"Allo' Mate"

It's 4:30am in America but its only 11:00pm here. Everybody and anybody considered decent here in Australia should be sleeping (including my mom and sisters)-- but due to the 13+ hours I spent sleeping in the plane and the airport today, I'm quite awake. 

I finally got a hold of a charger for my laptop in addition to the Australian Wi-Fi and so I'm spending some time uploading and updating. I'm starting to get a little sleepy so after this is over I should head for bed as well.

Australia's really different. I came here with little to no expectations (except I did expect to see as many kangroos as I do rabbits back in the states) but there are alot of things different here than back at home. 

Here are some interesting things I've picked up so far..

(sorry i dont have pictures for everything!)

1) Bathrooms are called "lifts" and the ones in the airport have showers.

2) The plugs look like this (inconvinient..camera/laptop charger, hairdryer..sigh)

3) Birds have Mo-hawks (is that how you spell it?)

4) The drivers seat is on the other side!! I didnt know this was forrealz??!?!

5) There's no tax................................everything's so cheap here.

6) Their main fast food restaurant is called "Hungry Jack" but the logo looks like this.. 

(familiar??)

7) They actually inspect bags with dogs...we had to walk in a single file line while this big dog on a leash walked across us sniffing us... (maybe not that interesting but it was pretty cool)

8) they have really cool money!

I'm actually starting to talk like them too. Today a lady at the airport asked me how many passengers I had in my party and I answered with "mmm, foh". I swear I meant to say 'four' but everyone and their mom talk in accents it was hard not to do the same haha 

The process of getting to Australia was really annoying. The guy at LAX thought it'd be funny to prank us and told us that our passports were invalid and that we couldnt go to Australia. My mom freaked and all of us stood there in disbelief but later found that it was because we didnt sign the line above our picture (our passports were all new). After that, he thought it'd be fun to tell us that we really really couldnt go cuz we didnt have the visa that was required to go to Australia. This was actually true but he played with us for a good 20 minutes, giving me gray hairs, making my sisters almost come to tears and giving my mom the heartache of her life time. I really wanted to punch him. but we purchased our visas there and left trying not to make eye-contact with him. We finally got on the plane and waited inside for almost 2 hours because the flights were delayed. The 15 hour flight to Australia was an uncomfortable one. We sat in the the very back of the airplane and could barely see the tv that was probably a few inches smaller than my laptop screen which happened to be a good 70 feet away. I slept through a good 13 hour chunk of the ride. We finally got to our transfer station but happened to be 10 minutes late and our plane left without us so we had to get new boarding passes and wait 4 hours inside of the airport for the next flight. They didnt take Australian money so we couldnt even make a phone call until way later. 

but now we are here. and Here I am, my patience tested, my anger fumed, my emotions jumbled and body exhausted. If I'm to be honest, my trip thus far isnt what I imagined it to be but it is only the beginning. The first dinner with the entire family minus my aunt was a quiet one-- it was the first time we saw each other for 4+ years and we didnt have too much to say. My older cousin (lets call him JJ) is really nice and big, he has a cute smile. My younger cousin (lets call him Joey) is nice too but alot quieter than JJ. His wife is not so nice (yet) but JJ's wife is really sweet even though she has big frog eyes. JJ and Big sweet eyes wife have a really cute daughter. She's almost 2.

I'm tired.

Sorry this was long, forgive me-- it was the 1st one!