48 hours of travel and Sydney

I realized yesterday that I am absolutely not the international person I fancy myself to be. Yes, I have friends from all over the world. Yes I live in a country other than my own. Yes I work in an office who's main purpose is the internationalization of education but never before did I notice that I'm not a well traveled person.

The travel time beftween Mexico and Sydney adds up to about 24 hours. I missed a whole day in my life, just plain dropped it in the ocean. The 14 hour flight from LAX to Sydney was quite possibly the most excrutiating experience of my life. There's nothing less glamourous (except maybe giving a stool sample) than being on a plane for 14 hours.

The funny thing is though, that once you land your mind almost forgets how awful it was. That's what giving birth must be like, I thought aloud to the Aussie next to me.

There are a few things that I've already noticed that I'd like to point out....keeping in mind that I've only been here for a day and a half.

First of all, the money is impossible to understand. The bills are so beautiful that I actually have troubles using them, so I'm trying more to use the coins. The problem with that is that the largest coin is 50 cents and it's larger than our 1 dollar coin. The silver coins are cents and the golden coins are dollars. The 2 dollar coin is smaller than the 1 dollar coin. The 20 cent coin is about as big as our 1 dollar and the smallest is 5 cents, which is smaller than our dime.

I had to pay 4.45 today and I accidentally gave a 20 cent coin in the 50 cent's stead and the woman shouted at me "FOUR FOURTY FIVE" I told her I thought I was giving her 50 and changed it.....

I keep thinking that I'm in a new state in the US....until I almost get run down by a car because I'm looking for it in the wrong direction. It's really extremely helpful that some streets have it clearly spelled out to me "LOOK LEFT/LOOK RIGHT"...without that warning, I would never do it right!

So far that's the jist of my observations. I love, love, love the accent and the slang (sloppy joe is a sweater, flat white is a cafe con leche).

Unfortunately I won't have pictures until I get back to Mexico....unless someone in the Oxnard area has one of those things for SD cards in their computer.

More to come in a week, after my agent training!!