July 9

We arrived in the early morning, and went through customs. It felt surreal that we had made it to what will be our new home for the next year and a half! We staggered through customs and got luggage carts for our bags. As we exited into the international terminal, I wondered how we would find Michael in the sea of smiling faces and signs. Luckily I had met him before, but just as I suggested that I call him with my phone, I spotted him sitting on a bench! He came over and escorted us to his Hilux (truck thing), where we each loaded our 3 bags into the back. I was excited to have the other girls finally see him, since I had been the only one to meet him when I visited in April . He drove us home, and showed us to the downstairs. The construction is not complete, but good enough for us to live in. The kitchen is done, and the bathroom/shower works. There are beds, but no paint on the walls. It felt a little half done, but I’m sure it’ll get finished in the next few weeks, so we aren’t worried. We chose our rooms and started the gruelling task of unpacking our stuff.

Michael drove us to the grocery store and we spent a good hour orso, inching up and down the aisles, choosing for the first time how we would eat together, and pick out food in an Aussie Supermarket. I’m sure Michael thought we were nuts, but these things take a little time to get used to the layout of a new store, culture shock of different foods, and trying to sort out who likes/eats what. We loaded his trunk full of groceries and then headed back to the airport to pick up his brother, Simon, who was coming in from Tasmania for Michael’s birthday party.

For dinner, we walked down to Rosalie (20 min walk), and ate at a burger place, met up with some of his friends, and then headed out to some bars in the Valley. Maybe it’s because we were so jetlagged, but no matter how much we drank, we stayed sober. We went to a pretty nice bar, but pretty soon his friends that met us wanted to dance, so we walked to a nearby dance club called Kaliber, that played old school stuff. Everything from Backstreet Boys to Michael Jackson to Jay Z to Grease! It was such a mish-mash, but a lot of fun. Jillian, Lina and I hit our limit around 2am and shared a taxi back to our house. Pretty impressive for a first night!