In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

We left the Indianapolis airport at 2:00 PM on Wednesday, July 19. I arrived in Townsville, at JCU, on Friday, July 21 at roughly 11:00 AM local time. For those of you playing at home, that's about 30 consecutive hours of travel. A large chunk of that (7 hours) was spent waiting at the Los Angeles airport, but I was on the go for more than a day. To recap, here's a bunch of bullet points:

• Nothing really exciting happened until we tried to check in at the Qantas counter in LA. There we learned that Natalie had somehow booked her flight under the name Friedman Natalie instead of the other way around. They let her on anyway.
• Convinced that there would be adequate food options past the international security checkpoint, we headed to our gate to set up what in some places could be considered permanent residence, leaving behind a bounty of dining choices. Turns out the only places to eat past that point are ones with nine-dollar salads. Who knew?
• While eating, this hilarious interchange takes place (I'd like to thank my father, and maybe also Susannah Gund for infecting my mind with the ability to make jokes like these):
• Natalie: I can't wait until we board.
• Me: You might say that we're already bored!
• Natalie: (uproarious laughter)

• The plane to Australia includes these features: a second floor for first-class passengers, tiny television screens in the each seat's back, 12 channels of movies/TV that repeat every three hours or so, free video games, a complimentary pillow, blanket, eye-covering thing, socks, toothbrush, etc. Why did I even bring a carry-on? I'm able to sleep for 6-7 hours, which is nice albeit not consecutive. Also, little-known perk (to me, anyway): if you request a vegetarian meal, you get it WAY before everyone else.
• Once we land in Brisbane, Natalie and I say our goodbyes as she heads off to IFSA-Butler orientation while I press on to Townsville. The air outside the terminal smells and feels cleaner than what I'm used to, almost Lutsen-like, but with fewer pine trees. Maybe it's just that it's 6 AM, though--air always smells cleaner to me early in the morning.
• I figure that I'm going to need some help staying awake for the rest of the day, so I decide to buy some coffee. The options are perplexing: long black? short black? flat white? I choose long black, and it is actually quite good. (Ed. note: I learned yesterday that short black is just espresso, long black is espresso diluted with water, and flat white has espresso and milk and something else. Everything is espresso! Weird...)
• The Brisbane-to-Townsville flight will probably enter my pantheon of memorable flights, along with Tokyo-to-Bangkok (awful, awful, awful, sleepless) and Detroit-to-Indianapolis (return from Vietnam, nervous, excited). Here, my nervousness manifests itself as nausea for the first time--I'm in Australia, I'm going to Townsville, I'm here for five months, how in the world am I going to adjust and take care of myself?. The turbulence does not help matters.
• I'm picked up at the the airport with two other Americans from Allegheny College. I think we're all a bit shellshocked--there isn't much spoken on the drive to campus. I haven't seen them since; we live in different dorms.
• AND WE ARE THERE, St. Mark's College, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia.

So that's that. 30 travel hours. Descriptions of the college, people, town, etc. will follow in subsequent posts.