The Beginning

Originally written: February 21st

After two and a half weeks of traveling in New Zealand, I have adapted to the life of a backpacker. This transition was accidental... Keep in mind, I didn't have plans to even go to NZ when I first started planning my trip abroad.

I decided I wanted to study abroad as a freshman, and when I look back now, I can't remember the specific reasons why. I'm a pretty restless girl who gets bored when she stays in one place with the same routine. At the time, I thought that going abroad would be a nice change of pace in my four-year plan of studying my ass off to accomplish... who knows.

I'm not much of an advocate for the American Dream. Sure, I want to be successful and have children and maybe get married but I don't believe in graduating-college-with-the-perfect job, married-at-25, kids-at-28, rolling-in-the dough, white-picket-fence, achieve-perfection-before-I-die stuff. I'm a writer. I strive for new experiences and I want to be challenged. I want to know who I am before all of the materialistic, corporate shit forces itself into my life.

I'm going to stop myself from preaching...

When I first went to the Study Abroad Office, I had plans on heading to London. A girl in my sorority mentioned a hook up for an internship at a fashion magazine which is my dream job (see above: I am a hypocrite, who is very confused). After taking a gander at the exchange rate, I sensibly realized that I had to change my destination. Some random upperclassmen suggested Australia and without really considering the options I signed up. The exchange rate looked good and from what I heard, so did the locals.

Australia it is.

A friend from school, Jonathan, also had plans of going to Australia and suggested the University of Melbourne as our new home for spring semester. After Googling Melbourne for about three minutes I said sure, why not. It was voted the Most Liveable City in the World by... someone. Bottom line, the pictures looked pretty and it's the fashion capital of Australia. Good 'nuff.

We had the option of a group flight to Oz (which is what I'll now refer to Australia as; it's the local nickname and I'm lazy), but with the same why-the-hell-not attitude Jonathan and I made our way into a travel agency and came out with tickets to New Zealand for before our study abroad program started, and Fiji for after the program ended.

So here I am now: sitting on the plane to Brisbane, Oz, preparing to start our program orientation on the Sunshine Coast before heading to Melbourne. In NZ Jon and I rented a car and have been independently touring the North and South Island for the past sixteen days. We've encountered the most beautiful scenery in the world, been skydiving, jumped off the wall of a canyon, swam in the ocean, ate Fergburgers in Queenstown, partied with backpackers from around the globe, and stayed up for nights on end. We're run-down, dirty, a little broke, and hungry.

When the stewardess comes down the narrow pathway of the 747 plane on our Air Zealand flight and places a pre-packaged meal in front of me, the now natural instincts of a backpacker emerge and I scarf it down like I haven't eaten in weeks. I kill the mini-bottle of Chardonnay to wash down the food I didn't even taste. Seeing this, the flight attendant hands me two more bottles of Chardonnay and whispers, "Drink responsibly," with a slight smile.

I don't know if it was the altitude, the poor diet, or the exhaustion, but I somehow get a little tanked on the flight to Oz. After the time change we end up at the Brisbane Airport at 10 a.m. Jon calls our hostel in Brisbane, whose website promised a free shuttle from the airport but who now tells us they forgot to update their website and they don't offer that service anymore. The 21-year-old Kiwi (a New Zealander), Adam, who we sat next to on the plane is also stuck at the airport. His friends who are supposed to pick him up went to the wrong one. We're all incredibly frustrated, so we go to the airport bar and get a bottle of every single Australian beer we've never heard of and drink them while we wait for the Kiwi's friends to pick us up.

We originally wanted a ride to our hostel in Brisbane, but we ended up going to Adam's friend's house near Surfer's Paradise. There, we drink Pure Blonde (Aussies swear they don't drink Foster's, but Pure Blonde is brewed by Foster's), have a Bar-B and play "Australian" Circle of Death. The Kiwi and his friends end the night by jamming out with Adam on the guitar, one guy beat-boxing, and another free-style rapping.

I spent my first night in Australia crashing on a stranger's couch near Surfer's Paradise.

This is going to be a good trip.