October 2:

Greetings from Sydney, well actually from Ryde. Ryde is your average suburb, like Mountain Brook or Vestavia Hills of Birmingham. I woke up early this morning in New Zealand to catch my plane to Australia. I was just shy of three hours early for my plane....so stupid! I drank lots of coffee to make sure I would not fall alseep in the airport. Guess what, it worked! I arrived in Australia and went through customs, much easier than last time (when they took away my bear). I got a taxi and arrived at The Marharlika Gardens. Of course I would be early though and my room was not ready yet. So I sat in the lobby for about an hour just waiting. Finally, I got into my room.

My room is very basic. I asked for a studio apartment. It has a king size bed (very nice), a bathroom, a closet and a small kitchen (if you could call it that). On the floor there are two iron burns...very classy. There is a table with two chairs, to dine on. To do your dining on, there is a collection of plates, bowls, glasses and silverware. There are about four pieces of each and nothing really matches. I have a mini frige, like you would find at college and a microwave to prepare my meals. I feel like I am at college again. This adventure will test my skills as much as in the Le Cordon Bleu kitchen as well as in my own kitchen where I am living.

The closet is not bad. It fits everything perfectly, but that could also be because I only packed one huge suitcase and one little one. The bathroom though, is quite funny. The shower does not have an end or a beginning, the water just keeps going, hopefully making it down into the drain. We will see, I have yet to try that out. I knew this whole trip was going to be an adventure...so here's to it.

I finally got all settled into my room. I unpacked everything and took inventory of what I would need to eat and just live. I was going to go find my school and a grocery store. My school is about a 15 to 20 minute walk, mostly uphill. The good news, it will be downhill when I come home. The school is very interesting. It is nothing what I thought it would be. It is a part of another school, the Northern Sydney Institute of Tafe, Ryde Campus. I don't know what to expect. All I know, I have to stop day dreaming about things, it never really turns out how you think it should be. I thought of a white building, with the school's emblem on it and the building ledges with blue trim, the school's colors. Oh well, here's to day dreaming.

Well, I must excuse myself now. I have to go to my room to experiment with the microwave containers I brought at the store. This is how I am going to cook for the next 2 and half months, in my room...through a microwave. I am going to look up recipes and then go experiment. When I come home I will be a culinary genius with microwaves, being able to cook more than just ramen noodles! So here is to our dreams

Cheers mate

p.s. - daddy, spell check would not operate, so sorry about the spelling and such.