The trip and getting settled.

My last week in Minot was hard. I still hadn't figured out how to pack everything into 2 suitcases and I had a meltdown one night. My mom came to my room and we decided that I would bring three big suitcases and pay the extra charge. Wednesday night was my last game night at Kelsey's house for a while. It was good to see everyone that was there and it was a fun night. When everyone started to leave was when it got sad. I was very proud of myself though...i didn't cry.

Thursday was a hard day. My mom and I had decided we would drive to Fargo Thursday night because of the storm. The bad part of that was that both my dad and Trevor had a basketball game out of town. I went to the school at 1:30 when Trevor got out of school so that I could say goodbye. We were standing in the hallway and I started crying when he had to get on the bus and some of Trevor's friends stopped and asked what was wrong which made me cry even harder. My dad finally got to the school about 1:50 so i had to say a quick goodbye to him so that he could get on the bus. I was sobbing the whole drive home before I got it under control.

Mom and I left Minot around 6 that night. We stayed in Fargo for a night, then left for Minneapolis Friday morning. We got to Minneapolis around to and couldn't yet check into our hotel so we went to the mall. Saturday morning we were back at the mall at 9 to watch the cheerleading competition. The one team I really wanted to see was West Fargo, but they didn't make it because of the storm. We watched the competition for about an hour then we shopped until about 6. We went back to our hotel and took a nap then hung out the rest of the night. Sunday we went to the science museum in St. Paul. There was a Titanic exhibit that was really neat. They had actual artifacts that were recovered from the wreckage which was cool to see. The rest of the museum was ok...it was a lot more fun when I was younger. My last day in Minneapolis we went back to the mall. After the mall we went to Kohls!! We ate at TGIFridays that night and it was amazing!!!

We left for the airport Tuesday morning a little before 9:00. There wasn't a very big line, so I checked my baggage pretty quick. I still had about 2 hours before my flight left so mom and I sat down and talked a little before I went through security. When it was time to finally go through security I started crying. Mom and I were standing in the airport crying pretty hard. I made it through security fine, but when I looked back at my mom I started bawling again. I finally found my gate and sat down to wait for my flight to Denver.

The Flight to Denver was a quick one and then I found my gate for the flight to LA and waited for about 2 hours. The flight to LA was another quick trip. When I got to LA was when things got a little confusing. I had to switch terminals, which meant that I had to catch a shuttle. When I finally got to the right terminal I had to go through security again. Luckily the line wasn't very long and I made it through in just a couple of minutes. I found the right gate and waited again. When I boarded the plane I was very excited to find out that my seat was in an exit row, this means a lot more leg room :) It was nice to have all that extra room for such a long flight. The flight itself was about 13 hours long. The good thing was that I could watch movies! I ended up watching two movies then sleeping for a while. I had a 4 hour lay over in New Zealand so I called my mom and read my book. It was a 3 hour flight from NZ to Australia. I read more of my book on that flight.

I made it to Brisbane on Thursday morning and when I got to the baggage claim area I could already feel the humidity. The closer I got to the door the more I could feel it. I made it through customs just fine and I saw Kathy, a friend of the family that we have known for a while now. She took me to my apartment and helped me get everything to my room. She took me to the grocery store so I could get some food and she brought me back to the apartment. I didn't have internet yesterday so I had no idea what to do. I got most everything unpacked and set up in my room. I then walked to the university and found a computer so I could e-mail my mom and tell her everything was ok. I was asleep by 8:00 that night. It had been a good 34 hours of traveling, plus running around getting stuff for my apartment, plus 8pm here would have been 4am in Minot, so I was definitely tired.

My first night here was an interesting one. There was a huge thunderstorm, one of the biggest I've ever heard. The lightning was so bad that it set of the fire alarm in all the apartments. I grabbed a coat and went outside, but right when I walked outside the alarm stopped. I went back to bed and was up again by 6am. I had some breakfast and tried to get the internet to work, but it wouldn't so I read. I finally got my internet working and got to talk to my mom on Skype which was very exciting.

I will most likely hang around my apt. for a while, then there is a gathering tonight for everyone who is here. I will go to that and hopefully meet some people.

So far everything is going great here!

Cheers

Sarah

Getting Ready

I've been counting down the days until I leave for Australia since the middle of fall semester. When I first counted down the days during class one day I was at like 130 days or so. Now I am leaving Minot in less than a week!!!! I leave Friday the 22nd for Minneapolis. The Minot High Cheerleaders have a competition at the Mall of America on the 23rd so I will be there for that. Then I get to spend a couple of days hanging out with my mom before my plane leaves Minneapolis on Tuesday the 26th.

So I have trouble figuring out what to pack for a weekend trip, now I'm trying to pack for six months!! I started packing for this trip and now realize just how hard it is to pack for 6 months. I have one suitcase just of summer clothes so far. I don't know how I am going to get the rest of my clothes into one suitcase. This has been the most stressful part of planning my trip so far.

Everything is all set up for my school there. I will be living in a 5 bedroom appartment with 4 other people. The strange thing is that I have no idea who any of these 4 people are. I will be moving in and I don't even know if they will be back from break yet. That is one of the things I am very nervous about. Meeting people and making new friends is not something I'm very good at. I am usually quite shy unless I have known someone for a while. That is something I am really going to try to get over while I am in Australia. I plan to come home with a lot of very good friends.

Saying goodbye to everyone here is going to be so hard. Both my dad and brother will be in Williston the night before I leave and they won't be getting home until late so I won't have a lot of time with them before I leave. I have one week left at home then I have the drive down to Minneapolis and a few extra days in Minneapolis with my mom which will be nice. I don't know when I am going to get to say goodbye to all of my friends but I will find sometime this week to do that.

I have one more week at home and I am going to make the best of it. I am going to have a great experience in Australia and I will hopefully learn a lot about myself while I am there.

Cheers!!!

Sarah