I am now in Melbourne, it is Tuesday morning, 6:10 am. I find it very odd that I woke up at 6:00 am here, very close to the time that I wake up on a regular Tuesday morning, just, you know, the time difference is 17 hours. Let's start at the beginning...

Saturday was just finishing up packing. Played pool with Brandon a little bit. We watched Step Brothers, which was surprisingly still hilarious for the ~5th or so time I watched it. I went to Chase and stood in line forever to have the lady tell me just to call the Chase customer service center, but that's fine, I needed her to tell me that. So I got my bank account deal set up for me being in Australia for a while. Got to the airport early, but that's alright. I killed a lot of time just writing in my notebook, random thoughts. Got to San Francisco, it was pretty late, maybe 9:30 pm or so. Got some nachos that weren't that great. I just checked my balance and it appears everything other than my rent check is up to date and I've still got (rent check included) $800+ available. I don't think the money thing will be an issue. I figure I'll leave here with $200-$300, which will be plenty to get me to payday which will be an open paycheck aside from phone bill. So, yeah, flight to San Francisco was not that notable.

Got on the flight for Sydney and sat next to this girl named Sam. I started reading "Into the Wild" but got about 2 pages in before she asked how long the flight was. Somehow that ended up being an hour long conversation. Sam is a 24 year old girl from London, who is going to be living in Sydney again after taking a vacation to the United States. She left London a year ago and has been traveling and/or living in Sydney since then, so naturally I was interested for some of her insight on things. We just talked about differences between US, London, Australia and it was good stuff. After a while she tried to go to sleep, so I tried to go to sleep. I was fortunate to not have a person next to me (I was riding bitch, Sam had window seat). I would say the majority of the flight was me trying to sleep. I wasn't that tired aside from around hours 10-12 which I think I slept an hour or an hour and a half. Talked to Sam again about halfway through the flight and then went back to trying to sleep. For 14 hours to go by like it did, it was pretty good, but it wasn't a pleasant experience. I didn't do a whole lot. I played Sudoku to kill time and the rest was just listening to music while trying to sleep and then the 1.5 to 2 hours that I actually did sleep. All of my flights left on time and arrived early, that aspect of the trip was very smooth.

I arrived in Sydney and was planning on getting a drink or something, but the prices were so insane that I just passed and was going to wait. It was $4.69 for a half liter of chocolate milk. Got on the flight to Melbourne and was finally genuinely tired. I slept for maybe 30-45 minutes but it was really good sleep. If I am tired I can sleep sitting up, my problem on the Sydney flight was that I just wasn't all that tired the entire time. I had a window seat on the last flight and no one else in my row, that was nice. I thought a 1 hour and 40 minute flight would be annoying after a 14 hour one but it was just like child's play, it was over a lot quicker than I expected. Customs was way too easy, I could hardly believe it. On the flight (to Sydney) they passed out these entry cards for Australia. Well, it was very dark but light enough that I could read the card so I was filling it out. I found it odd that it seemed to ask you to mark an "X" by certain questions but I didn't see a box or anything. I'll also admit here that I was physically, mentally tired so probably not operating at 100%. So I fill out the card, in my opinion, appropriately. I get off the last plane and pull it out to get through the next line... There are boxes for the X's, it's just that the paper is a light tan and the boxes are white, I couldn't see them at all. Except one time it explicitly asked for an X so I just put an X next to one of the options (and there was actually a lot of space for me to get this wrong) and it happened to be right in the box. So I quickly X'd all the boxes I needed to and was on my way to baggage claim. Was there for about 10 minutes and my bag came, right before the canine unit showed up so I didn't have to deal with that. Next part was just handing in my check-in card and then having my baggage scanned and I was done. Outside of baggage claim, the whole process was about a minute and I didn't answer any questions other than filling out that card.

