Sometimes you've just got to look on the bright side

The real adventure began today...and what an adventure Steph and I have had before even leaving the country. Here's how our story begins...

We arrived at Dulles bright and early, checked in, made it through security, ate some breakfast, and boarded the plane - easy as pie. The plane was super cool with purple lights along the ceiling, an extremely entertaining safety video, and some pretty humorous instructions on using the tv screens and remotes. The flight wasn't too bad except that I couldn't fall asleep. I was able to entertain myself with some music, tv, and games though. I also talked to the sweet old man next to me for a bit too. Finally we arrived in LA (and take note we flew in a day early so as not to cut it close with our late morning flight tomorrow for Australia).

After getting our bags we found our way to our hotel for the night on a shuttle, checked in, and dumped our stuff in the room. I was baffled by the time change and couldn't get over the fact that I was ready for lunch seeing as how it was already 1:00pm back home but that it was only 10:00 in the morning in California. Steph and I collected ourselves, stretched out a bit, and then finally decided to find some lunch, a drugstore, and an ATM. After being told there was a Friday's within walking distance we started the trek down the road to get something to eat. After quite a bit of walking we still hadn't found it and stopped to ask for some new directions...we had to do this FOUR times before anyone gave us directions that got us to the restaurant. Finally we get there...AN HOUR AND A HALF after leaving the hotel...we walked so much we could have been back in VA for all I knew. We rejoiced when we saw a CVS nearby as well...so that was two things off our list. We sat and ate for a loooong time to get some energy back and triple-checked directions on how to get back to our street from there. All of our direction-givers assumed we were driving though and didn't inform us that we would have to walk near a busy freeway where the sidewalks suddenly ended. After safely making it to where we could see our hotel again and after a couple fiascos with an ATM we made it back to our room. Besides the slight sunburn (that is still getting darker as I write this) I was able to laugh a bit at our afternoon adventure.

But get ready for the next and even better stress fest of the day...

I was looking over the itinerary for our flights for tomorrow when I noticed a slight typo concerning the departure time for the flight that leaves LA. Instead of saying 11:20am I noticed it said 11:20pm. I thought, "That's not right. We're supposed to leave in the morning. That's why we came into LA a day early." I asked Steph about it and her papers said the same thing. We then went through every email and paper we had to double check...and EVERYTHING said 11:20pm...and then we called to double check. And guess who was wrong? Abbey and Steph: 0, Travel Agency: 1. We were freaking out! How could be BOTH be wrong about a flight time? And each of us confirmed those flight times twice when we made deposits and then paid for them. All I could think of was...we spent all day wandering this crazy town for no reason!!! We could have eaten lunch in VA easy as pie, flew in tomorrow and still had plenty of time to catch our middle-of-the-night (as opposed to middle-of-the-day) flight to Australia. Luckily the manager at the desk said he would allow us to stay after check-out for a couple hours and leave our bags in the office if we wanted to do some stuff tomorrow while waiting around a whole day for our flight.

What have we gotten ourselves into?

So we decided to use tomorrow to go into the city for a bit and see some of LA since we're here. I hope I see a celebrity. That would make up for everything from today. Okay...two celebrities....good-looking male celebrities. Yeah, that sounds good.

Steph and I agreed on just accepting the fact that we can't change what has happened today and that we just need to look at the positives...

Positive #1: I now have one more day to still figure out what to do about a phone plan while in Australia.
Positive #2: We can actually spend some time in Los Angeles.
Positive #3: We have plenty of time to get to the airport in time for our flight.
Positive #4: We got some exercise today.
Positive #5: We get to sleep-in.

So until next time...and hopefully next time, everything goes as planned. :)

Getting Closer

I registered for classes today! It's starting to really feel like I'm going to be a student down there and not feel so much like I've just been dreaming about going. I registered for two psychology classes to put towards my Mary Wash degree, photography (I've been trying to take a photography class since I was in high school so I am VERY excited for this one), and a class about Australian sport (I'm hoping there will be a section on rowing!). And the best part is, I don't have any classes on Fridays. That's something I've been trying to accomplish for quite a few semesters now. Also, they do their classes a little different than here at Mary Wash. For each class I signed up for a lecture that's only once a week and then a smaller and shorter tutorial section that's also only once a week. That'll take some getting used to but I'm thinking I might like it.

I only have three weeks left in Fredericksburg but I still have so much to do before I leave! And whenever I think about packing...well we'll have to see how that goes when I get to it.

25 Days...

25 days seems like a short amount of time going by so slowly. But at the end of those 25 days I will be starting my trip to Bond University on the Gold Coast in Australia! I will be spending my fall semester studying at Bond and living the life of an Aussie for four months. I hope to see as much of Australia as I possibly can, learn how to surf, see the Outback, and do and see everything else in between! And I will be sharing this experience with Steph, one of my best friends and teammates. We are more than excited to get started on our adventure!

I chose Australia after looking through various study abroad booklets and websites. I was drawn to the beautiful photos of the beaches, the Outback, and the wildlife. So I decided that now, while I'm still in school, would be the best and easiest time to make it to the other side of the world! I'm striving to be a world traveler and so after talking about studying abroad with many different people, I chose Australia because I'll never know when I'll get the chance to go that far for this long again.

So I will be using this blog so that you all can follow me through what will hopefully be one of the greatest times of my life! Get excited!