Canberra

So today I googled Hannah and Eden. “This is because the bludger is doing barely any work.” This blog was the first thing that came up. It made me think, someone that I don’t know could be obsessively following the blog, hanging off my every word. It’s strange. If you are this random person, thank you for your interest but it is sort of creepy. Unless you are Taylor Lautner, Michael Weston, or a Weasley male, “or Jessica Alba, or the chick from Nancy Drew” I feel uncomfortable with you reading about my life. Please go stalk someone you know.

Anyway, last week was uneventful. On Thursday, I went home after first period. “Once again, BLUDGERRRR” Not because I was sick, we went over this last week, I’m not sick. I went home because I had no seminars. The seminar program is finally putting itself to good use. This Thursday I’m done at noon and next Thursday I’m done after first. So anyway, after cleaning my room, Eden got home and I did some homework. Then we went and got Heath and went up to Sharon’s school. We walked around Cronulla for a while then we went this rotating sushi bar. It was the coolest place ever, except it was sushi. The food rotated then you just picked out what you wanted and gave the plates to the register to pay. It was soooooo cool. “OMG no way girlfriend ;)” After we got some sushi to go, we went to a fish and chips place. I had my first fish and chips on the beach. They’re really good. For everyone in America who doesn’t know, the chips in fish and chips aren’t potato chips, they’re french fries. But fish and french fries sounds dumb. Friday’s chemistry class was interesting. We all brought in skittles and m&ms to eat… I mean, “learn” with. All that resulted from our “learning” was a bunch of sugar high teenagers, “Shirley and I walked around the school oblivious to Mrs Ekrub”, and angry Ms Ekrub (Burke spelled backwards, a fantastic codename, spelling names backwards works really well. You would never know that Mr. Thims is really Mr. Smith. Although, it doesn’t work for some names. A’s name, for example. It is too obvious). We didn’t learn anything. Not that we ever do in chemistry. I learned more in Mr. Thims math class then I do in chemistry. And I already had learned all of that math. Then that night, we went to Neon. We played this safari game at Neon, which was a lot of fun except everyone got soaked and it was a Friday night in a cold church “My eyes still hurt.” “And that is your own fault” The weekend was uneventful. Eden and I had homework, so that was all we did on Saturday. On Sunday, I went to a cricket game, where I met Glen McGrath. He is a really good Australian cricket player. His kids also go to Sharon’s school. I got a picture with him and under his sign. After that, I went home and did some more homework (lovely). Monday was boring. Although I did discover that I don’t like milk, I only use it as an excuse to eat excessive milo. Just so the world knows, Eden owes me a milo covered ice cream ball on my last day. “I think I could be the start of something amazing.” “I think that you scare small children.” On Tuesday, I didn’t have a class until fourth period. If you saw the timetable I put up so long ago, you would see that after dropping math, I have a really blank timetable. So anyway, I slept in until nine and spent two hours getting ready. Yay for me. In Chemistry, Ms Ekrub decided to give us molecule kits. She clearly has never taught 15 and 16 year olds because she didn’t realize that 1, when you give teenagers little balls that can be stuck together and some bendy connectors, we are doomed to play around with them and not listen to instructions, 2, we aren’t going to build molecules, we’re going to try to build things that actually have shape, like puppy dogs and flowers “that’s what you did, Shirley and I threw them across the room at each other,” and 3, we aren’t going to clean up our mess. “That happened when we had the skittles, they turned up in weird places that night” “Why were you putting them down your pants?” Chemistry was, as always, completely useless. After school, I made fun of all the American sophomores who have to take CSAP because I don’t. Of course, I know this is going to bite me in the butt someday but it is totally worth it now. Not much happened the rest of the week. This weekend we went to Canberra and stayed with Eden’s cousins. It was a lot of fun because the oldest is twelve and they’re all very cute. On Saturday, we went to old Parliament house, Parliament house, the art museum, the American Embassy, and the mint. At the art museum I decided I coud be an artist. Now