Get out of the terminal and I'm in the meeting area for my flight, for international flights. Rayna's not there, which I'm not worried about, but it'd be nice if she was there. So I walk around to make sure she isn't around, don't see her. Decide I need to call her (and of course my cell phone is not getting service, I was just going to text her instead but I can't). I go to the exchange center and I'm going to try to get change to use the payphone. But she says there's a 4 dollar minimum service fee, so I tell her I just need to use the phone and that I do have Australian money already (I had drawn out $200 in Sydney to see that it worked) so she has me get a $5 phone card. I go and hope that I can dial Rayna's number correctly. I go through the steps... straight to voicemail.... damn. I'm not worried at all. I know I can get to my destination, but I don't want to leave Rayna looking for me at the airport. So I walk around again, come back to the phone and try again. I get ahold of Rayna, but only as I simultaneously see her walking toward me. Reunited, good stuff. We leave in Jono's old gray Volvo wagon, that's the vehicle of the vacation.

Yesterday was awesome. The driving on the left side is a bit of a mindfuck, I get these uncomfortable urges a lot, that feeling you get when you're in a precarious situation while driving, but it's just because there's a car coming toward you and it's to your right. And then you're getting ready to turn left.. and a car is coming toward you from the left... but you can still safely turn. We stop at Jono's house and no one is home. Then we go to Jono's work, a cafe about a quarter mile (or less) away. We have some coffee, I get a meat pie. Jono is cool. His co-worker Lynette is very nice, too. It's just a nice place to be, that cafe, everyone is very friendly. The coffee was good, it was, however, called a "long black" and I guess they don't really do drip coffee here. After we leave we head to the train station, which is so very conveniently close to Jono's house, it's amazing. Head into Melbourne's CBD and wander around a little bit. Go to Chinatown and get these amazing doughballs filled with meat, soooo good. We encountered 2 aboriginals walking past us (the opposite way) and it kind of blew my mind. I was thinking "why are these people breathing through bags in downtown?" ... "are these people actually huffing paint as they walk by dozens of people every block?" ... "wow, they are." Then there was this larger man crossing the street next to me, to my right and in front of me. He slips on the curb and flips his shit "Mother fuck! This is bull shit!" and he's also carrying a bottle of alcohol. He's bitching to this girl he's with and I see him a little later, as he catches up, and he is no longer wearing his flip-flops. He's walking through rainy downtown Melbourne barefoot. So, there's a lot of interesting folks, but it's a bustling city and certainly not a sketchy place, just to clarify that notion. We stop in at a FCUK store because I really want an FCUK shirt... $50. FCUK that. Get hot chocolate at this nice cafe. I guess it turns out we walked around quite a bit. That was fun. Got back on the train to head home. I sit down when we get home and I almost instantly go from feeling normal to feeling like I should lie down and pass out. So I tell Rayna we should leave, I'm trying to just go to bed at a normal hour. So we go for a walk through Kooyong Park and then to another park and then back. On our way back, it's about time for Jono to be getting off work so we stop in there and hang out and wait for him to get done. And of course I get another long black. Oh I forgot to mention I went to the grocery store. Some packages just have energy info in kilojoules, weird. Also went to the liquor store where Johnny Walker Red Label is cheaper than all of the bourbon, much different from the states. Took pictures of funny foods, which I'm sure there are plenty in the US for visitors, too. We headed home and almost all of the Goldsmith family was home now so it was dinner and mingling time. The family is funny. They're a tad odd, but Rayna had me thinking they were very odd. Rayna said that Jono's brother would, while we're at dinner, say something inappropriate and that Jono's dad would tell him it was inappropriate and that it'd be a little awkward for a second... that very thing happened and I just thought it was funny that Rayna called it. Hung out in Jono's room looking for things to do tomorrow (today, now) and just shot the shit, it was great. Jono was out of energy a lot of the day so it wasn't until this point that he really had any energy to talk. Funny conversations though. Then we were watching Rayna play Assassin's Creed and I was about to go to bed but I wanted to see her assassinate this guy. I fell asleep sitting on the bed. Then I did it again. And then she killed the guy, so I went to bed.

Today we will be going to Phillips Island to see penguins march and I think most of the Australian animals are there.