hey all
sorry for the lack of posting the last two days... my laptop won't charge, i need a voltage converter on top of the plug adaptor..might be awhile.. so its a bit strange to write a blog in the public internet area, so i'll make this short and sweet!!
first things first, newest news: about ten minutes ago I just had two parrot like birds perching on my hand eating sugar out of my palm.
ozintro starts tomorrow.... so i meet my group!
and im heading to hillsong with brooke in an hour...ashley too :)
the people here are awesome, so much fun and we are really enjoying uorselves. sorry out of time for net. love u all
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Drama, drama, drama!
Okay, so you're thinking "how does Michelle get internet way up in the sky like that" right? Well.... I'm not ON my way to Sydney, on the death of a 14 hr flight, like I'm supposed to be. No, no. It couldn't be that easy. No one is allowed to just grab 3 flights which all connect and make it to Sydney, the other side of the world, in one peice. For some unknown reason there's this rule I didn't know about which promises to start an adventure like mine off with a BANG!
I'm sure you're all a bunch of question marks about now, and considering its 4:40am Canada time, this blog is probably going to ramble on more than it should. I will get to the point.
Our flight in Buffalo was supposed to take off at 2:30pm. We were delayed/"grounded" until 4:15 when we were finally cleared by Air Traffic Control or whatever... Apparently weather in Washington, our first stop, was terrible and no flights were coming in or out of Washington Dulles...which is why we weren't out of our first airport yet, and were almost 2 hours behind schedule. Of course at this point I had already had a mini freak out because our flight from Washington to L.A took OFF at 4:17 and we were still sitting in Buffalo airport at 4:15. Call me skeptical, but I didn't think the flight would take 2 minutes. But I'd already harassed one of the airport attendants about getting the next possible flight to LA once we were in Washington. He assured me that flights to LA take off every 1.5 hours and we'd have no problems making our connection to Sydney in LA for 9:30pm (despite it being at least 4 hours to fly from Washington to LA... I didn't try to do the math). Part one of our horror story. We get on the plane in Buffalo and they've downsized. I don't know my airplane lingo but it's now a 2 seat by 2 seat aircraft....dinky little thing. Seats were tiny too....and there was NOTHING to do. It only took 45 minutes, but it was the least comfortable airplane I've been on, and I've been to Bolivia, so that's impressive.
So anyways....we get off the plane in Washington and are told to go to Customer Service right away....well silly me, I didn't realize that meant walk for fifteen minutes, hop on a shuttle, transfer to a different terminal, walk five more minutes and stand in line for 2 hours....so instead we stood in the customer service A terminal line for an hour only to be told we needed to go to terminal C because we were looking for an international flight. The lady was kind enough to speak to us as if we were little children who didn't know how to read and had never been out in the real world before. Naturally, we should have known to go to C terminal, even though it said no such thing ANYWHERE on our itinerary or ticket, and we weren't informed by the announcement in the aircraft. But duh, of course I should have known.
So after those next two hours in line at Customer Service Terminal C: International flights...we're told no matter what flight they put us on to LA tonight we won't catch our Sydney flight. So we finally came to terms with the fact that we'd be staying in LA overnight and leaving in the morning. Then we were corrected. No...there are no flights to Sydney from LA in the morning. All airlines fly to Sydney at 10pm at night in order to arrive in Sydney in the morning instead of the middle of their night. So. Needless to say we compromised again and accepted a 9:35 pm flight from Washington to LA.... a flight which I might add had NO movies because the TV system was broken, and for some reason took 5 hours instead of 4. The ONLY 2 nice things about today are a) the airlines took care of transferring our luggage and we don't even need to lug it around LA as we sight see tomorrow, because its in the hanger for the Sydney flight already (I hope---what else could go wrong?) and b) we get either a $100 voucher off for United Airlines any flight around the states until 2010 OR 10% international economy ticket (incl. England or Australia I might add) just because our tvs were broken...hahaha!!!
