Would you like a cup of dinner?

Hey all!
I successfully made it to Sydney. I had 2 seats all by myself on the 10 hour plane ride, making it a lot easier to relax and kick back. Hawaiian Airlines was great, the staff was awesome, and I would definitely recommend it for travel to Oz. I rented that DigEplayer thing, and ended up actually staying awake for 3 movies! Anyone who knows me well knows that I struggle just paying attention in one movie. The landing was really scary cuz on my side of the plane all I could see was that we were flying over water...and descending...closer and closer...then all of a sudden the wheels went down and we landed and land magically appeared.
I have already encountered two cultural differences. My friend Frederick picked me up at the airport and I went to get in the passenger side of his car. Then he sheepishly laughed and said, "Um, holly...that's my side." Yeah they drive on the left side of the road, its pretty trippy! Then I was chatting with Fred's roomate who mentioned something about getting "Tea" and I was kinda confused because it didn't sound like she was talked about "tea and crumpets" kinda tea. Apparently "Tea" means "dinner" over here.
In closing, please throw up a little prayer for this Alaskan girl who is about to go outside and face 40 degree celsius temperatures! (104 farenheit) More coming soon....

4 days left in this country

So its Thursday afternoon....exactly 4 more days until I depart on my great adventure. Do you ever feel like you're on the brink of something? Like you know that something great lies just ahead, but you have no idea what that something is? Welcome to my world for the last couple of months. Right now I am a ball of uncertainty, anticipation, dread and excitement. I'll be in Eastern Australia for 2 months, from February 4th until April 6th. Let me give you a rundown of the typical line of questioning that has been bombarding me since I randomly purchased my plane ticket (thanks Alaskan Permanent Fund/Sarah Palin! I don't care if you can see Russia from your house and that your eyes glaze over when the words "Bush doctrine" are thrown at you, you gave me dollars!)

me: "I'm going to Australia"
random person: "Australia....wow....how long will you be gone?"
me: "2 months"
r.p. "who are you going with? Your boyfriend? Friends?"
me: "Nope, i don't have any of those. I'm going by myself."
r.p. "by yourself?! how brave! So why are you going?"
me (awkwardly looking around and fidgeting): "oh geez...i don't really know.... to get away, because I can, um yeah..."
r.p. "so you're not going to school? what are you going to be doing?"
me: "hanging out."

Anyone who remotely knows me knows that hanging out is not really my strong suit. I am a self-driven workaholic and a perfectionist in recovery, with an extremely high need for structure, stimulation, multiple tasks, and a bazillion plans. When I try to explain to people my reasons for taking off to the land of Oz, I get stuck trying to formulate a canned response. The closest I can come to a solid answer is: I need to break my mold a little bit, survive for an extended amount of time without knowing anyone, learn a little bit more about who I am, get closer to God, and develop a greater sense of what is out "there." yeah....so here I go.

I'm hoping to keep this updated and throw up some pictures as I travel. I don't have any set travel plans, besides the plane ticket and an open bus ticket from Sydney to Cairns, so I'm not sure what my communication situation will be. I assume that there will be plenty of computers for me to sneak on, so stay tuned for further adventures....