Traveling to the Hotel by way of Darling Harbor

We made it from LAX to Melbourne, and it was a wonderful flight on Qantas. The plane was the biggest I have ever seen, and even in economy class we were treated royally. It started off a little shaky because they only called the back of the plane over the loud speakers and then expect you to fall in line behind them. We were sitting waiting for them to call our section like all of the other airports, and luckily, a very nice flight attendant came up to us and asked us if we were going to board. (Our pink shirts saved us again!) We scrambled on board, and took off.

We were in the middle section of the plane, and I had the honor of sitting next to an Australian Sheep Farmer and her Granddaughter. (Her granddaughter lived in the states and was going to visit her Dad for six weeks; like she does every summer.) She was so cute and really excited to see her family. (I couldn’t help but think about my family, and especially the sheep farmer who wanted to trade his livestock for my Mom when my parents visited Australia. Thank goodness that didn’t happen.)

They were very nice and asked a lot of questions about World Youth Day. In turn, they got asked a lot of questions about Australia, and it made the first two hours of the trip fly by. At this point, we had been awake for over 24 hours, and had to force ourselves to stay awake for another 4. This way, when we did fall asleep, we would be on Australian time and able to start the day off running. (Or sleep walking, depending on which one of us you talked to.)
When we got on board, they had Qantas magazines in each of our seats for us to take home that had a special “World Youth Day” section in it. They also gave us an itinerary for the flight. (Departure time, Comfort Kit: which included an eye mask, socks, etc.), our ‘arrival’ documents, Menu for dinner, Snack on Q, Duty Free shopping time, Hot towels, Menu for Breakfast, and our arrival.

The meals were salad, chicken cacciatore with orzo pasta or seared salmon with caper butter and sugar snaps, chocolate Brownie, and your drink. They had the best Hot chocolate ever! (It was Cadbury milk chocolate with huge marshmallows!) The meals were ok, but our service was excellent! Our breakfast was our choice of fruit juice, seasonal fresh fruit, blueberry muffin, cereal, or a hot breakfast of the above plus a mushroom and herb frittata with sausage and sautéed spinach. (Again the meals were ok, the service excellent!!)

Our flight attendant’s name was Bonita, and she told me that she liked our group the best and gave us all Qantas playing cards. She said that she didn’t have enough for the whole plane, so not to tell the other passengers. (I think she just enjoyed us because we kept joking around with her and didn’t make her do anything.) She even checked her schedule to see if she could be on our return flight. It would be great to see her again!

Even though they speak English here, the culture is very different. The words for things don’t necessarily mean the same as they do in the states. Here are some examples: the trunk of a car is called the boot, the hood is it’s bonnet. A mall is called an arcade, and the hallways are called lanes. A sweater is a jumper, and the restrooms are called toilets. (And they don’t use the preposition ‘the’. It is just “I’m going to toilet.”) The elevator is called a lift, your muffins are biscuits, and if you want to get your meal to go, it is called take-away.

When we got off of the plane, our Encore Tour guide, Helen, was waiting for us. She took us right to our luggage (which all showed up!) and then walked us to our bus. She said that most of the city was shut down to buses because of WYD, so she took us straight to Darling Harbour. It was awesome! Our bus driver even stopped the bus at an overlook so we could get some pictures. (I promise to post them later, but I have to be ready to go in a little while, and don’t have time to download them right now.) Our shirts drew us a lot of attention, which allowed us to meet groups from all over the world right away. When we were getting on the bus, we even met a group from the Diocese of Cleveland. (They started the O-H-I-O chant, and we yelled back. Fun!)

We drove past a lot of ‘private’ schools, which cost in the amount of $18,000 to $25,000 a year to send your children to primary school there! (And I thought some of the schools at home were bad!) The average cost of a house here (even in the ghetto) is $500,000. Nicole Kidman is selling hers for 20 million if you know any takers.

The bus ride was fun because it was just the 19 of us, the driver, and Helen. We got to ask any questions we wanted, and drive on the wrong side of the road! (Ok, the bus driver didn’t really drive on the wrong side of the road for here, it just took a few minutes to get used to.) It’s also a lot like driving in the bus at home. Nobody pays any attention, and they like to cut us off. (A little frightening!) Even the road culture is different. The signs on the road say “No Overtaking” instead of no passing. They have fun white diagonal lines to warn drivers to slow down for pedestrians, but it never happens. Helen told us that we were to never ever cross against the light, because pedestrians don’t have the right of way here. Speaking of right of way, the signs don’t say Yield, they say “Give Way.” It’s been fun learning these little things.

Finally, we drove around the corner and saw our hotel. The screams of joy on the bus were so fun to hear. It truly is a nice area. (I’m not sure they cared though, I think all of us just wanted to shower.)

We checked in, went to our rooms, and unpacked. The leaders and I went downstairs to get our WYD backpacks and gear. Then the teens all met so we could go over the itinerary for the week. It was fun to look through our goodies. We left for dinner around the corner, and realized that they were not kidding when they said that Australia was expensive. The 6 adults ate 2 large pizzas and water, and it came to $60. (And this was one of the cheaper spots on the strip.) We are sooooo glad that our food is included at WYD festivities.

After dinner we stopped at a local drug store (they don’t have Walgreens here. What is up with that???) and many people picked up postcards. It was $2.30 to buy and send each card. (Again, very different than in the states.) We stopped to get ice cream even though it was freezing and then walked back to our hotel. (See KJ, B, Peepers, and Goose. . .they did have ice cream here!)

A lot of the teens went right to bed, but some of them took advantage of the rooftop pool and hot tub. (Although the pool is literally only 3 feet deep the entire length, and the hot tub is about 2 ½.) I was wondering why, until I remembered them telling me on the plane that they are in the middle of a bad drought.

We took turns checking on the teens, and I went downstairs to try and blog a little. We plugged my brand new voltage converter into the wall, plugged in the lap top, and started writing. It was Erich’s turn to walk the roof, so I was by myself in front of the fire. All of a sudden we hear this big pop, and I glance at the outlet and my converter is melting. All I could think of was to save the laptop, so I reached down and grabbed it out of the wall. (Not to smart!) The laptop is fine, but my hand is a little tender. J Apparently, the laptop has a built in converter, and it messed up the voltage converter in the outlet. Nothing like coming around the world to learn that little tidbit.At 11, Erich and I checked on all of the kids, taped the doors, and went to bed ourselves. I actually fell asleep pretty quickly, but have been up since about 4:45am. (Apparently it is going to take a couple of days to get used to being on the other side of the world.) I’ll try to get online later and update you about today too. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We love and miss you all.