Of course during this tramatic experience of ours Ashley and I managed to laugh at the little things and find comic relief in reallllllllllllly ridiculous situations and personalities we came in contact with along the way. For the funny sidestories, visit her blog (which is located on the right under "other blogs") because I don't want to repeat everything she said
:) Good Morning Canadians....Good evening Australians.....Good Night LA.
~M~
I'm sure you're all a bunch of question marks about now, and considering its 4:40am Canada time, this blog is probably going to ramble on more than it should. I will get to the point.
Our flight in Buffalo was supposed to take off at 2:30pm. We were delayed/"grounded" until 4:15 when we were finally cleared by Air Traffic Control or whatever... Apparently weather in Washington, our first stop, was terrible and no flights were coming in or out of Washington Dulles...which is why we weren't out of our first airport yet, and were almost 2 hours behind schedule. Of course at this point I had already had a mini freak out because our flight from Washington to L.A took OFF at 4:17 and we were still sitting in Buffalo airport at 4:15. Call me skeptical, but I didn't think the flight would take 2 minutes. But I'd already harassed one of the airport attendants about getting the next possible flight to LA once we were in Washington. He assured me that flights to LA take off every 1.5 hours and we'd have no problems making our connection to Sydney in LA for 9:30pm (despite it being at least 4 hours to fly from Washington to LA... I didn't try to do the math). Part one of our horror story. We get on the plane in Buffalo and they've downsized. I don't know my airplane lingo but it's now a 2 seat by 2 seat aircraft....dinky little thing. Seats were tiny too....and there was NOTHING to do. It only took 45 minutes, but it was the least comfortable airplane I've been on, and I've been to Bolivia, so that's impressive.
So anyways....we get off the plane in Washington and are told to go to Customer Service right away....well silly me, I didn't realize that meant walk for fifteen minutes, hop on a shuttle, transfer to a different terminal, walk five more minutes and stand in line for 2 hours....so instead we stood in the customer service A terminal line for an hour only to be told we needed to go to terminal C because we were looking for an international flight. The lady was kind enough to speak to us as if we were little children who didn't know how to read and had never been out in the real world before. Naturally, we should have known to go to C terminal, even though it said no such thing ANYWHERE on our itinerary or ticket, and we weren't informed by the announcement in the aircraft. But duh, of course I should have known.
So after those next two hours in line at Customer Service Terminal C: International flights...we're told no matter what flight they put us on to LA tonight we won't catch our Sydney flight. So we finally came to terms with the fact that we'd be staying in LA overnight and leaving in the morning. Then we were corrected. No...there are no flights to Sydney from LA in the morning. All airlines fly to Sydney at 10pm at night in order to arrive in Sydney in the morning instead of the middle of their night. So. Needless to say we compromised again and accepted a 9:35 pm flight from Washington to LA.... a flight which I might add had NO movies because the TV system was broken, and for some reason took 5 hours instead of 4. The ONLY 2 nice things about today are a) the airlines took care of transferring our luggage and we don't even need to lug it around LA as we sight see tomorrow, because its in the hanger for the Sydney flight already (I hope---what else could go wrong?) and b) we get either a $100 voucher off for United Airlines any flight around the states until 2010 OR 10% international economy ticket (incl. England or Australia I might add) just because our tvs were broken...hahaha!!!
Of course during this tramatic experience of ours Ashley and I managed to laugh at the little things and find comic relief in reallllllllllllly ridiculous situations and personalities we came in contact with along the way. For the funny sidestories, visit her blog (which is located on the right under "other blogs") because I don't want to repeat everything she said
:) Good Morning Canadians....Good evening Australians.....Good Night LA.
~M~
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Introductions
Hey all...