I know you’re all laughing because I can’t draw and blah blah blah. But I’m not going to let that hold me back. Being artistic isn’t essencial to the job of an artist, silly people. And besides, if someone can sell Blue Polls on Canvas and Red Paint Over Blue Paint Over White Paint for millions, imagine what they would pay for Bored in Ekrub’s Chemistry Class. I could be a gazillionare by the time I get back to America. Anyway, between old Pariliment house and Parliament house, a once in a lifetime event happened. We saw these officially looking cars pulled up to the intersection we were waiting at. The license plate had some fancy numbering on it and two little Australian flags were attached to the hood. Ian suggested that it was the prime minister. This thought was mostly confirmed when the light changed and all four officially looking cars took off really fast in a formation that screamed “Look at me, I’m an important person.” After everyone in the car overruled Eden (who thought stalking the prime minister was an old person thing), we followed them. We pulled up right next to the prime minister of Australia, and there’s a picture somewhere if you don’t believe me. When the light changed again, the security car behind him did a very illegal move and changed lanes halfway through the intersection. He did this so we couldn’t pull up next to the car again. He very well could have caused an accident by doing this very illegal move, had we been turning. Luckily, we weren’t turning and there was no accident. Personally, I think if the security is going to be so cautious, they should figure out what car is the most popular one owned in the city, buy five of them, replace their windows with the special glass, and make the prime minister’s car look like thousands of others. That way, if a terrorist is looking for the prime minister, he has only a one in a thousand chance of finding the correct car, rather than the good chance of him finding the unique, painfully obvious cars of the prime minister and security. But what do I know, I’m just a high school student who manages to avoid getting called on in class by making herself look very busy and therefore blending in with the other twenty students who haven’t done their homework. Anyway, on Sunday, we went to Questacon. It is the most awesome museum ever. Its interactive and sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool. The only bad part of it was this giant free fall. It was this ride thingy Eden and Heath forced me to go on despite my fear of falling. So there’s this bar and you have to hold it then let go on the count of three to fall to your doom. I chickened out the first time. I just want to point out, I DON’T LIKE FALLLING. My worst nightmares, worst then the weasels killing everyone with banana guns and the ones where the tiger at Red Robin comes to life and eats everyone, are the ones when I’m falling. Anyway, clearly, a ride called Free Fall is not for me. Despite this, I did go on it the second time. I tried really hard not to but apparently, I’m fat and it was too hard for the guy working it to pull me back up. Considering he was holding me steady, that isn’t very comforting. So I let go. It is the second worst ride I’ve ever been on. The only one worst was the Tower of Doom. (Is there a pattern there? Falling, falling, I think I don’t like falling.) Anyway, after we did Questicon, we went to the war memorial. It is amazing. It has sections of every war Australia was in. And yes America, they were in most of the wars. It also has an interactive piece where you can see a helicopter from Vietnam, a trench from WWI, and a submarine from the cold war. After we finished here, we left for home. The ride home took 7 hours. It was supposed to take 3. What happened was a truck tipped over and tore up the entire road. They had to close the highway. We sat at complete standstill with nothing but chocolate chip cookies, which admittedly wouldn’t be bad except we only had eaten bread rolls for lunch. When we finally got out of the traffic mess, we had to take a back road that extended the travel time by another two hours. Yippie. At least we got out of the traffic jam when we did. After we got home and had some pancakes and bacon, umm, we all fell dead in our beds. On that note, I bid thee ado. Look at the beautiful pictures I posted. I am off to enjoy one of the world’s most beautiful cities. If you live here, I suggest you do the same (after looking at the pictures, of course). If you don’t live here, look at the pictures and wallow in self-pity. Not to much though, it’s not good for you.

