G’day mates, I have made it to Cairns, Australia and it has been unreal. But allow me to back track a few days and fill you guys in on some things…

Airports, Airplanes, Air… people. I just adore people watching and having three hour layovers (perfect amount of time) is just dandy. Orlando was where I started this whole journey. As all of you may know, I was quite the mess leading up to the departure date. With the Chang family standing in the middle of the Orlando International Airport, just feets away from the security gate, mama Chang sank her nails into my precious organ- skin. I thought she would never let go. Luckily no tears had been shed… yet. But then I stepped into no man’s land (security line) and mother let her tear ducts go. Papa Chang then saw my eyes begin to quiver and said just this, “don’t start crying…” But then I glanced over at dearest mother (mistake) and the next thing I know, I was Alice Wonderland. I swear my mother and I are connected at the tear ducts. Weird. As I inched my way up the line, my mother being the protective, loving, scared out of her wits mother that she is, kept nudging her way up the line next to mine to just drop suggestions. People were glaring at her, and I death-glared back at them, through my watery eyes. Anyways, made it past security and all of that good stuff. So the waiting of the take off begins. This next part was something else. I didn’t think I was in Orlando, I thought I was in Mexico, or Miami. Everyone around me spoke spanish and everyone WAS spanish. It was absolutely ridiculous. As I lounged in the waiting area, snacking on my sour-patch kids, I saw a van diesel look alike far yonder (smaller than the actual actor) and had a mother and son sitting behind me, enjoying some Mickey D’s As I was reading my book, I was getting close to a climax of the section I was reading when all of the sudden the young boy sitting behind me lets one rip. And I mean, he let it rip. I applauded him and his mother gushed in embarrassment while saying “good one, son.” Oh and by rip, I mean burp.. not the other end.

Dallas. Texans are just fantastic. Well that is my assumption since I didn’t meet any actual texans… just the ones that were working in the airport and I don’t even know if they were from there. Anyways, the person who sat next to me was nice. While I waited for everyone to board the plane, I saw these three girls walk to their seats in a line, one after the other. When the first girl appeared, a man who had already been in his seat, shot up and stuck his face at the girl and gave her a kiss on the lips. The girl looked surprised, but not. Then the next girl came in, the man did the same thing, but this girl looked more frazzled and in disgust. The third lady waltzed in and the man attempted to do the same thing but missed. The guy sitting next to me turned to me and I to him, then looked away and in unison said, “that was weird.” Indeed, it was weird. So that was that and the next thing I know I was in LAX.

LAX was fabulous. I met a girl – Kelley who is also on the trip with me, going to the same school and everything. She’s great. As we both waited to board, we met so many other kids who were also studying abroad in Australia and became instant friends. We all boarded the plane thereafter and the 14 hour flight began. I slept, and slept, and slept. I did some tossing and turning in my curled up ball and ended up waking up with a crick in my neck. When I say “my curled up ball” let me explain that to you. My way of sitting on a plane “comfortably” is by sinking into the seat, then planting my feet either on the edge of the arm rest in front of me, or in the pockets. I then place my head against my arms which are rested on my thighs. It may not sound nice in writing, but let me tell you, I get that beauty sleep. When I awoke, I had missed dinner and the “refresh snack bag” that they pass out. I don’t care too much for airplane food anyways so I wasn’t too sad. Anyways, I watched a movie – Wanderlust. It was pretty funny, though the title of the movie in relation to what the movie was actually about… didn’t coincide so I was a bit confused as to why the producers chose the title “Wanderlust”. But it was about hippies, living in a commune, and nudists. Three of my favorite things in life. Just kidding.

BRISBANE. man was this stressful. We (me and all the girls that are on the same trip as me) jetted off the plane and were running to collect our suitcases to go through customs and catch our next flight out to Cairns. I do not know how to put it, but to say that it was the most stressful hour I have ever been in, let alone what a great workout. One by one we passed through security until one lucky lassie in the group got “randomly selected” to be searched. She then proceeded to tell the man “we only have 15 minutes until our flight leaves!” She was exasperated. The man then looks at her, gives her this wavey wave and calmly says, “it’s OK you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.” HA. Luckily we made our flight.

The flight into Cairns was unreal. As I looked out the window, I could only appreciate nature and just stare in awe. If you saw me, my jaw was opened ungodly wide and my eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. The ocean had the colors of turquoise, midnight blue, emerald green, and all the colors on the spectrum beautiful. It was absolutely breathtaking. The fact that I was in Australia didn’t really set until the very next day.

Side Note: I am several days behind in the blogging world because it’s kind of a difficult task to discover WiFi… and I apologize from the bottom of my heart. So if this post seems a bit scattered brained, it’s because it has been a few days since the event(s).

Tomorrow morning, the exploration of Cairns begins. We stay here until Sunday and on Monday we leave for the fashion city of Melbourne. eeeeeee!

“Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert