Travel Saga.

So much has happened in the past few days… a few highlights:

• · When I left from Madison, my mom went from being perfectly happy to crying hysterically in .2 seconds… it was a bit hilarious. She didn’t think so.
• · The guy next to me on the bus was doing some kind of meditation in his muscle shirt. He had to be in his 50s, with a bit of a beer belly, which made me really happy. All of a sudden, after sitting perfectly still for about half an hour, it looked like he was physically removing all of the stress from his body…which is healthy and good… but he moved so quickly that it scared the crap out of me.
• · Miriam took me for lunch and we had sweet potato fries and she gave me a good book to read. We hung out at a jewelry store. Her dad gave me some Australian coins.
• · Once Chelsea and I got to Laura’s house, there DEFINITELY needed to be some reorganizing. Laura got rid of two WHOLE rolls of clothes (yeah, most people fold, Laura and her mom thought it was ingenious to roll because it was TOO efficient)… however, her suitcase still weighed 70 lbs when we got to the airport (this is just one of her two checked bags, by the way…).
• · I have a bag of crap sitting in Laura’s brother’s closet.
• · Since Laura’s luggage was so heavy, she had to add a carry-on (an amazingly stylish see-through plastic bag that United let us have), as well as putting some of her stuff in my “New Zealand” suitcase (we all packed two suitcases.. one that we would just leave at the Sydney airport so we wouldn’t have so much luggage).
• · When we hopped off the plane at LAX (with a dream and a cardigan), Chelsea called her great aunt (whom Laura and I were convinced had to be like, Betty White or something since all of the famous people live in California), she forgot to ask what kind of car her great aunt was driving. Luckily, she found us. Laura and I looked real cute in the back seat with two backpacker backpacks and a huge suitcase.
• · It was a whopping 63 degrees in LA, while back home, they were enjoying 80 degree weather. America… However, we made the most of the situation by driving up and down the coast and then laying out in Aunt Mo’s backyard (Laura’s a redneck now… I knew some of you had your suspicions. I’ve heard her saying ‘hey y’all and yee haw’ in her sleep).
• · Aunt Mo’s grandson did NOT want to crescendo to open the gates of the castle during Little Einsteins (which is something I wanted him to do, proving the point that little children hate me, and in return, I hate them back… but only a little bit. He’s only 3, so I guess I have to give him a little credit. He also had some kind of giggle issue every time he looked at Chelsea, so I think he has a fear of brunettes.)
• · Aunt Mo knows EVERYTHING. She should go on Jeopardy. She made us a delicious dinner and then drove us to the airport. Laura got halfway through saying “Departures” before Aunt Mo missed the turnoff and we ended up in the same spot that we witnessed a garbage fire earlier that day. We then had to run to our gate where we found out that we needed a visa to get into Australia, which was a downer until we met some woman who has a very complicated job which I did not fully understand, but she gave us homemade cookies and we ate them… later thinking that we could have possibly died from eating them, but she was just TOO nice to not eat them.
• · I was oober exhausted when I got onto the flight until I realized that the in-flight entertainment included about 5 movies I wanted to watch, which perked me right up.
• · Once we finally landed in Sydney (by way of Auckland, NZ), we knew we had to find the luggage storage area, which Laura knew was next to the McDonalds. So instead of asking where the luggage storage area, since we represent the obese nation, we instead asked the volunteer helper where the McDonald’s was. I’m pretty sure she judged us since I was holding my huge ass bulksize Goldfish box while asking.
• · Once we got to our hostel and were all settled, we showered up and in the process, got to listen to a couple bicker about how awful they are to the other person, and I admittingly felt like I should join in on the argument since they were a mere five feet from me and we share a lot since we share this 10-bed dorm room. I held my tongue, though… don’t worry. We did, however, see that girl and her friend multiple times while walking through the city later. How does that happen?
• · After we found food, we followed a big crowd to a pair of brothers who were “CIRCUS FIREMEN” (aka street performers that can do a few things really well and can make really bad jokes for an incredibly long time). The look of shock on our faces when the entertainers (who seemed to be aimed at younger children) made comments such as “Tim (a man who was helping them), do you have troubles keeping it up? Don’t worry, folks, just a penis joke” and “Piss off, kid. YOU are annoying me. Who’s child is this? Can you get him to back off because he’s really annoying,” was not the same look that many of the other audience members had on their face. They were funny, but when you call kids “smart ass” and say “Dammit” when you couldn’t find the right child to volunteer for your stunt… I dunno, seems kind of uncomfortable, haha. Poor guys, right when they asked for money, it started downpouring and everyone went running for shelter.
• Alright… I think I have you all up to speed. I’m going to add pics in here ASAP (it might not be until I get to NZ since I think my image downloader cord is in my NZ suitcase).

Tonight we’re going to an Easter Party (that’s right.. people getting’ drunk for Jesus). I don’t know how long we’ll last… Chels is already asleep on my arm and it’s a mere 645 in the evening. However considering I’ve technically been up since 12:30 this morning (Sydney time), it might just fit the bill to have a night to sleep… and then we won’t be hungover for Easter service tomorrow.