Bendalong and the following Week

Dear Reader (I’m pretending I have readers because it makes me feel happy on the inside),

I have not updated in a while because I procrastinate naturally. I’m sorry to say that Sims 3 has taken a priority over you because I wanted to make a neighborhood and it’s hard. However, now I am angry with Sims because it’s being stupid and won’t upload neighborhoods right. So the options are the blog, cleaning my room, or doing homework. Just know, dear reader that if I’m up until midnight on the night before all of my projects are due, it is your fault.

So, seeing as the blog hasn’t been updated in a long time, I don’t remember everything that has happened and am going solely off of pictures. In short, if you look at the 208 photos, you can get a general idea of what happened and don’t have to read my edited online journal entries. Just a side note, the last sentence is a lie; you have to read this entry because I wrote it. Sadly, Eden will not be joining us with his “hilarious” commentary because he has to do homework. “Hannah is invading my learning space” “am not. Do your homework.” “Oh Hannah. LEAVE THE COUNTRY” Sadly it looks like Eden has finished his homework and will be joining us. Anyway, on February 11, we went to the movies to see Valentines Day. The movie was sadly lacking in the half-naked Taylor Lautner. :’( Anyhow, after the movie, we met Kristina and her friends waiting for their movie to start. Eden took Kristina’s skirt and put it on. There is a picture of this hilarious spectacle somewhere is the 208 photos. So ha, now you have to look at all of the pictures so you can find the single funny picture. Friday was Valentines Day. I got a lovely chocolate rose from Sinead. I also got a plastic rose from Eden. That weekend, we went to Bendalong. It rained all weekend. That is not an exaggeration. We sucked it up and made the best of it. “Well some of us did” On Saturday, because it was raining and we were already wet, we attempted to surf. Brandon got up on his first try. I couldn’t even catch a wave on the first try. Finally, I became very good at catching the waves. I still was unable to stand up. Just so everyone knows, and it is now on the web, I got up twice, and I have video to prove it. After that, we walked to the beach and saw a stingray. It had a baby with it, which would have been really cute, except it was territorial and scary. After the weekend, I developed a cough and some hay fever allergies. Mind you, I am not sick. I just have a cough, and a stuffy nose, and a blocked up ear. But I’m not sick enough for medicine. I will take medicine when I am really sick. “When she says really sick she means dead on the ground.” “I don’t like medicine. It tastes bad.” Anyway, no, meaning, when I am too sick to get up and get it myself (that way I can’t take it anyway. Muwhaha.) Speaking of evil laughter, what is the correct spelling of muwhaha? I think I spell it differently every time I spell it. Anyway, on Tuesday of the next week, it was the school swimming carnival. All of us year 11 girls and most of the year 11 guys covered ourselves with zinc designs and didn’t wear any other sunscreen. As a result, I ended up with LEWIS written on my arm and Eden ended up with drawn on abs. On Thursday, we went to the op shops to go shopping for Friday’s disco night. In the process, I tried on four-inch stiletto heels and almost killed myself. “Ashley nearly disallowed me to have children with some scissors.” “I forgot about that. Maybe I’ll keep you around, Eden.” Friday was chaos. Of course, that is probably because I chose to watch Summer Heights High with Eden instead of showering. As a result, I had to rush and take a quick shower whilst Sinead and Ashley headed over. As I finished, they arrived. I had to dry my hair quickly, which, as anyone who has seen me fix my hair knows, it not possible. It also looks really bad. After dealing with my stupid stubborn hair, we were off. When we arrived at church, just late enough to make a fashionably late entrance, we discovered that almost nobody else felt the need to dress up. The losers. Still, we stuck out and had lots of fun. In their faces. “Anyway we looked pretty spesh” “For all of you Americans, that means special.” On Saturday, we went to Centerpoint Tower. As always, I forgot that I don’t like heights until I was on the skywalk, looking down, and thinking WARNING SHARING MY THOUGHTS AND MY THOUGHTS USE SWEAR WORDS AT TIMES LIKE THIS. THE FOLLOWING CONTENT MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN WHO HAVE NEVER SET FOOT IN A MIDDLE SCHOOL OR SEEN A MOVIE RATED PG OR ABOVE. Anyway, I was thinking, “holy shit, this is really high.” However, I got through this by thinking about Brandon. This sounds weird but I imagined him on the skywalk. It made me laugh. For everyone who doesn’t know him, Brandon is the American boy on the exchange and he is afraid of heights. Seeing other people either scared to death or in pain always helps me get through things. After that, the skywalk was fun until everyone was jumping. At one point, I stopped and everyone else jumped again. Mind you, the platform under us was glass. It shook. My first reaction was to grab the bar so tight I left an imprint. All of the strangers on the walk laughed at me and I suggested they frame the print. Unfortunately, that costs extra. Just know, if anyone ever goes on the skywalk, the white-knuckled imprint is mine. Anyway, after this, Heath decided that it would be funny to push me when I had finally ventured back to the edge after my jumping scare. This time, I actually screamed. Then I hit him so hard on the back of the head that there is still an imprint. This one we did frame. On Saturday night and Sunday, I put my I.B. skillage to use and read an entire book. Now any I.B. student will ask, how is this I.B. skillage. The answer to that is I got the book in the first week of school and had five weeks to read it. I was supposed to have it read by Monday. Well loyal readers, and readers who are reading this for the first time, and readers who are reading this for the last time, this blog entry is finished. But just so you know, if you are reading this blog for the last time, it better be for a good reason. The only good reasons are if you just figured out that you are A and you aren’t welcome on this blog, or if you just realized that Mr. Thims is a codename and you aren’t welcome either, or if you don’t like my writing style. Please note, if you are part of option two, ewwwwwwww, why are you reading this blog, please leave. It you are part of options one or three, I clearly didn’t make myself clear two entries ago, YOU ARE NOT WELCOME ON THIS SITE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. HIT THE HOME BUTTON, CLEAR YOUR HISTORY, AND NEVER DARKEN THE DOORSTEP OF THIS BLOG AGAIN. “In the nice way that only I can do, get out of our site, we really don’t want you here, and I know your laughing now thinking “oh eden” Im not Joking I don’t like you, and when I say it I mean it, im not laughing with you, im laughing at you, at your face, and at your ignorance. SO leave, because you are an unwanted lovechild.” Ok, that is really it. Everyone, new, loyal, or leaving, it’s over. You can go now, unless you haven’t looked at the pictures. But once you do that, please leave. It really isn’t hard. Just hit the home button. That’s it. Just move your mouse up to the little button shaped like a house and click. Seriously. Don’t you people have lives? This entry is over. Please leave the site immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Just go. House and click. There we go. Bye bye now. See you next week. “Seriously, refreshing the page isn’t going to make us write our blogs quicker. Go back to facebook.”

