The journey from New Jersey to Australia is a long one. If I did it in one trip, I would be on a plane for about 20 hours. Luckily, my sister just moved out to LA so I decided I would split up the trip and stay in LA a few days before I flew over the Pacific. When I stepped in the airport in Newark, NJ, I felt a wave of happiness come over me – I finally could get out of NJ! I had a long winter break, from early December to mid-February and I was ready to get out of there. Even though LA was only a stop along the way to my final destination, I was ecstatic. I had never been to LA before and it is an amazing place. My sister, Lizi, took me to swanky restaurants (one was even free because her friend knew the owner!) and showed me notable places around LA. We went on a hike in Runyon Canyon where I could see LA stretching for miles, and even the Hollywood sign! It was such a nice break from NJ, even if it was raining the whole time! Here is a video I took at Venice Beach.
Finally, it was time to take the next step in my journey and fly to Sydney, Australia. Meghan, who joined me midway through in LA, and I went to LAX and got our 14 hour 55 min plane to Sydney, which was delayed by 40 mins. That was no issue to us, however, because we like to joke about our anxious parents who get to airports five hours in advance instead of two! We were much more relaxed than they would have been. The night before was Valentines Day, and Lizi had invited some friends over to celebrate. Meghan and I met this couple who were from Australia and had lived in Melbourne. They told us some tips on dealing with the flight and jetlag. They told us to stay up late the night before the flight, then sleep in that morning, and then once on the plane (we had a flight at 10pm), watch two movies and then go to sleep for the rest of the time. Meghan and I tried to follow their instructions, and it actually worked! Somehow, we were able to sleep through most of the plane journey, so it was a piece of cake. When I woke up we had 4 hours to go on the flight, so I watched some more movies and watched us fly over Sydney.
We landed around 9am in Sydney, and had a full day ahead of us. We decided to travel a few days early so we could experience Sydney on our own before we went to our orientation. We are staying in an Airbnb near Coogee Beach (pronounced Cugi!) so we decided to do the coastal walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach. It was a long walk, but worth it as the views and sights were amazing. We had lunch and sunbathed at Bondi Beach and then made the walk back to Coogee. Back at Coogee we jumped in the ocean, (which was surprisingly cold!) and cooled ourselves down after the long walk in 80+ degrees!
That night we had some Thai food (Australia pad thai count: 1) and went back to our room aiming to nap and then watch the sunset, but ended up falling asleep at 8pm! We were exhausted from jetlag and our long walk. I have just woken up at 8am and we are planning the rest of our day!
I’ll let you know what we get up to!
