The week so far...

24th May 9:08am ADELAIDE time

I have officially arrived in Melbourne and been Travelling for approximately 3 hours. I have about 2 hours until my flight leaves for Los Angeles so I’m taking the time to relax… My trip so far has been interesting to say the least. After leaving Adelaide teary eyed, I flew to Melbourne (where I am right now) and I went to collect my baggage. After going the wrong way twice (I’m slowly learning that the “follow the crowd” theory doesn’t work 100% of the time), I was re-united with my beloved blue suitcase and made my way to the International departures section of the airport. As I was waiting in line to ‘check in’ I was pulled aside by a security lady who announced that I had been “randomly selected”…. As in, I was at the end of the line for a security check, so I was taken out of the line and the lady kindly undid the hour of work it took to get everything into the suitcase by going through everything and turning things upside down. Once she had discovered that no, I wasn’t a terrorist and no, I wasn’t the next Corby or Leslie, she dumped everything back into the suitcase and zipped it up and put me at the front of the line to check in. Whilst checking in, discovered that my suitcase zips weren’t shut properly so I had to buy a small padlock which is sure to be cut off and also that my suitcase was 6.something kilograms over the limit so I had to ay a fee of $35. If that wasn’t enough, as I went through customs, I had a lovely chat with the immigration officer who seemed to think that my passport was “held in Adelaide” despite the fact that I had handed it to her and that she was holding it. A phone call soon sorted the problem out that some dipshit in Adelaide didn’t change the status of my passport when it was lost from my Europe trip. Any whos, that my story so far, I’m currently sitting in front of Gate 6 in the international Terminal of Melbourne Airport and its 955am AEST and 925am in Adelaide. Hopefully a smoother run for me in America but I’m looking forward to what ever comes my way.

11:14am Adelaide Time Thursday 25th May 06
9:45pm Washington Dulles Wednesday 24th May 06

Well it’s been an interesting experience to say the least. The plane from Melbourne to Sydney was nice enough, getting off of the plane from Sydney to change planes to LA I was once again “randomly selected” to get my hand luggage checked for explosives… WOO HOO…. I really must look like a terrorist! The flight from Sydney to LA was delayed and we arrived in LA at 10:30am Local time and I discovered that my plane for NY left at 11:30 and boarded at 11am. Needless to say, I missed the flight to NY, hence me sitting in the Washington Dulles Airport. Anyways, straight out of customs, they handed me a different boarding pass t get to Washington and I jumped straight on the plane at 1145am and the plane left LA at 1235pm. LA was weird… the first thing I noticed was that there was minimal tree-age and it REALLY flat and dessert like, but in the distance there are these huge hills…the second thing I noticed was the SMOG! There is this thin layer of smog across the sky’s of America… its really gross to be honest. Anyways the flight from LA to Washington was a pain on the buttocks to be honest… the guy sitting next to me was this creepy old dude who insisted on telling me about his life experiences and “risqué” jokes as he put it… basically they were just gross jokes which no sane person would tell an 18 year old girl from the other side of the world. Anywhos, I spent the 5 hour flight leaning against the window with my sunglasses on, avoiding all possibilities of engaging in conversation with the man and as a result, my back hurts. Once I had arrived in Wash, I caught a shuttle to gate A5, which is where I am now, awaiting my delayed plane to NY… I rang Arno (camp director) and he seemed to find it pretty amusing that his ‘driver’ had to wait another 3-4hours or something ridiculous to drive me back to the farm which will be an extra 3 hours. Gee-Whiz. I also rang home and left a message and then rang mum at work and left a message there so now I cant contact Australia anymore because my free minutes have been used up and I don’t know how to get more on the phone card! Everything is so stereotypical here, I just had a Twix bar and I’m drinking a coke as I type. As I look around, there are many-a fat person sitting down… there is a pizza place about 50m from where I am sitting who sell ‘slices’ of pizza for about $2.60 American dollars, but the slice is literally quarter of a large pizza… I was going to get some but when I saw the size of the pieces… I didn’t bother. I also bought some starburst, which I was disappointed with because they don’t taste any different. Nor did the coke. But my point I was going to make about the starburst was that it was less than $1 American! Ok, so I’ve been travelling for more than 24 hours, I think I’m going insane, to the point where I’m finding the price of starburst exciting. I cant wait to reach a bed tonight… but hat wont be til about 1am… never mind, anyways, I think they are about to tell s something about boarding the delayed plane so I’m guna put this laptop away so I’m all good to go when the time comes. I’m impressed with the laptop business, its very much the convenient, and not hard at all and I seem to fit in with the majority of people here! Ok, its 11:33am Adelaide time and about 10pm here, I’m guna cruise.