The First and Second Day of School

Here it is, the long awaited, much loved blog entry by yours-truly, Hannah. This entry is about school. That being said, the number of the day is 6. 6 is how many classes I have everyday (including breaks, not including recess, lunch, or extensions.) 6 is how many subjects I am taking, 6:30 is when I wake up every morning. 60 minutes is how long I have to get ready when I’m finished showering, 60 minus 30 minutes is how long I spend in the bathroom before that 60 minutes. 6 is the number of times I’ve had to been reintroduced to people because I’ve forgotten their names. 666 is the number tattooed on the back of Mr. Thims’s head (for the record, I have changed Mr. Smith's name into a codename for his protection. Thims is Smith spelled backward). “Burn him, please” “No, stab him with a magic devil killing stake.” 6 is the number of times in a period someone complains about said teacher. 6 is the number of times I have ran into a stupid year 6+1 (7 but that wouldn’t work with my theme) and 16 is the number of times 6 is used in this beginning paragraph.
The first two days of Fantastical Learnifying in the Australian School System (FLASS) were uneventful. The first day was all of three hours long and all we did was learn about seminars. Seminars are something in FLASS to allow year 11’s some choice in their learning. However, after hearing what we were required to do for seminars, we found that the only choice we got was when we went to what. Seminars thus because known as ATENBRFWFBYH‘C’ (a teacher’s excuse not to be responsible for when you fail because you had a “choice”). When ATENBRFWFBYH‘C’s are available for a class you are taking, you have to go to them. There is no “I’m pretty good at that piece, I won’t go” option. You could know recurring decimals inside and out but you will still have to go to the seminar on it. On Friday, the second day of FLASS, we went to every class. Haha, that rhymes. “Sooooo not cool” “Go away, you’re not welcomed in my blog entry” Finding classes is very confusing; FLASS timetables are hard to read. Here is mine.

