Australia

The 15 flight from L.A to Sydney is someting I dont even want to think about, let alone write about. It was lon,. obviously, and i had a severe case of restless leg syndrome(idk if thats real of i made that up but that's how i would best describe my condition) for the first 7 hours so now matter how tired and miserable I was I could not get to sleep. I will say however, we had two delicious meals and a HUGE selection of new movies and tv shows to chose from. We landed in Sydney at 5:30 a.m and by the time i got through customs and collected my baggage it was about 7. I then dragged all of my luggage out to a bus stop where a van picked me up and drove me to my hotel. As dumb as this may sound, i was surprised when i saw the drivers seat on the right side! Driving on the other side of the road is more confusing than i had expected, and i was just the passenger. When I arrive at the hotel the lady at the front desk immediately asks if I was Elizabeth? My response was oh geez i'm guessing my dad has called about 50 times this morning..sure enough he had. So I give him and mom a call which cost 4 dollars for like 2 minutes? Anyway I get up to my room, which is a hole in the wall..literally, and it takes about 10 minutes to figure out how to get the lights on. You had to put your room key into some slot in the wall, which is actually smart because no one can leave their lights on when they leave their room. So I take a quick shower and try to straighten my hair, and of course I manage to screw up the setting on my converter and it starts steaming so I just forget that.
I then head out to get a taxi to take me to central station. There I board a "hop on hop off" tour bus that allows me to get off at any of the 25 stops whenever i want and then get on a different bus that comes by every 15 minutes. So i spent the day exploring the city and seeing all of their famous sites. My favorite part of Australia was definitely everyones accent! Im pretty sure there was no other American in Sydney that day hahah everyone was either Australian or European..and there were surprisingly a TON of Chinese people there. And to add to the Chinese comment, literally every single chinese person i saw was giving the peace sign while having their pictures taken? I have no idea what was up with that it was just really strange. So I finally decided to eat dinner and I'm thinking it's about 5 p.m and will almost be time to head back to my hotel when I realize its only 1. So i get myself a delicious steak..assuming its the last meal i'll get to eat since I have no idea what to expect the food to be like in PNG. When i finally finish exploring for the day I decide I'll take the train back to my hotel instead of paying a ridiculous amount for a cab. And it's not the train you would expect, its more of a monorail tram type thing. So I ask around to figure out which train I need to take and then I buy my ticket and head for my platform. (Saw platforms 9 and 10 and couldnt help but thinking of Harry Potter and platform 9 3/4. Everyone is sprinting through the station trying to make their train, and there I am strolling along trying to figure out which direction I should be headed, with no idea of what time my train is leaving. I end up making it there in time and manage to get off at the right stop.  So it then takes about 30-45 minutes to walk to my hotel because it's a good distance away and i walked in a huge circle for the first 20 minutes. I'm feeling pretty proud of myself at this point because so far I've managed to navigate to the other side of the world and found my way through a huge city in a foreign country all by my lonesome. All I have left is two flights the next morning and I will have arrived!