I'M HERE!!!

I've finally made it to Sydney and it still seems so surreal. As it turns out, Friday the 13th is a TERRIBLE day to fly! I got to the airport around 12:30 and met up with Kate. We got on our plane as scheduled around 2 and then proceded to sit on the plane for another 2 hours due to maintanence issues. As our pilot put it, and I quote, "Uhh....welll....umm...we're uh experiencing some maintanence problems and uh everytime they go in to fix something another problem pops up sooo uhh that's all I know for now...we should be flying shortly." Clearly this is not something you want to hear before taking off on a 7 hour flight across the country but we finally took off, only to land 3 hours later in Minnesota for a fuel stop during which one of the passengers had an allergic reaction to.....SPINACH! Spinach? Yep, spinach. If only he had read page 77 in the United Airlines Magazine, he might have found out that every single item offered as a meal contains spinach...hmm. So after a brief delay we were on our way to SF and about 30 minutes into the flight the pressure in my sinuses built up so much that the entire right side of my face was in extreme pain, so much that my top teeth (only on the right side) all went numb. A terrible experience to say the least. I tried to sleep but the pain made me feel like I was going to throw up so all an all a pretty bad flight to SF. We finally made it with only about a half hour to spare before our next flight.
The flight to Sydney was VERY long, but not as terrible as I was expecting. I slept for about the first 8 hours on and off, which was a good way to pass the time. We got to watch the sun come up over the clouds which was really pretty (I took pictures) and landed just before 8am on Sunday. Saturday, Valentine's Day, was non-existant for us which was just fine with me :). One of the girls on my trip's mom arranged for a van to pick her up so Kate and I went with her to UniLodge where we got checked into our rooms and settled in a bit. The rooms are loft style which is pretty cool except the only way to get up to the beds is up the TINIEST spiral staircase I have ever seen. So to avoid injury, Kate and I threw the beds down to the first floor and are now sleeping about 3 inches apart on the floor!
The time change has been a little bit of a struggle although I think I'm starting to get used to it. Kate and I took naps from about 3-7 and then went out to dinner with the group to a German restaurant which was....interesting....
We came back to the room and went to bed around 10:45. I woke up just before 6 and couldn't sleep anymore which was alright since we had to get up anyway for orientation which we have to leave for in about 15 minutes, so I should probably end this crazy long post. Hopefully orientation isn't too terrible and the name games are kept to a minimum :)