Welcome to Oz, friends and family!

Well, I've been down under for just over a week now. Here's a quick recap of my journey and first week:

Saying "see you later" to my friends and family throughout the days and weeks leading up to my departure was quite possibly the hardest thing I've ever done. I sort of had a bit of a breakdown the night before I left (Adam might say it was a little more than a "bit of a breakdown")but once I got to Newark Airport I was feeling a little better. I was at least able to hold in the tears, and when a cockroach the size of mouse wandered about a foot away from my backpack as it sat on the floor beside me in the airport terminal, I may have for a moment felt somewhat relieved to be leaving NYC. Unfortunately I've since encountered a worse critter, but we'll get to that later...

My journey consisted of three flights: Newark to LA, LA to Auckland, Auckland to Melbourne. My plan was to stay awake on the flight to LA so I could sleep on the overnight flight to Auckland. Fortunately I was seated next to a really nice businessman and we chatted for a good portion of the flight. It turned out that he had spent two years in Tokyo early in his career. He was so excited for my and Adam's adventure and told me several times that his two year stint as an expat in Tokyo was the best two years of his life. I am taking this encounter as a good omen.

This flight was my first experience flying in first class. Wow, I didn't know that air travel could actually be somewhat enjoyable and airplane food could actually taste good. I had my first meal of the journey on this flight; five courses commencing with lobster and ending with a made to order ice cream sundae. Oh, and the waitress kept my wine glass full the entire time...

I landed at LAX and had about an hour and a half layover. It was a good thing I had that much time because the terminal was full of scaffolding and temporary walls and there was not a Continental employee or a departures board to be found. When I finally figured out that I needed to get to the international terminal, I asked the only airport employee I could find how to get there - a completely unfriendly (actually a miserable) TSA worker. This helpful person directed me to exit the terminal, walk through two parking garages and "I couldn't miss it." As I was about to enter the first of the two parking garages (at ten PM with no one in sight), I heard my mom saying "stay safe", so I turned around and hopped an airport shuttle bus until I saw the sign for Air New Zealand. Phew, I was on my way.

I walked into the international terminal to hear my name being paged. At least I thought it was my name, but with the New Zealand accent, it was hard to tell for sure. So I hurried through security as my name was called repeatedly and ran to the gate. The lovely lady at Air New Zealand just wanted to remind me that as a first class passenger I was welcome to take advantage of the Air New Zealand lounge. Well, don't mind if I do. Just like my first first class flight, my first visit to an airport lounge was also quite nice! I consumed more food and wine even though I was still full from dinner on flight number one.

I boarded the flight to Auckland, and though I was ready right away to convert my seat into a bed, I left it as a seat long enough to eat another multiple course dinner LOL. The flight attendant then helped me make up the bed and I slept on and off for the next 9 hours as the plane traveled (and bounced a bit) across the Pacific and the international date line. Before we landed in Auckland I ate a big breakfast (are you seeing the theme yet!). Another four hour flight (and another breakfast) later, I finally arrived in Melbourne!

I was very productive during my first day as I was trying to stay awake and adjust to the time change. I settled into my temporary apartment, bought an iPad, opened a bank account and bought some groceries. I think I only made it to 6pm, my eyelids had enough at that point. I spent the rest of the weekend exploring the city a bit.

I started work on Monday. The office is very busy right now which is a good distraction from loneliness. I'll definitely have a lot more responsibility than I had in NY, and I've already realized that I'm going to have to grow some thicker skin as the Aussies aren't afraid of being blunt. I think there will be lots of late nights, but hopefully very few weekends, which is a welcome change from NY.

Today I treated myself to Rock of Ages. It was awesome, and shoutout to my 506 girls, the performance of Don't Stop Believin' brought back great memories of Cait's 21st birthday at DKE!

My Aunt Lou has an acquaintance from Indiana, Becky, who recently moved to Melbourne with her husband and two young boys. I got an email today from Becky inviting me to Easter dinner. I nearly cried. I was planning to work tomorrow just so I wouldn't think about being alone on the holiday. But now I'm taking the 2pm train to Sandringham to have roast leg of lamb with strangers, and I couldn't be happier.

I realize this post has run quite long. I'll try to write more often and keep them shorter in the future. As a disclaimer, since I spend a good portion of my life wordsmithing and proofreading, I don't plan to do the same with this blog, so please forgive me for typos and grammatical errors.

Lastly, obviously this blog is going to be my way to tell you about what is going on down under, but if you know me, you know that I hate attention and self-centeredness, so please comment or send emails telling me what is going on with you!

Love, Kel

Ps. As to that critter I mentioned earlier, I met my first Australian opossum on the sidewalk the other night. Yuck!