Lucky..or maybe Blessed

I want to back track a little bit because in the beginning this trip felt so rushed. In actuality though, the journey from San Diego to where I am now, was quite smooth compared to my other classmates whose flight left LAX at 2am this morning. It should be noted that my Mom tried for months to get my seat on Quantas airlines upgraded to First class with our air miles. She would call every day and see if they had any openings. The day before I was set to take off, she called at 4am when she woke up and found out I was going to get the full 9 yards. I received three wonderful meals, that were accompanied by a little Vino! (Don't worry, yes I'm still 20 and it's legal in the air with the drinking age 18 Down Under.) My bed was beyond comfortable, but it was quite awkward that the flight attendants made your bed for you and wanted to hang up my clothes because they gave us pajamas. This flight was the start to an amazing experience and allowed me to adjust to Australia time as if I had been living here on the regular.


The hotel I stayed in (after my run around the city..past blog) was full of buttons and switches but all the same tv stations except instead of America's Got Talent! it was Australia's Got Talent. When looking for dinner, I walked down the streets at 8pm and every lightshow was on trying to get you to walk in their adult store, club or risque shop. I grabbed some Subway and opted out of the nightlife scene for the night haha. After checking out yesterday morning, I confirmed a pick up from one of our program coordinators, Russ, who picked me and my huge goalkeeping bag up in his BMW convertible. The rest of the program participants were stuck in LAX because of the volcanic ash in Chile, but they wanted to get the people who did make it into town, checked into the shnazy apartments in Bondi Junction, Sydney.

When I got to the apartments that overlook the harbor to the left, I met Hallie and Cosette in the lobby waiting for our rooms to be ready. Hallie plays club soccer at MSU and Cosette plays tennis but decided she wanted to try golfing down here. We had to sign documents agreeing to a $500 fine if we get two noise complaints and $20 every time we lose our room key. About an hour later, Gabby joined us in the lobby and we found out she plays field hockey too !! She is an art student from Boston who found our school study abroad program on google haha.


Once they finally checked us in, we took the elevator up to the 11 floor where only 5 apartments are on the floor. The rooms have a fully loaded kitchen, dinner table, washer and dryer, two full baths a comfy living room and balcony with a table set. Our two bedrooms have two twin beds in each and large closets. We be livin' large !! After settling in we decided to take a trip to an indoor mall that was like 7 stories high. They had fresh food markets, hair salons and other brand name company stores we didn't recognize. After lunch we ventured back to the apartments which is only about a block away and went up to our place and took in the beautiful sunset. The girls were starting to get pretty tired and the Wimbledon match wasn't helping to keep their eyes open.


We were asking the front desk for any places to eat for dinner when we thought to ask if anyone else within our program had checked in. Brenna, Laura and one of the 5 guys apart of the trip. They had been traveling for 26 hours which included the 14 hour flight from LAX, a 8 hour lay over in Brisbane and a 6 hour stay in Sydney before checking in. They had already ordered some expensive pizza to the room, so we headed around the block where we found what looked to be an alright place to eat at.
After difficulties ordering because there was a language barrier we found a convenience store on our way back, where we could buy some milk and cereal. I bought the items in the picture and it cost me $30...no joke. And that is Australian dollars so its more like $35 american dollars. I was in shock and even voiced it kindly and rhetorically to the cashier saying, "WHat did I buy?!!" and he laughed and said shampoo can get expensive. Well, maybe I'll just let the salt water wash my hair the rest of this trip.
I went to sleep around 11pm after reading another handful of pages in my book 19 Minutes, which just keeps getting better...if you're looking for some summer reading, author Jodi Picoult is the answer.  I woke up this morning at 6:30am feeling a little tired, but once that thought popped into my head (You know, that thought that, IM IN SYDNEY, YOU'RE WASTING DAYLIGHT) well, I couldn't go to sleep after that. I took a picture of the sunrise after I ate some odd tasting Froot Loops with funky, but fresh Skim milk, and was happy I decided to stay up. After watching some Wimbledon and getting ready, I'm going to go off and doin' some 'splorin! I now have this new area of Bondi Juntion to check out. Adelle should be landing in an hour and then they'll have fun waiting in line at customs, so I'm sure I'll be back on my run before then. In case you were wondering, "Golly G, Molly! What happens if you get hit by a car coming from the opposite direction (happens a lot to tourists), and nobody knows where/who you are?!?!?!" Well, I have my handy-dandy mini wallet hooked onto my sports bra which contains all the necessities: a copy of my passport and visa, copy of my international health insurance card, drivers license, debit card, US and Aussie money and of course my room key. I have a map of the immediate area which I'll try not to lose like my last map :) Have an awesome rest of your day and I'll be sure to fill you in on how my day goes !

Love,

ME