The flight was so incredibly long. 30 hours is longer than it sounds. And it sounds long. First of all, we took the Greyhound from Portsmouth to Boston. Which is like...an hour. We had to change busses, which was a huge pain in the ass because we had so much luggage. We ended up sitting with two white gangster kids (we had to separate because there weren't any two seats together open, I swear it felt just like Jr. High when you get on the bus and everyone avoids eye contact with you and sits on the outside of their seat so you have to awkwardly ask if you can sit with someone). Both of our white gangster friends felt the need to take up their seat as well as half of ours, so we were both hanging half out into the aisle. Oh, and did I mention it was really hot? Because it was. Then when we got to the bus station to change busses, no one could tell us which gate to go to. We had people telling us that busses didn't even go to Logan Airport, when we had tickets that said they did. The customer service lady was a royal beyotch and told us 2 different gates that the bus could be coming to---she was wrong about both!
We finally got to Logan, and checked our luggage. We were sooo happy to be done with all those bags! Unfortunately, we didn't check to see where they sent them--and they only sent them to Singapore! So there's something that we'll always make sure we do: make sure they send the luggage to our FINAL destination (like the movie, except for we didn't die).
Flying to JFK was a breeze--we were only in the air for about 45 minutes. We had a layover for about 4 hours, and thank God we did. No one was around to help, and we didn't really know where to go. We finally found the desk where we needed to get our tickets for Singapore Air, and had some pizza and relaxed. We found a table under a cool vent which was AWESOME because we were soooooo hot and sweaty. Ewwww.JFK to Frankfurt was long, but alright. The airplane food was pretty good---although it was weird to be eating General Tso's Chicken at like 3:30am. Flying is such a time warp because you're constantly changing time zones, so time actually just becomes irrelevant, and a concept instead of a reality. Yeah, it's 3:30am SOMEWHERE, but not for long if we keep moving at this pace!
On Singapore Air, we each had our own tvs with movies, games, and music. Ben and I decided to try to stay awake, which wasn't hard. It was sooo hot and when you ask for a drink, you get like 3 ounces. We were really dehydrated and felt so gross. When we arrived in Frankfurt, we only had 40 minutes to get through security (apparently you have to go through security every time you have a layover when you're flying internationally) and find our next terminal. Of course, I made the buzzer go off, which I don't know why, I think they just randomly choose people to make it go off on. So I got frisked (exciting!) and they also went through my purse. They looked at my hand lotion for about 5 minutes. Like I'm going to make a bomb out of it or something!Frankfurt to Singapore was just like the first leg, except for we dozed in and out of sleep for about 4 hours. It's hard to sleep on an airplane though. Ben had people in front of him that would put their chairs all the way back, which got to be amusing the more tired we got. I won't explain airplane toilets, or go into too much detail. All I'll say is....they're really really cramped, and once everyone is served food, about an hour later there's a mile long line waiting for the bathroom.
Because our luggage was tagged incorrectly, we had to go through Customs in Singapore. Which was annoying, because we had to fill out this little paper and then stand in a line, get our baggage, re-check our baggage and get our new ticket from Singapore to Perth. Luckily, the people at the Singapore airport were very helpful and friendly, and the airport was beautiful! And at least we knew that our luggage had made it that far. We had to use the elevators to get to the 2nd floor though, and we had all of our luggage on these sweet rolling carts. I swear, it was like a movie. We kept pushing the up button for the elevator, and someone would get in front of us and press down. And then the light for up would go off and the elevator would be going down! And when we finally almost got into an elevator going up, the people didn't hold the door and we had to start all over!! We were cracking up because of how ridiculous it was.
Finally, not much to say about the flight to Perth. It was nice. :)
When we arrived in Perth we had to go through Customs and get our luggage. And a dog sniffed our bags! Kind of exciting! Mark and his girlfriend Nat were waiting to pick us up. They are both super nice. Then we had to try to fit our bags into Mark's little 2 door convertible. We ended up throwing out a suitcase (which was totally beat up and nasty anyway) and sitting with a 50 lb. suitcase on our laps! It was amusing. We saw TONS of kangaroos on our way to Mark's from the airport, but they were kind of far away in fields, so I didn't get a good picture. Don't worry, I'll make sure to get plenty! (Fun fact: Mark recently hit a kangaroo and literally decapitated it. Ewwww)
Mark's house is really nice. It's walking distance to the beach, and we have our own little guest bedroom, which is really nice since we have all this luggage. Little things are just so different here. Example: Australia has crows just like the States, but here they sound like dying cats. No better way to describe the sound. I guess that's their accent? Also, they have birds here called Magpies that WILL attack you. Nat's sister used to ride her bike to work and would regularly get attacked on her helmet by a Magpie so she had to stop going that way! The same sort of situation happened to Mark. Scary! Here's an ocean view from Mark's house (which is on a hill)
So basically, Saturday night was the best shower of my life. We crashed at 7:30pm and slept til 9am. When we woke up we got ready and took a walk down to the beach. Here are a few pictures from the beach and of a squatty seagull (unfortunately I felt like too much of a creeper to get a picture of the guy JOGGING in a speedo. Not just, hey I'm jogging to my car. No. Jogging as in EXERCISING in a speedo. Ben is going to love it here...)
We also drove in to town that day. Driving on the other side of the car, on the other side of the road is a total trip, by the way. Yes, we did end up on the wrong side of the road a few times. Hahahaha. Oh, and Australia LOVES rotaries (roundabouts, they call them). They are seriously every 5 feet! In such unnecessary places! Anyway, Ben and I drove into town and did a little exploring. We got lunch at Subway (Yay! They have Subway!) and the girl making the sandwiches looked at Ben like he had 5 heads when he asked for Pepperjack cheese. So funny. We got some groceries too, which was soooo different. Their grocery stores have weird stuff in them. Like...bikes. And lots and lots of Asian food. And just weird, random things that you expect to see anywhere but a grocery store. Here's one of my faves:
So now we are on the search for a car and a house/apartment. We are probably going to have to go up to Perth for a car (which is only 1.5 hours away instead of 3! They just built a new highway that cuts the time from Bunbury in half, sooo awesome!). But we have found a few already, and found a few houses that we'll be looking at this week. Can't wait to get settled into our own place here!We'll continue to keep you all updated and we'll post pictures of our new car/house when we...you know....get them. :)
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