It's been some time since I stopped halfway through my travel log of the trip here, so I decided it was time to get the rest of it all told out.  I believe we left off at the point where I boarded the Qantas flight for Sydney.  It was about 10pm at this point and considering the fact that I had been "in transit" for almost 18 hours, I think I was doing quite well.  The drugs had helped quite a bit in making the massive headache I mentioned in part 1 go down quite a bit, and I was able to relax a little bit more now that second of three transportation issues seemed to be successfully resolved.

    A perhaps insignificant thing to be grateful for, but for which I am nonetheless grateful, was that on both flights I managed to quickly and easily find a place in the overhead compartments to place my carry-on and my laptop bag.  I remember when I was flying home from my mission I had a huge carry-on, which to this day I still don't know how I got it on to the plane without them telling me it was too big, and it wouldn't fit anywhere.  I checked all of the nearby compartments, but alas, none were empty enough, or of a compatible geometry to accommodate my bag.  I was so crowded with my garment bag (containing four suits, about eight shirts, two pairs of shoes, and all my socks) "under the seat in front of [me]" that one of the flight attendants asked me if I wanted my garment bag hung up.  I didn't even know that that was possible, and I was very thankful that he offered to hang it for me.  Taking this lesson to heart, I sought quickly to board, find my row, stow my luggage, and take my seat.  Now knowing that planes have somewhere to hang things up, I asked the flight attendant if I could hang up my suit jacket, thus avoiding getting it wrinkled during the next 18 hours.

    Some of you might be asking at this point "Why was he wearing a suit?", and the answer to that is actually quite simple.  I decided to wear a suit for several reasons, some of them better than others, but all equally contributing to the final decision.  The first thing that sparked the idea and gave it birth was simply the fact that if I wore the suit, it would allow for just a bit more room in my suitcase.  While this may seem insignificant, it was the initial motivation, and as I debated the idea, I began to see more merits to it.  The second merit was that I wanted to have people take me seriously.  I'm not trying to say that if I wore shorts and a t-shirt that people wouldn't take me seriously, but more that if I wore a suit, I would appear more serious.  As much as we might debate it in either direction, I think that ultimately, I was well-founded and justified in my second reason:  When I told people that I was going to the University of Wollongong, so many people jumped (not so much jumped but more that they, based on current social norms, deduced (incorrectly)) to the conclusion that I was going to be teaching there.  Now, I want to point out here that I don't think that wearing a suit subconsciously spurred flight attendants to put any more care or effort into pouring me a small plastic cup 3/4 full of juice, or to do so faster than with people in casual clothes; that's not what I'm trying to say at all.  The last reason is closely related to the preceding, that I wanted to make a good impression.  I didn't know/wasn't sure who would be showing up at the airport to pick us up and so I wanted to be prepared to give a responsible and confident first impression should anyone from the university faculty be there to greet us.  As it turned out, no one of academic import was there, so I made an impression only on my fellow classmates and the flight attendants.  Despite the foregoing defence of my decision some may still be thinking that this was all just foolishness, so in a final support of my conclusions, I would like to remind the reader that, on my mission, I wore a suit and a tie EVERY SINGLE DAY WITHOUT EXCEPTION FOR OVER 700 DAYS STRAIGHT; I am very comfortable in a suit, it didn't bother me in the least, and there was absolutely no downside to my choice.

