Australia! - Day 1

I don’t even know where to begin!  I feel like so much has happened in the last 3 days…when that’s really not the case (it hasn’t technically been 3 days either, but it feels like it).  The emotional ups and downs have been almost more than I could bear at times.  I like my life to be pretty even keeled I guess.  The flights weren’t near as bad as they could have been, so I was thankful for that.   By no means enjoyable, but for a 14+ hour flight, it could have been worse.  As the plane was starting to land in Sydney I was beginning to panic, questioning why I had ever thought I could do this on my own.  Thankfully, there was soon stuff to do (customs, baggage, bus transfer, etc) so I couldn’t dwell on it too long, but man it’s rough.  All the blogs I read from other people who had headed off on their own to do this didn’t really mention all the moments of self-doubt (and maybe they didn’t have any). Knowing so many people back home were praying for me definitely helped, but didn’t entirely prevent such moments of panic. 

There was free internet at the travel desk where I was waiting for my bus to the hostel, so I hopped on and let my mom know I’d arrived safely, now I’m sitting at the Wake Up hostel and I’ve wasted almost 20 minutes trying to log on to my email!  Not sure if it’s the internet here or if it’s my computer – it truly could be either one.  No one else around me seems to be having trouble, so I’m starting to think it’s my computer.  I keep getting an Explorer error, so I’m gonna download Chrome and see how that goes.  I did read before I came that the internet in Australia is terrible, but no one ever expanded on that so I’m not really sure what they meant by that.

While wandering around Sydney earlier this afternoon I stopped into a travel agency that said they have free internet for backpackers, so I might have to try that instead…  The girl I chatted with was nice (she’s from British Columbia), she said I should head north – in April is when they start hiring for peak travel season in Cairns.  She said lots of people like the hop-on-hop-off bus route you can use to get from here to there – but after trying to drag my bags through the airport today,  I don’t think hopping on and off a bus is for me (I thought I did so good packing light, but not if I plan on living a backpacker lifestyle).  I packed for living somewhere, not traveling around…  So that’s where I’m at right now, waiting till about 9pm so I can finally go to bed, and fighting with my computer to check my email.