Flight and First Day in Sydney

The top pic is my first pic of the trip, taken by my mom at the OKC airport. My flight from LA-Sydney was 15 hours, but it really wasn't too bad because I slept for 10 of them. The plane we took to Sydney, the AirBus A380 is the largest passenger plane in the world and it was pretty incredible. It was two stories, with the lower level being economy class and the top level being first class where each passenger has basically their own full size bed.

I arrived in Sydney at around 7:30 a.m. local time and walked around the downtown area for a few hours before my check in at 1 p.m. Unfortunately, it was drizzling and overcast and is supposed to be that way for the next few days. Maybe it is just because of the weather, but Sydney reminds me of a London with palm trees. Here are some pics from the Royal Botanical Garden and Hyde Park area.

Steve Jobs passing away was huge news over here as well, people were handing out newspapers just a few hours after it happened on the street with the full front page a picture of Jobs with "1955-2011" as the caption. Here is a pic of the Apple store in downtown Sydney.

It is supposed to be rainy until Sunday so I'm going to try to schedule the rest of my trip and maybe go to some museums or something. Australian people are very kind and it is nice not to have a language barrier. I haven't really gotten homesick yet, although it is weird wandering around and eating by myself. I have met quite a few people, but I am still yet to meet anyone else from the USA. Most of the people staying in my hostel are either Chinese or German. Now I'm off to the orientation for my program.