Ok, its approximately 6:30pm on Thursday the 25th of May… NEW YORK!

Finally made it to New York City (after the big kafuffle) and managed to find the ‘driver’ Constantine, who picked me up outside of the airport. I’m not sure how, but my bags beat me to NY, I’m not asking questions, I’m just thanking my lucky stars that my suitcase made it here. We got to the camp at about 3am after the long drive home and I fluffed around a bit until about 4am and then went to sleep for a few hours and got up at 6:30am, when I suddenly realised that I had no idea what to do once I was up. So I bummed around the room for an hour or so and got stressed and freshened up a bit and then as I was putting on my shoes a girl walked into the room and was quite shocked to see me awake! I was then invited to the “food trailer” which is a caravan loaded with staple foods like bread ad milk etc and about 20 boxes of cereal. Apparently, that’s what we live on until camp starts and then all the food is cooked for us. Yay… well, at leas ti will lose some weight! After breakfast today, I went down to the barn and helped bring the polo ponies into the stables and stood around a lot and then I got to ride a horse called Polly. We then spent the day washing and grooming most of the horses and at the end of the day, we put the polo ponies back out… FYI, there are 6 polo ponies, all almost identical to one another. At the moment, I have just finished “dinner” of a banana, 2 cookies and a tub of yoghurt…. Ok, guna cruise, time for a shower!

Saturday 27 May 2006 12:15 AM NY

Just got to bed. The last two days have been so unbelieveably hectic. Have befriended all if the girls, they are all really cool. Friday morning I got to learn to ride the polo ponies, so I rode a horse called Primero, he is really relaxed. Also, whilst doing our daily routines around the barn, Arno ‘popped in’ to give us all donuts from dunkin donuts. All the food in the US is ten times as fatty as any of the food in Aust and it has ten times the sugar, I think even the sugar has ten times he sweetness here. They have a tub of peanut butter the size of a… well you cant really compare it to anything in Aust but its massive… maybe the equivalent of a 2L ice cream tub?? I don’t know, I will check tomoro. Anywhos, later that night, I was on my way back to the bedrooms with my banana and peanut butter bagel and ended up having to walk all the way over the other side of the farm with Marieke and Liz because they are scared of the dark and Liz lives on the other side of the farm, so I had to walk Marieke back, which was cool. Today, I rode Primero again in the morning and then I rode a horse called All Star, he is a bit of a skitz, but nice enough. Also, Patty, one of the girls has fallen really ill, she has a migraine so has gone home, hopefully back by tomoro. She is cool. Today we also completely re-mucked the stalls, it was a tough job but it needed to be done. After work, at 6pm, Brenna and I went to have dinner at a diner. It was really cool, it had Tips and everything and it felt like we had gone back to the TV show happy days! After that we went to an ice cream place and I had a frozen strawberry yoghurt in a cone… yuk! Oh well. In the diner, they have drinks, which you pay for but they do free refills so you only pay for one drink!! Its great! – kinda like a hungry jacks but diner style! There is a maccas here in Ellenville… must go to that soon. I’m starting to pick up wording and accents already… not a good sign, they say I have a really cool accent so im going to try and stay different. Apparently I’m the only Aussie going to be here all summer long… I think that there is going to be a NZ’er coming as well though, so it will be cool, I also understand that there are two more German chicks coming in a couple of weeks. So anyway, life on the farm is cool, my body is getting used to it, although I’m not quite sure if im over the jet lag thing yet I don’t seem to be slowing down. Ok it must be about 12:30am so I better get to sleep.. have to be up by 7am… it gets worse when camp starts! Ok, ciao for now.12:30am.

