First day in Sydney

Oh my goodness traveling was traumatic! It all started at 315 am Monday morning when my mom and I got up to drive to the airport. She was so sweet to do it, despite the fact her and I were walking zombies... I guess zombies walk but that is beside the point. Anywho long story short, my connecting flight to San Jose was a disaster as someone guided me to the wrong flight so I ended up missing my flight to LAX (where my Aussie group was meeting to travel together), however a really nice American Airlines worker hooked me up with a ticket only 2 hours later than I was suppose to depart, which gave me a little time to nap. Anywho I will save you lots of boring details of my trip to let you know Australia is amazing so far! Even though they tell you it will be until the newness rubs off, but lets just say it has not rubbed off yet! Yesterday was all orientation stuff, we received our public transportation passes (to use for buses, trains, and ferries!) and other info on classes and international health stuff. Nothing too exciting there. At the end of the day yesterday our (myself and my 3 roomies) home stay mom (Gail) picked us up from school, we were all absolutely exhausted, and tried to show us the bus routes we would have to take Thursday morning to get back to school. Thankfully it worked because we got here on time today! Gail is so sweet, she lives in this apartment building which looks more like a resort. She bought us pizza hut and we sat around the dinner table talking about our families and experiencing our first authentic Australian cuisine - Vegemite. Which is pretty much a pasty form of salt and yeast Aussie's love and put on everything! Interesting. Well hopefully in the next few days I will be able to give you more details but as for now I am off to a scavenger hunt in Sydney, a Cruise, and dinner at a Mongolian grill! G-day!