothes, because I intended to wash them before I left but of course I didn't get around to it.

When I got to the airport I did not have a visa of any kind, which I found out was required for travel. Oops? I hadn't gotten my visa yet because the website wouldn't recognize any of my passport information, and all the contact numbers were Australian, so I figured it would just be easier to apply for one once I was in Australia. The guy at check in said I would need to reschedule my flight until I had gotten my visa, and I almost started to cry because I was already so stressed from doing everything at the last minute, but then! He said "let me ask one more person just to see" and it turns out there is a way to apply for an electronic visa at the airport and it was only $25 and everything worked out okay. Fuck, I am lucky.

My first flight was to LAX. I left at 7pm on 9 July. The in-flight movie was Flawless which I had never even heard of, but it stars Demi Moore and is about diamonds and it looked pretty boring, so I think not purchasing a crappy pair of headphones ("yours to keep after the flight!") for $2 was the right choice. The flight took about 4 hours and I was starving and quite thirsty afterwards, so I ordered a quesadilla and ice water once we landed for about $10 (!), but it was delicious. Then I looked in one of those Newsagency type shops for an Australian plug adapter for my laptop, but they didn't have one so I bought a Cosmo in Spanish instead.

I boarded my flight out of LAX and discovered my seat was on the aisle right by the exit and bathroom. It was one of those Snakes on a Plane style planes, with stairs to an upper cabin and everything. AND the plane had exactly 69 rows. The girl sitting next to me on the plane told me some things I could do during my 10 hour layover in LA on my return flight. She asked me about scuba diving and I suddenly realized that I hadn't packed any of my scuba gear or my certification card or dive log so I probably wouldn't be able to dive at all. I guess that's what I get for putting everything off to the last minute.

The in-flight dinner was a main course of cheese ravioli or chicken sandwich, with cheese and crackers, grapes, and a cup of orange juice. The girl next to me was vegetarian, so her meal was a vegetable medley with strawberries for dessert. Then the flight attendants came around with tea or coffee, even though it was after midnight LA time. There were like 15 different in-flight shows (which we got to choose because we each had a tiny monitor on the back of the seat in front of us), including a GPS view of our plane flight with local time and temperature, a travel show about Fiji (where the plane was headed), Fool's Gold, 21, and The Spiderwick Chronicles. The flight attendants handed out these giftbags which had a toothbrush, toothpaste, eyemask, and long pair of socks in them. I was exhausted so I slept for a few hours.

About two hours from Fiji, they handed out "Refreshing Moist Towels" which were rather large and most people used them to wipe off their faces and bodies. We were served breakfast, which was a cheese omlette with salsa and mushrooms, sausage, tator tots, a roll with butter, a cup of fruit, and more orange juice and tea and coffee. The vegetarian sitting next to me got only fruit and a roll, and that's when I decided they must be feeding her vegan meals instead because she didn't even get butter or cheese or eggs.

I arrived in Fiji at 5 am on 11 July, local time. It was still the 10th in America, but we skipped it when crossing the International Date Line. They announced that a boy on the plane had a birthday on the 10th that he missed, and everyone clapped for him. The Fijian airport was filled with duty-free shops, but I would have had to exchange my money for Fijian dollars to buy anything so I didn't. All the signs were in English, but all the staff said hola instead of "hello" and spoke some non-English language amongst themselves, but it wasn't Spanish.

On my flight from Fiji to Brisbane, I sat next to this Australian in a cowboy hat who had clearly been drinking. I found out his name was Pete and that he had been living in America working at rodeos for the last seven years. The in-flight movie was Fool's Gold which I had already watched, and the meal was the same omlette with salsa and mushrooms. When we landed in Brisbane Pete offered to help me figure out where I needed to go and what I needed to do (baggage claim, money exchange, transferring to the other airport, etc.) but he got distracted by cheap liquor at a duty free shop, and then he had an issue with his baggage, and ultimately I realized that his level of intoxication made him a hindrance despite his helpful nature.

Apparently in Brisbane the domestic airport is not connected to the international airport, which I had to figure out on my own and then find transportation to on my own. Once I got into the domestic airport, I wasn't allowed to check in for my flight because it was too early, so I had to sit around and wait about an hour. I was very hungry, but all the restaurants were past security where I wasn't allowed to go yet, so I bought a candybar and some juice at the only store outside of security. Finally once I was able to check in I ordered a ham and cheese croissant which was about $8 (the exchange rate was $.97 Australian to $1.00 American when I arrived).

I don't remember much about my flight from Brisbane to Newcastle because I was completely exhausted by this point. Once I got to Newcastle, the airport was confusing and frustrating. I had just flown for 21 hours (31, with layover time), I had no reservations for where to stay, I had no local contacts (and no way of contacting them, even if I did), and I realized I had no idea what I was doing. When I left America, my dad had thought that Newcastle airport would be like an American airport in most cities: I could step off the plane, grab my bags, find a kiosk of local hotels, and call one up to make a reservation and get a free shuttle there. There was nothing like that at Newcastle. The best I could find was an "information" desk which was clearly just a cover for this shuttle service which cost $35 (or more, depending on where you needed to go), but I didn't really have any other options. I made a week long reservation at a hostel and shelled out the $35 for a shuttle there. Then I finally found the baggage carousels, but it had taken so long that the luggage wasn't going around anymore. I asked everyone where my luggage might be, and I was ultimately led to the check in desk where they told me my luggage had been lost. I filled out the paperwork, then bought a converter ($13) and a meal (Hungry Jack's, the same as Burger King--they even have Whoppers--this also cost me $13) while I waited for the shuttle. My order was messed up but I was so hungry I didn't care. Before I got on the shuttle I decided to check at the office for my luggage, and luckily it was there! They said it was taken by security since it was "abandoned" on the carousel for so long.

The shuttle ride took about an hour, and it was a cold miserable ride. I was so dizzy from dehydration and exhaustion that driving on the left side made me feel a little sick, and every time I saw headlights I thought they were coming straight at us because we were on the wrong side. When I finally got to the hostel, the office was impossible to find and I wondered around for about 10 minutes. Then, it turned out there wasn't an open bed in the room I was supposed to stay in, so I was put in a room all by myself. It was freezing because the window was propped open with a piece of wood nailed into the frame, and I was incredibly lonely and depressed and exhausted and miserable. I realized that from the moment I had arrived in Australia everything had gone wrong and everything had been so hard to figure out, and I wondered if I had made a horrible mistake coming here. I spent $2 for 20 minutes of internet at the hostel kiosk so I could email my dad and use Facebook for a bit. Then I decided that in the battle between exhaustion and dehydration, dehydration won so I walked to the gas station (about a block away) to spend $3 on a bottle of water. That was when I realized that everything here costs 2-3 times more than it would in America, even though the exchange rate is about 1:1. Then I walked back to the hostel and went to bed.