Sunday, 28 May 2006 10:45pm NY

Ok, today was a very non-productive day. In the morning, I rode two polo ponies and lead one whilst riding the first. It’s quite the workout, you have to work each horse for 40 minutes non stop. Once that was finished plus some of the regular muck out stuff, we went to lunch and then after lunch, I busted my arse puling hay bails off of a trailer and cleaned up the barn for the people who came for a pony ride! Basically the children are too young to attend the camp this summer, so the parents come and inspect the premises whist t he children sit on a pony and go around he barn a couple tomes each. We got a $10 tip each, which was really cool because that paid for our Chinese buffet dinner which we had at a place called “’sun’ china buffet” it was $9.99 each for the buffet plus whatever drink you wanted. Any Ways, that was our day. When we got back from dinner, we went to Lizzie’s place and checked our emails and then the internet crashed so we came back to the dorm and then watched an episode of season one ER and then went to bed. Ok, that’s it for now. I found out tonight that I get Wednesday off… NO idea what to do with that one but im sure opportunities will present themselves! 10:52 pm NY

Tuesday, 30th May 06 10:30pm NY

Just got into bed. Yesterday I rode the polo ponies and then spent the afternoon cleaning jumping cups and scrubbing them whilst talking to Brenna about Australian animals in comparison to America and Canada. As I was putting two of the horses out to the field, I buried my feet in mud and ended up walking out of my shoe and therefore got all of my shoe COVERED in sloshy mud and then my socks muddy as well due to the forward momentum out f my shoes… they are still drying today. After work we went to the 209 Diner for diner and I had a “pizzaburger’ which is basically a burger with melted cheese and pizza sauce on it. We then went to an ice-cream place and I had “panda paws” ice cream in a cup. It was really hot yesterday and I ended up sleeping in the other room (I have a room to myself at the moment). Today we worked the polo ponies, and then after lunch, I cleaned out the Tack room and moved a fridge with Brenna That pretty much took up my day. Dinner today was ‘vegetable beef’ soup out of a can followed by dry cereal (no milk) and a peanut butter and cereal sandwich. After an episode of ER, Marieke and I went to the food trailer for some tea and came up with the idea to walk to Liz’s house and scare her, but we made so much noise going into the house that she heard us giggling and wasn’t even surprised to see us! The weather had been really erratic as of late, this morning before lunch it got up to at least 36 degs Celsius but after lunch it was stormy and we have had thunder and lightning since then. I’m quite burnt at the moment as a result of not wearing sunscreen a couple of days ago, today I managed to get rid of the ridiculous glove tan I have sported over the last couple of days, by not putting any sunscreen on my wrists! Tomoro is my day off but because Patty has been sick for the last couple of days, Mareike’s day off has been pushed back to tomoro as well so we are heading into town together to look for things to do. Ok, I should go and get some sleep; I get a sleep-in in the morning! YAHHHHhhhhhooooooooo… 10:47pm NY.

Wednesday, 1 Jun. 06 10:15pm NY

Today was my day off, Marieke and I decided to sleep in til 9:30am, watched episodes of ER and then headed to the office to see if any of the senior staff were driving into town to see if we could get a lift. To our surprise and extreme luck, Gina, the main reception/shopping/everything lady drove us into the MAIN town, which is 45 mins away, and we spent the afternoon shopping. We then came back and the other girls had made spag bol so we ate that and then Marieke did a fashion parade with her new clothes that she bought. Then we decided to come up to the house to see if the Internet worked and clearly it does! So I’m not sitting on a couch, enjoying the fact that the blue tooth on my laptop works with the wireless Internet up here and about to go to bed… Today was a good day! Am missing home, but I’m having heaps of fun here. Anyways, time for me to cruise. Ciao! 10:20pm NY