10,618 Miles, 27 Hours and 40 Minutes later...

I'M ALIVE, I'M HERE, AND I'M ECSTATIC! ...and a little jet lagged, but who's counting? But really, the important part is that I made it through 22 hours of airplanes, 6 hours of layovers, and 3 plane rides of sleeplessness in the aisle and middle seats!** And BONUS! The TSA did not molest me!

**Side note: shouldn't it be common courtesy to allow the sad sack in the middle seat to have both arm rests so they don't have to sit like a mummy? *cough* 2 dudes on either side of me for 6 hours to LAX *cough*

And unlike last time I arrived in Australia, my ride was actually there to pick me up so that I didn't have to wait in the airport for 5 hours huddled in the corner on the verge of tears and not knowing how to work a payphone! It's the little things that make my day. So now I'm staying in Melbourne with one of my good friends, Tony, from when I studied abroad before. We've been having a stellar time (well, until I pass out at 5pm...), and he's been kindly reintroducing me to all the awesome Aussie foods that I've been missing! He's also introduced me to one of his good friends, Mariana, who is from Croatia and has been hugely helpful in orienting this foreigner on how to operate in Australia again. I'll be setting out to Warrnambool to visit my friends this weekend... then it's off to my first WWOOFing destination!

As for the weather, sadly it's quite chilly and windy here since it's still winter and just verging on spring. Melbourne is quite well known for throwing all 4 seasons at you within an hour. Example:

-11am: sunny, light breeze, only a few clouds
-11:45am: gusty winds, rain
-11:50am: hail
-2 pm : cloudy, windy
-2:30pm:  pouring rain, high winds (shout out to Jared for the rain jacket!)
-3pm: sunny again

WTF. But that's quite alright, 5 years in Ithaca have trained me physically, mentally, and emotionally for all kinds of weather at any time in the year, so I'm not too unprepared. I just have to re-figure out how to do the temperature conversions from Fahrenheit to Celsius so when I check the weather I don't throw up in my mouth when it says 16 degrees like today (which is actually about 60F). Something tells me that the one pair of pants I packed will be getting a real workout in the coming month... Perhaps the northern tropical climates will be calling my name much sooner than intended, since I'm eager to start sending beach pictures to all you suckers in America who are entering winter hibernation phase :-)