Flying, flying, flying some more!

As suspected, that was an incredibly long flight.

The trip started off quite uneventful. MSP to DEN, one of the smoothest/quickest flights I've been on. Not that the air time was all that short, but the pilot got us out of the gate and in the air quite quickly! It was rather refreshing. When we landed in DEN, I should have known that the incredibly long taxi was just the tip of an interesting iceberg that was going to soon unfold itself.

I met a friend in DEN. I know him from Minneapolis and he happens to work at DIA. I won't get into too many details, but in summary, we toured at least four different elevators, checked out a few stairwells (I understand what this sounds like, but here's what really happened), had a fiasco with a moving sidewalk, and iphone image searched the "possessed" horse at the entrance to DIA…you know, as opposed to actually going and looking at it ourselves. Needless to say, a better layover than I otherwise would have had!

Getting on the plane from DEN to LAX…oh god, I should have just turned around then. First off, I saw the ugliest baby I've ever seen. Straight out of Wicked and your favorite goblin movie, this kid would one day need serious help. He had the hiccups shortly after, and who can't just love a kid with the hiccups!? BUT THEN his dad let him start jumping on his tray table…the table that was connected to MY chair! Ugly baby, may hope be with you!! The plane continued with not getting out of the gate on time because the safety video wouldn't play (and all of us having to listen to the exact same line over and over), needed to be rerouted because of thunderstorms, which caused us to taxi all the way across DEN (which, as my friend had just told me, is an INCREDIBLY large airport), and then there was extremely violent turbulence. I was happy to land in LAX!

LAX to SYD was nothing special. It was a long, long, long flight. I had the seat next to me open, but a man along the window. He was Persian, and one of the first things he said to me was "If you want to put your feet on me to sleep, you're more than welcome to." Um. Thanks bud, but no thanks. My word of advice though is that if you're ever flying to Australia, fly QANTAS. United just is no where near the par that QANTAS is. I'm almost disappointed for my flight home, but whatever.

So far we've had a walking tour of the neighborhood that our apartment complex is in. Surry Hills (a joining district) has tons of restaurants and little boutiques. We headed over to Trinity Bar in Surry Hills last night. I had a delicious BLT on Turkish Bread (they really do love their Turkish Bread over here). After that we decided to head to the grocery store for some food for the apartment. Hilarity did not ensure.

First off, boy am I happy I drink soy milk! A gallon of milk is $5 and a 16oz box of fruit loops is $5.50! OUCH! Soy milk is the same price that it is at home, which is at least familiar to me and I'm used to paying that much. Bananas are about $4.00/kg, as opposed to $.80/lb back home, so bananas are going to be scarce for the next seven weeks. Food just seems to be quite expensive here, and our $45 a week stipend doesn't go far.

One of the coolest things so far about Sydney is the buses!! In Minneapolis, only one person can get on the bus at the time. If there's a long line, it takes quite a bit for the bus to get going. HOWEVER, in Sydney, bus riders can form two separate, side by side lines to board the bus and two people can pay at the same time! It makes the time the bus is stopped much shorter, and (Mike, you'll be so happy about this) PEOPLE ACTUALLY GET OFF AT THE REAR EXIT INSTEAD OF WALKING TO THE FRONT!! It's so much more fluid and flows much more nicely than Minneapolis buses.