Day 253! Today was a long but exciting day! I boarded my flight to Australia!! The majority of the day was spent traveling, but when I landed in Melbourne I was picked up by my friend Sam from Bangkok! Still pretty nuts that we only met a few months ago for a brief amount of time, but our bond was close enough for him to let me sleep on his couch!

I ended yesterday just before we were able to enter the gate. And as I thought, the internet connection was in and out.

This actually wasn’t because of the airport’s WiFi… but because of the airline.

2am rolled around and after many hours of waiting in the airport, it was finally time to board the plane! I was so excited to have the chance to sleep and get on my way out of this massive layover.

I was even randomly given an aisle seat (since I didn’t pay to select a seat). So I was pumped! But this enthusiasm started waining when the captain got on the intercom and said “folks, I have bad news.”

It turns out there were “defects” with the plane and we had to wait for an extra 30 minutes. Not really what you want to hear before trusting your life with a flying metal can.

After a quick 30 minutes, the captain came back on and said the engineers would need to turn off the plane to fix the issue. So we all needed to deplane for the next hour! There was a lot of mumbling and grumbling in the plane… but for me, all I cared about was that we eventually took off. I just needed to be in Australia before the 13th.

Now this hour layover turned into a bit longer of one, because the “defect” was with a software on the plane. So, we ended up having to switch to a gate on the exact opposite side of the terminal for our new flight time of 4:45am.

By this point I was getting close to 24 hours without sleep… but for some reason, I started having a bit of energy that carried me through this extra wait.

We boarded the new plane and they gave us snacks… I’m assuming as a thank you for our patience. I wasn’t too put off by this because I was very hungry. So I scarfed down the weird potato chips and the chocolate filled croissant. And then fell into a deep sleep.

I didn’t remember the plane taking off, but the first time I woke up, I looked over to my left and saw a gorgeous sunrise!

It had been a long time since I’d seen one! Hopefully wherever I’m living in Australia I’ll be able to catch some good sunsets, maybe sunrises too depending on the day.

The rest of the flight I spent in and out of sleep. I filled out an extra entry form to get into the country as well. And then jammed out to music until we landed down unda!

I deplaned just before 2pm and headed out of the terminal… it was a surreal feeling to finally be in Australia. This has been in the making since almost a year ago and the day had finally arrived.

I had my visa and passport ready… and all I needed to do was scan my passport and get a picture of my face taken by an electronic machine… no one at immigration looked at my visa. I found that a bit odd, but maybe it’s because someone looked at it on my flight to Australia.

I then walked to baggage claim and waited for my bags. I had no cell service so I used the airport wifi to contact my friend Sam! I stupidly forgot to tell him the flight number, but I was able to let him know it was super delayed. So he was able to do some process of elimination and track my flight anyways.

My bag took a lot longer than most to appear, which made me nervous at first that it got lost. But in the end I got it and headed out of the baggage claim.

We had to go through one final quick immigration check… but they still didn’t care about my visa. So I waltzed right into the country. And by surprise, who was waiting for me outside the baggage claim, my friend Sam!

It was insane that I was seeing him again! We are very close friends already but we truly have had limited time hanging out. So we spent the entire car ride to his house catching up and chatting more about each other’s lives.

It was a cloudy and drizzly afternoon and in the upper 50/low 60 degrees Fahrenheit. A big change of pace from Thailand!

As we were chitchatting on the drive, out of nowhere, Sam got rear ended by the car behind us! Thankfully it wasn’t a big crash and only scratched his car a little bit, but it was an odd welcome to Melbourne!

We continued on after that unfortunate situation and as we rolled into his area of Melbourne, a double rainbow appeared in the sky!

We stopped through a KFC on the way back and I paid for us both. It was the LEAST I could do after he picked me up, paid the parking lot fee, was letting me stay with his family, and just got in a car accident.

Sam lives in a very nice house in one of Melbournes south suburbs. They’re in the process of selling the house and moving, but it didn’t take away from how beautiful the house was. A bit of an upgrade from my private room in Koh Tao.

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing guitar and passing it back and forth. One of Sam’s friends went overseas and let him borrow it while they’re gone… and it’s a really nice guitar! Much nicer than my one in Koh Tao.

Sam also took me to a grocery store where I was able to get a cheap SIM card!

Sam’s mom came home, she’s a ballet instructor, and she made us an amazing first dinner in Australia… steak! We chatted over dinner about everything from traveling to the US election.

Not only are they letting me stay with them, but they’re already treating me like part of their family.

So, as part of their family, I took the dishes and cleaned them! My first time cleaning dishes in a while, but I quite enjoy doing it. It’s very therapeutic.

I’ve already thanked them profusely for their kindness in letting me stay with them.

We ended the night watching the second to last episode from Attack on Titan. I’ve already seen it but it was very fun watching it again and seeing how Sam reacted.

After the episode aired ended, I called it a night. I was exhausted and ready for bed.

Im so excited to be in Australia! Im not sure what to expect, bur I’m so pumped! And tomorrow, Immy arrives!!

– Elie