Aussie Trip '99 (Earlier Entries)

Found this on one of my backup CDs from back in 99. It’s funny how writing styles change, it was hard for me to keep myself from editing this.

Dated: January 23, 1999

My Aussie Trip

Prelude

I am on an foreign exchange program to Eastern Victoria, Australia. It will last a year, during which I will attend grade 12 at Sale College. I will be staying in Bundalaguah, which is somewhere in Eastern Victoria. The Eastern Victoria Region covers the area between Melbourne to the eastern coast, to make a slice-of-a-pie shaped area.

My family is only a temporary one, I was the last person leaving the States for Australia to receive a family, and I barely got my visa in time. I will be staying with Robin and Barry Wain. At first I thought that they lived in the outback, but they really are just a little out of town, on a fifty acre farm. This is a small farm, on which they raise ostriches and cattle for a hobby. They have one girl, Lisa, who is 21, and one boy, Ben, who is 19. Both live in town at the moment, though Lisa is planning to move a bit farther away because she feels like she knows to many people in town. She has gone on an exchange program to Bolivia, and the Wain’s have hosted students form Italy and Finland.

The AFS students to Australia had to meet at the Hacienda Hotel at LAX, for a day and a half orientation. This is where my parents had to drop me off for good and say goodbye. The first day’s meetings went great, even though I was hungry half the time because of missing lunch, from arriving too late. We had to share the two bed hotel rooms with four people, so instead of sleeping we had a big party with about ten people in there, and I only got about an hour and a half sleep. The next day, we had more meetings, with a rushed departure to the Airport, only to wait after checking in for about two hours.

A funny point when we where trying to get to the gate was with Mitch, one of my room mates, who likes to do magic tricks, and the bag with his magic stuff was his carry-on. One of his magic tricks was to separate three one foot wide medal rings that are interlinked. Well LAX security didn’t like this very much, and after it went through the x-ray machine, he had to sit there for thirty minuets unpacking the whole bag before they were happy. At this same time I was a bit baffled as to what the security lady was doing to my bag, because she took this little tool, with a bit of cloth on the end, and ran in over the zippers and the bag straps. When I asked her about it she told me that she was checking for explosives, which just proves that maybe LAX does have good security after all.

The flight went reasonably well, I fell asleep as soon as I got on the plane, and managed to get nine hours of sleep in. They were showing three movies, but I only watched one, which was titled ‘What Dreams May Come’, and was a very good one. I slept through ‘Ants’ and the other one which I can’t remember the name of. There wasn’t much to see for most of the flight, because it was dark when we left LAX, and it remained so until about three hours from Sydney. I didn’t get to take any pictures out the window, because we were seated right in the middle, and the wing was in the way. Plus the only good picture would have been of the sun rise through the clouds, but there was too much turbulence half the time and the other half I was still asleep.

We (AFS US) waited to be the last ones off the plane so that we didn’t get separated in the rush. The first thing was to get our passports checked, then we went to retrieve our cargo, which took about thirty minuets, and since mine was near the end, I was kind of nervous during that time. But luckily mine weren’t lost and I don’t think anyone else’s was either. Next came customs, we all dreaded this, we all had something small or stupid in our bags that we thought customs might question. (I was carrying a tool set to fix computers with, in my cargo bag). We walked past some lady, handed her the questioner that we filled out on the plane, and then around the corner was the AFS Australia people… what happened to customs?!? We figured that they must have waved us past knowing that we were AFS students.

The AFS Australia people then divided us up, some being rushed off for an immediate flight, others givens tickets for later flights (me), this was the majority, while the last few had to wait with AFS for their families that lived nearby. The people who were going to be taking the later domestic flights all had to go and check in luggage, then we all got on a bus to go to the domestic airport, which was right next door to the international one. Surprisingly no AFS volunteer come with us! They had told us all that there would be a volunteer with us from the time we arrived at LA, to the time we meet our new family. Oh well, we didn’t have any problems finding our separate gates, (at least I didn’t), and by this time, there was only one other AFSA student with me. We went and got our money exchanged, then came back and got on our separate busses to go out to our planes, with a final wave good bye that made her the last AFS US student I saw.

The bus took the small amount a people, about 12, to the plane. I wasn’t surprised when we stopped in front of a little dual propeller plane. After we got on, I figured that it must hold about 36 people, and like I said, it was only a third full, so if we got crummy seats there would be no problem with us changing (aside that it might unbalance the plane a little). At least it was part of a large airline company, so it seams a bit safer. When we took off we had quite a view, and its too bad that I only took one or two pictures of it, but at least I had a few more during the rest of the flight. We landed in Albury to let off a few people and to refuel, then the only other stop was Traralgon, where my family meet me, about 45 minuets from my new home.