This is going to be my personal blog for my trip to Australia this summer. I will try to update it as frequently I can with stories from my and Ashley's travels. We leave on May 27th, from Buffalo Intl Airport at 2pm, and arrive in Australia on May 29th at 6:10 am Australia time. This will be around 4:10pm May 28th Canadian time. Once we arrive we're being picked up at the airport by Ozintro staff -- that's our work travel program, and brought to Surfside Backpackers Hostel for the next 3 nights before the rest of our group gets there. On the 29th we'll have one other group member there in the hostel with us, plus the ozintro group from the previous week will still be there, and I've been speaking to one of the guys in that group. Then on the 30th, two other girls in my and Ashleys group will be arriving from New Zealand. They've been on an around the world trip since the end of April, with their last stop in Australia. They are from England, and travelled to New York City, Florida, Hawaii, Fiji, and New Zealand. Then the other 10 people in our ozintro group will arrive at 6am on Monday the 1st, and we'll begin our "orientation week".
All the information on what we'll be doing is described on their website, for those of you interested in taking a trip sometime, or just understanding what we're up to. http://www.Ozintro.com
Basically, we're going on a jet boat across the Sydney Harbor to see the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, as well as the breathtaking view of the city of Sydney on the first day. I'm sure we'll do some get to know your group type deal, and get acquainted with the city. Then the rest of the week, I'm not 100% sure of the order of events but we're going to the Taronga Zoo, the Sydney Aquarium, on a beach day trip, probably to Bondi beach since we are staying across the road from Coogee beach, up the blue mountains on a really steep, open yet caged in, "train" ride, on a pub night, where we get to go dancing at a bunch of different places in one night (party bus takes us), and then up the Sydney Tower for a farewell dinner. In between all this fun stuff we get our cell phone SIM card, our tax file number, numerous job listing information, help with resumes if we need it, information on apartments for rent and travelling help, and alot of other useful stuff.
So that's that. Welcome to my blog. Feel free to live vicariously through me :P
Australia here we come!
~M~
This is going to be my personal blog for my trip to Australia this summer. I will try to update it as frequently I can with stories from my and Ashley's travels. We leave on May 27th, from Buffalo Intl Airport at 2pm, and arrive in Australia on May 29th at 6:10 am Australia time. This will be around 4:10pm May 28th Canadian time. Once we arrive we're being picked up at the airport by Ozintro staff -- that's our work travel program, and brought to Surfside Backpackers Hostel for the next 3 nights before the rest of our group gets there. On the 29th we'll have one other group member there in the hostel with us, plus the ozintro group from the previous week will still be there, and I've been speaking to one of the guys in that group. Then on the 30th, two other girls in my and Ashleys group will be arriving from New Zealand. They've been on an around the world trip since the end of April, with their last stop in Australia. They are from England, and travelled to New York City, Florida, Hawaii, Fiji, and New Zealand. Then the other 10 people in our ozintro group will arrive at 6am on Monday the 1st, and we'll begin our "orientation week".
All the information on what we'll be doing is described on their website, for those of you interested in taking a trip sometime, or just understanding what we're up to. http://www.Ozintro.com
Basically, we're going on a jet boat across the Sydney Harbor to see the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, as well as the breathtaking view of the city of Sydney on the first day. I'm sure we'll do some get to know your group type deal, and get acquainted with the city. Then the rest of the week, I'm not 100% sure of the order of events but we're going to the Taronga Zoo, the Sydney Aquarium, on a beach day trip, probably to Bondi beach since we are staying across the road from Coogee beach, up the blue mountains on a really steep, open yet caged in, "train" ride, on a pub night, where we get to go dancing at a bunch of different places in one night (party bus takes us), and then up the Sydney Tower for a farewell dinner. In between all this fun stuff we get our cell phone SIM card, our tax file number, numerous job listing information, help with resumes if we need it, information on apartments for rent and travelling help, and alot of other useful stuff.
So that's that. Welcome to my blog. Feel free to live vicariously through me :P
Australia here we come!
~M~
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