    Having stowed my luggage quickly and found my seat, I was disappointed and irked to discover that I was in an exit aisle and consequently had no window and no movie screen.  This was shaping up to be a very long journey, as I was hoping to take some pictures and while away my time by watching all the movies.  I must ashamedly confess that my shy nature came into play here, preventing me from asking the flight attendant the simple questions that would ensure my contentedness during the voyage.  At first, most of my thoughts were occupied with wondering what would happen if I asked to be moved to a seat with a screen.  Then they were directed toward the design of the aircraft itself; who would design the seats so that these exit rows would have no screen and all the others would?  I was irked, and quickly on my way to becoming annoyed.  After stewing about it for a while, and feeling a little sorry for myself, wallowing in self-pity, I decided to try and sleep.  I'm not sure how long into the trip it was when I awoke (read: stopped trying to sleep) but when I did, it was to find the guy next to me watching a movie on his screen.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would refrain from, or stop, laughing at my inexperience and naïveté.  While I have flown a few times, I’m not an expert on commercial airliner seat design; how can you blame me for not knowing that the screen was located under the arm of my seat?  Seriously.  Not surprisingly, I extracted my screen and immediately began watching the available movies.  I watched an Australian movie with Daniel Radcliff in it (the Australians like to joke about this, as he isn’t Australian, mocking his accent) called December Boys.  It wasn’t all that great, and I don’t think I’d recommend it to anyone, nor would I watch it again.  It was actually quite boring, with little plot to speak of.  I can’t remember the other movies I watched (a consequence of taking so long to document the flight) but among the movies, trying to sleep, and reading my book, I managed to pass the time rather well.  The food on both flights was your typical fare and, for anyone who knows me, was more than satisfactory (despite some slightly over-microwaved rice).  We were served breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breakfast, with snacks in between consisting of frequent juicings and fruitings (in the words of Calvin “Verbing wierds language” (I realize that ‘juicings’ and ‘fruitings’ are grammatically nouns, they are nouns that have been verbed, then nouned, and so are perfectly related to the quote)).  I’m not sure what other details from the flight to include, so if you think of any you want, lemme know and I’ll edit the post.

    After disembarking (I, in the past, have heard it referred to as debarking, which makes me think of taking the bark off of trees) I walked along the long walkways and through the carefully placed duty free stores on my way to customs.  They had several signs detailing the seriousness of bringing in foreign plants/fruits/vegetables/meat, and at one location just before the customs line they had a large rubbish bin (garbage can) with a sign indicating that this was their last chance.  It seems as though the Australians are very cautious, and they have a right to be considering what they endured in the mid 1800s when that one Englishman imported a few rabbits so that he could hunt them.  Apparently he wasn’t a very good hunter, ‘cause some of them managed to get away and began to reproduce . . . like rabbits.  I got in line, but then realized I hadn’t filled out my customs declaration card, so I went to go fill it in.  While I was doing so, another couple planes landed and the line got a lot longer.  I got back in the now significantly longer lineup and began to wait.  Suddenly, I realized I was missing my carry-on.  I had left it over at the counter.  There was now a saddening number of people both in front of and behind me.  I had to leave the line yet again to get my bag, then re-enter the line.  It took me sooo long to get through.  Looking back on it now, I think it was a good thing that I spent such a long time in the lineup because it meant that I had to spend less of the next hour or so agonizing over the fact that one of my checked bags never appeared on the carousel.  There was one that looked exactly like mine, but it had a lock on it, and a blue ribbon on the handle.  Clearly, someone had assumed that mine was theirs, not looking closely enough to notice that it wasn’t.  I have now learned my lesson, and in the future I will always ensure that some significantly distinguishing mark or feature is present on my luggage.  After waiting until the carousel stopped (to ensure that it was, in fact, lost), I was directed to the luggage claims counter in order to file a claim.  Approaching the counter, I was amazed at the shocking number of pieces of luggage that were ‘lost’.  This vast sea of luggage was easily 4m X 10m, and in some cases was piled 2 and 3 high.  Wow.  There were only a few people in the luggage line, but it took quite a long time for them to get through.  All told, including the customs line, the carousel wait, and the luggage claim line, I ended up taking about 2 hours to get off the plane and into Australia.  As there were a few different flights that contained UoW students, I ended up having to wait as soon as I got out anyway.  We had to wait for about another half hour for the last flight to land and the rest of the students to get through.  The bus ride down to the Gong (the city of Wollongong) took about two hours, as we travelled via the older Coast Hwy (I guess the driver wanted us to experience something more scenic).  I chatted with the other students, enjoyed the view of the coast, and listened to some music as we traveled along the coast, south towards our new home for the next 10 months.  We all got dropped off at our various temporary accommodations, with me and a few others being dropped off about half a block away from ours ‘cause the bus couldn’t turn around if he dropped us right in front.  Keiraleagh House, my temporary home, has been described previously, so I won’t go into any more detail about it.

    And there you have it:  The first stage of my Australian experience.  It’s interesting and saddening to note that it took me over two months to document it.  I need to be less scared of starting things.  That’s really my only problem.  I’m not good at starting.  When I get going, things go well, but it’s that initial motivation that I lack.  I’ll have to make sure that I marry a girl who can give me that little push to get things started.  I’ll get around to that eventually, though not right now.