arrival australia

So i traveled for 36 hours straight to get here - plenty of time to calculate that on the 24 hours spent on planes. it actually wasnt all THAT bad. watched several movies, got some sleep, started meeting people from the program in LAX - waiting in an absolutely hellish line to check in for the Qantas flight to Brisbane. And on the flight from brisbane to darwin over half the plane was made up of study abroad students. Almost everyone in the history program is from georgetown university with the exception being myself and other single random students from pitt, university of penn., drexel, george washington, western michigan, etc... the other group arriving with us was culture and media of australia students - almost all of which are from michigan state. at any rate, its been good times thus far. settled in at the apartments we're staying at - 3 other girls in the 2 bedroom, living room/kitchen, 1 bathroom apart. not bad really theres even a pool in the middle of the complex. went grocery shopping and got communal food. we get along quite well i think. even though i occassionally get sick of georgetown gossip... we went out last night to 'shenanigans' a bar on the main street. darwin is a pretty small town, but the territory capitol. australians at the bar were really friendly, plenty of free drinks - although i believe that would probably be due to the blonde/sorority types that i am now hanging out with as well as the fact that everyone at the bar seemed a bit, well, old... that wrapped up for us at 10 - i absolutely crashed when we got back to the apartment. this morning we were all up by 9 or 10 and decided to head to the beach - Mondil beach. We stayed out there for several hours as more of the group made it. couldnt really go swimming unfortunately as the water felt great. apparently its invested with jellyfish from oct-may, and even now you have to watch out for salt water crocodiles... we waded out pretty far - only up to mid-thigh - before psyching ourselves out and heading out of the somewhat murkey aqua water. so of course, i am now sunburnt, in record time. we walked back, ate, hung out at the pool for awhile and jogged over to this internet cafe. its about as hot here as at home, but less humid. so actually probably hotter. at any rate, orientation is tomorrow and class starts monday. what a holiday!