Arriving in Sydney

I think I have been conditioned at being good at saying goodbyes to my family, I have had too much practice with this throughout my life. So although it was difficult, hugging my mom goodbye at SFO was not the same cry-fest for me as it could’ve been for some. However, as I walked through security, and to my gate, I was hit will a wall of emotions. I was nervous to meet my roommate Julia for the second time, sad to leave my home, my mom, and all of my friends, scared of what I was going to miss out on, anxious to get to the land down under, but most importantly, I was overjoyed and ecstatic with thoughts of what’s to come.

Back in 2016, in all the excitement of getting into colleges, Julia and I messaged each other on the SDSU Class of 2020 facebook page. We later found out that we had a lot in common, Julia even liked Lana!!! Neither of us even actually listened to her. But on top of that, we got into a lot of the same schools, and we talked about being roommates wherever we ended up. However, as life goes, Julia went to Cal and I went to UCSB, and we parted our ways, only keeping in touch via snapchat and instagram. Fast forward two years, we found out on those same apps that we were both going to Sydney, and both going completely and totally alone. It was snapchat destiny. After what seemed like the longest winter of my life, February 4th finally came around and Julia met me at our terminal gate, excited for our mini vacation, aka our 24-hour layover in Hawaii. Who would’ve thought that all you needed to do to become best friends with someone was to spend 24 hours in Hawaii with them? When we got there, we went straight to the beach in hopes of getting a slight tan to prepare for the hot aussie sun. As we laid there, we took turns telling our life stories and laughing about our similar college experiences. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that we left all of our friends behind, because we realized we were going to get along just fine.

After two long flights, and time traveling a day into the future, we finally landed in Sydney. Getting into our Urbanest apartment at 11pm meant we had no time to shop, so we spent our first night sleeping on a bare mattress, only using a towel to protect our bodies against whatever demon lives underneath the bed. The next two days were filled with Kaye and Francesca, our orientation leaders, talking about the Hemsworths’ and huntsman spiders. But soon enough, we were free to explore. Our first destination had to be the Sydney Opera House, of course. After seeing the iconic white shell-like roof, it finally hit me, I was in Australia. This was going to be my home for the next five months.