Week1

My stay at the hostel in LA was nice and relaxing, I got a shuttle back to the airport at 9:00 PM and got onto my Qantas flight at 11:50 PM. I met a family from Brisbane who had gone up to Canada for a white Christmas, and they were really nice. It was interesting talking to them about the floods. They figured their house would be ok as it was elevated but they did mention about a farm they had getting some flooding; they were, however, worried about the ride home as many roads were closed.
On the plane I sat next to a girl who had been an au pair in NY for a little over a year, and a girl from LA who was with her family flying down to Melbourne for her cousin's wedding. The girl who was an au pair also lived near Brisbane, but a few hours south, and again she wasn't worried about her house but about the ride home.
The plane ride was good, the two girls next to me slept almost the whole time, but I had trouble sleeping cause I was in the middle seat and couldn't get comfortable. I watched "Megamind", which was a really cute movie, as well as a few others. When we were flying over Brisbane about 13 hours after leaving LA I got some good pictures of the flooding. We flew right over the main part of the city, which didn't look like it had got it too bad, but it's hard to tell; and luckily it was a gorgeous day that day. Here are some of the pictures I took:





I then had about 2 hours to collect my baggage, go through customs (I had to give up some food items), recheck my bags, take a tram to the domestic airport, and get on my next plane. Pretty perfect amount of time for all that. :)
The trip from Brisbane to Perth was about 5 hours (maybe a little less as we got there a bit early). Because of the direction of the flight path we ended up flying over part of the Great Australian Bight, which was neat. Once land came back into view it was neat because David and I plan on getting a car over in Melbourne when he comes and driving back to Perth, and I saw the highway we'd be taking on that trip! I got some pics of that too, and a video of my decent into Perth can be seen on my Facebook page for those interested in seeing it (takes too long to upload here).






After landing I collected my bags and hunkered down in some seats by the baggage claim to wait for Justin (husband of a US vet student I met at Murdoch when I came to visit the campus back in 2008) to come pick me up. I was surprised that I was able to get a little bit of internet, only really enough to email and type chat on Skype. That was nice cause I thought I wouldn't be able to get any unless I paid.
I got in at around 1:00 and Justin came and got be at around 4:00, we then went to pick up a dog that he was going to be sitting (named Dexter).

The next day Justin took off of work and he drove me around to look at places and we went to Fremantle (Freo as it's called here) and had lunch at a brewery/restaurant called Little Creatures (right on the coast). He's been driving me around to get things I need (groceries, setting up a phone, etc.) and we've been hanging out at home watching stuff he's downloaded onto his awesome TV system, and yesterday (Sunday) we went to a beach and snorkeled a bit. We saw two stingrays, a giant sea slug (about the size of a small cat), lots of different fish, and tons of little blowfish (the kind without spines). That was awesome, cause yesterday was really hot.





We then went straight to another place to look at and I have decided that's where I'll move in. It's a bit far from Murdoch, but there's public transport and the girls have said that if they are able to carpool to their pracs (they're both 5th year vet) then I can borrow the other car on occasion. It's a really nice house, really nice girls, and 3 dogs 2 cats. I'll be moving in in a few weeks when they get the room all cleaned out (there's still stuff from the previous girl) and in the meantime Justin and Emily are letting me stay here. :) Oh, I forgot to mention that Emily is off in India on a vet prac, I am excited to hear about her adventures when she gets back.
That's all for this week. :)
-Cassie