Welcome to Australia!

It is Monday morning in Sydney right now and the time is about 8am. Wow...so many things to fill you all in on and I don't know where to start. First of all, I will tell you how things went at the airport in LA and the plane trip over here. My Southwest Airlines flight made it into LAX from PHX around 7:00pm (PST) on Friday, Feb 8th. I then started to head towards the Qantas terminal so I could check my bags and get my boarding ticket. On my way over to the terminal this guy stopped me and asked if I was in the military which took me completely off guard. I mean, I wasn't even wearing anything that resembled a military person. The guy then went into asking me for money to help the homeless, at this point I realized I had been sold. He worked for a non-profit organization that helped raise money to aid the homeless and he was nicely dressed. He also showed me his badge and was standing near a cop that was directing traffic. Normally I don't give money to these people and especially in an environment like this one. But I gave the man $2 just so he would leave me alone. After that I got on a shuttle that took me over to the terminal. Once I arrived to the terminal I gave the lady my passport and ticket information. The lady at the ticket counter asked if I had a Visa to go to AU and I told her yes, the travel agency did it for me. Well, I guess it didn't connect to my ticket so the lady was nice enough to put one in for me at no charge. Usually they are $25 USD. The lady also said my flight was delayed an hour and the new departing time was 12:40am (it was 11:45pm). Now I got my boarding pass so I was ready to pass security. I made it through security OK and then I was off to find a bar to kill 4.5 hrs before my flight.

Over the next 4 hours I drank 4 Amber Bock beers and took 3 shots of rum that some guys from a band by the name of "Blues Traveler" bought for me. I met some interesting people: an older guy by the name of Bryan from New York City who told me his claim to fame was that he had been to 100 countries and drank a beer in all 50 states, a middle aged guy Jeff from Rhode Island, a girl similar in age to me from Los Angeles, and 3 guys from the band "Blues Traveler" who were probably in their later 30's or so. Everyone was very nice and I had a great time before my flight. However, I drank a little too much and was a little tipsy getting on the plane. But before I got on the plane I met three girls who were going to Sydney on the same plane I was. One of the girls asked if I would switch her seats if I had a window seat. I said no problem but in all honestly I wanted her seat (Aisle seat). They were from Miami and headed to Sydney for 4 days and then off to New Zealand for 14 days. Once I got on the plane I found my seat and prepared for take off. This plane was huge. It's a 747-400 Boeing Jet that has 3 sets of seats going across and two aisles for people to walk in and an upper deck for the business class but all in all it wasn't anything different than riding on another airplane for domestic travel. I sat next to a guy who was from Sydney and on his way home from a business trip from Africa. He has a wife and 2 boys at home that he missed. He also told me that he had been gone for a month. I asked him what is one piece of advice that he could give me since this is my first time to AU: He told don't mention the Iraq war because most of the people in AU are against the US's involvement in the war.

The food was pretty good on the trip. They served us some chicken for dinner and a omelet for breakfast. Not bad! The entire flight was around 14.5 hrs and the first 11 hours flew by fast but the last 3 hours took forever. I watched some movies on the trip but fell asleep during everyone of them. You could also listen to music, watch TV shows and the national news. I was getting a little light headed during the flight but I toughed it out. I do have to mention this one Aussie flight attendant. I had a headache and asked her if they had any headache medicine. She gave me these pills similar to Advil. They worked like a charm and not sure what they were called. Anyways, she was beautiful and her ascent was to die for! Ok, enough with the mushy stuff. Once we landed I was feeling better which was nice. As I got off the plane it was time to go through customs and get my bags. I filled out a form that asked basic info about what my intention was for visiting AU and showed my passport. This was a simple process and didn't take very long considering there were 100's of people waiting in line to get through. I picked up my bag from the baggage claim and preceded to head to where my buddy Garett was going to be. Sure enough he was there and now it was time to enjoy the trip. (Just a little side note...it's now 10:30am Sunday, Feb 10th)

We took a cab and headed towards the place where he lived. It was a quick 15 min ride. I took my stuff to his room and got settled in. I also met his friend Josh who was visiting him also. We have a three bed (One King bed and bunk beds) room with a bathroom. This room is very small and I would say isn't any bigger than 18 X 18. But it's at a great price so it will work. No complaints from me. After settling in we headed down the street to get a bit to eat from the local pub. I had "Banger's and Mash", it's an Australian thing. Basically its mash potatoes and sausage with gravy on it. It was delicious! We also had a beer with our meal. I quickly noticed that Sydney is very expensive compared to the states. a 20 oz beer is pretty close to $10 AU's here which is pretty similar to $10 USD. After lunch we walked towards downtown where the bridge and Opera House is. I also went up the Skytower in downtown and the view at the top was unbelievable. We could see for miles. There are about 3 million people who live in Sydney and I could believe it. When we were walking over the bridge Garett gets a phone call and the girl on the other end says, "I want to talk to my best friend Joe". So he gives me the phone and its my friends I met on the plane who were from Miami. It was the girl I switched my seat for. They invited us to go hang out with them at a bar near their hotel which so happens to be in the same general area we were in. We told them we would meet them there in a little bit. I gave them Garret's number at the Sydney airport so thats how they found us. But before we got a taxi to head to the bar we walked under the bridge to get a few pictures of the opera house with us in it. These 3 cute girls were sitting on a bench near us and one asked if I would take a picture of them. So, I took the picture and we started talking. Two of them were from Brazil and the other from AU. One of the Brazilians asked if I was American. I guess she could tell from my so-called ascent. I told her yes and she said well I could tell from your kind generosity. Nice girls and the Brazilian gave me her business card. She told me to call her. haha...well I accepted the business card but I highly doubt I call her.

After talking with these girls Josh, Garett, and I caught a cab to head to the "Green Park" bar to meet up with my friends from the plane. Once we got there we quickly noticed something different about this bar. There were a lot of men and not so many women but we found my friends. And we found out that we were in the most popular gay bar in Sydney. Nice, real nice! It was still fun and no one bothered us other than a few uncomfortable looks from other guys. The girls we met were buying us beers and it didn't sound like they were hurting for money. These girls were a little older than us (I would say early thirty's) and were settled in to their careers. We stayed at the bar for awhile and then headed to a restaurant near their hotel to sit down and have some more beers. The girls ate some dinner but we didn't eat anything. I would say we stayed at this restaurant for an hour and then my boys and I headed for home to get changed so we could go hit up a few bars. Once we got back to the house I started to feel really tired and was still pretty exhausted from the plane ride and had been on the go all day. I told Garret I needed a quick nap before I go out but after I took my nap I realized that I may as well just hit the bed for the night to get some rest. Garett and Josh still went out to the bars but I turned it in for the night!

That's all for now! Cheers!