the adventure begins...

One week and one day ago Patty and I were flying somewhere above the ocean trying to manage our way from the East Coast of America to the South of Australia... fast forward until today and here we are, living "the dream" in Melbourne! Let me tell you guys, this dream that we are apparently following is a tad different than what we had imagined... bare with my story telling, it will never do the journey here justice.

My parents, who as most of you know, aren't very clingy with me and instead, always push me to go somewhere and do something. Well, they were pretty unrecognizable as they were standing next to the security line waiting for me to get through okay and snapping pictures on their camera phones. It was so great to have the support but also, very embarrassing. As I said goodbye for the last time to the two people who have helped me along every step of my life, I started walking down to my gate and watched my last Charlotte sunset through the window. LA bound.

In LA I met up with Patty and the crazy idea that we came up with a couple months prior finally came to reality. It didn't matter that her flight was delayed... or that going through security for the 3rd time took 45min... or that the bar we went to closed, physically SHUT their gates, on us - we were off :) A couple glasses of wine and champagne, a movie that normally wouldn't have been a tear jerker, and a never ending conversation with an Australian wake boarder brought us to the gorgeous sight that was Auckland, New Zealand. The flight flew by and we were touching down in never-never land.

Auckland was a bit chilly, a bit rainy, but everything that we could have pictured. Green, hilly, wet, and little did we know they had Pita Pit! No, we didn't act like complete Americans by going in... but we did take pictures. We were only in the city for a couple of hours due to our flight so we booked it back to the airport and headed toward the terminal that would take us to our long awaited destination - Melbourne, Australia! After making a couple duty-free purchases (Jameson & Toblerone) we boarded the hardest part of our 35 hour journey. The trouble with this can be summed up in one, single word : Clark.

Clark was a Vietnam Vet from South Vietnam who would. not. stop. talking. He barely spoke any English but managed to explain to us the importance of love of humanity and family as well as spitting/lecturing Patty constantly. I guess that to this older foreign gentleman I was "innocent and Patty was stubborn" - direct quote. He gave us graphic details about the war and proceeded to tell us his life's shortcomings. Needless to say, it was a terribly long ride but we managed to get Clark on Patty's video camera before landing which will probably be the next youtube sensation.

We landed in Melbourne a little after 5:30PM on Thursday and had our first Australian beer while waiting for the shuttle. Warning to all Americans : Australian beer is BITTER. We barely gulped it down and we were driving through this HUGE city that we could have never imagined to be Melbourne. It's more like New York with all the lights and cabs... the shuttle dropped us off at our Hostel which was cleverly, and deceptively named "The Ritz for Backpackers". We made a very typical loud, American entrance with our many bags and headed down for some food at the bar below, "The Elephant Wheelbarrow". Apparently "wedges" here aren't a type of salad but are big french fries with sour cream and, what they call, bacon. Australian bacon is actually thick pieces of ham... surprise! We snarfed the wedges and a beer each and after paying $30 (IT IS EXPENSIVE OVER HERE) we stumbled back into our hostel room (aka orphanage) and slept for 13 hours.

I'll write more about actually getting settled in over here a bit later - and for all of you with Facebook, check out my pictures! Cheers! :)