What does all of this mean? What in God’s good name is a period zero? Why is there no seventh periods, ever? What do all of the spaces mean? What are RC, R, Ass (other than a donkey), L1, and L2? These were the questions I asked myself when I first got my timetable. My confusion deepened when people took my timetable out of my hand and started telling me what classes I had with them. How did they know? Do Australians have a special gene that makes this jumbled mess make sense? It turns out that Australians are not, in fact, crazy mutants. “Well, it’s because Australia is such a highly developed country that we have hidden our power from the world and allow America to take the fal for being the worlds ‘Super Power’” “You spelt fall wrong.” “Says the one who had to retype SPELT four times to get it right” The timetable does make a tiny bit of sense. SoR is studies of religion, PVDI is photography and visual design, MATHS is math, ENG is English, MH is modern history and CH is chemistry. The second set of letters is the teacher’s first and last initials along with a number to symbolize how many teachers have those initials. The third number is a room number. Period zero is before school and period seven is after school. RC is roll call, R is recess, Ass is assembly (the abbreviation makes sense), and L1 and L2 are lunch. I have both lunch periods. Other than this confusion, Friday was uneventful. After school, we went for a swim. I love having a pool in the backyard. *laughs quietly at all of those people in CO’s 45oF weather. 75oF all week here* We went canoeing on Saturday (which means Eden and Heath paddled and I sat in front and encouraged them). After canoeing, we went to church. After being introduced to the church, I got free nachos. Then, Eden planted a present in his minister’s office. We waited for Steve to go to his office for about half an hour. By the time he did, half the people left at church knew what was going on. The people who didn’t know were old. This made it even funnier when Steve started to take the package outside of his office to open it in the hall. We were outside the window and we raced back inside. Luckily, Eden’s dad directed him back into the office and we raced back to the window. After Steve opened his fantastic gift, we knocked on the window and raced away. He thought it was so funny that he gave us the leftover Thai chicken salad and carried his gift outside for all the old people to see. What was this fantastic gift of questionable appropriodity? Hot pink plastic CAR BALLS!!!!!! “Boo yeah!” Sunday was the welcome BBQ. It was pretty fun. We had lamb and kangaroo. It tastes like steak. Thus concludes this blog entry.

The word of the day is recess, the awesomest time of the day

Australia Day

Today, I learned that Eden has fourty-thousand-million-gillion-gazlion girl friends. How you ask. And if you didn't ask, you are either one of these friends or an nonreactive blog reader who doesn't think I'm funny. In the case of the latter, please never darken the doorstep of the blog again. If you didn't laugh at that, then I'm serious, your presence on this sight is not welcome, please leave. Also leave if you are A (and you know who you are A). So anyway, how did I find out that Eden has fourty-thousand-million-gillion-gazlion girl friends? I'm not going to tell you yet. First, I'm going to talk about the rest of Australia day. (That's a writing technique to keep someone reading through the boring parts so they can know the good stuff.) We went to the city for the first half of the day. To get to the city, we ride the train. During that time, we put on tattoos and Blake and I made fun of the girl eating peach yogurt and bananas. In the city, we went to the circular quay (pronounced cay). That’s where the Sydney Harbour (Harbor) Bridge and the Sydney Opera House are, children. We watched the ferry races. The ferries were cool, except it was very hot and ferries are very slow. There were other entertainments while we waited, such as the stupid eight people in the four person boat trying to zoom around the big ferries and watching them fly in the air over the waves, and the littlest jet boat. The littlest jet boat was a tiny boat that originally had no people. We wrote a story about it but then it came back with people and the story was over. The race finished and the black boat one won. We went to watch the street shows. We watched the second-best unicyclist in the world (he was the first and even had a metal but I wanted to be first so I made myself a metal and a plague. So now I’m the world’s best unicyclist.) and an Aboriginal band. Heath and I played with the band on the sticks. Then they kicked me out because my rhythm stinks and Heath had to come with me. After that, I had my first sausage roll. We went to get on the train and we found Captain Cook. He wouldn’t let us take a picture with him because he wanted us to buy a cruise. So we just went to the train. When we got home, we went swimming. Later, Eden and I went to Menai to watch the fireworks. Finally, it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for… how I learned that Eden has fourty-thousand-million-gillion-gazlion girl friends. The moment we entered the fields at Menai, Eden was swarmed. And after one girl was done squealing, she would try to introduce herself. Unfortunately, when she did this, another girl would begin to squeal and I could never hear the names. Finally, I just hid with Steph and Brandon. Steph’s friends don’t squeal and jump, they’re calm and I can hear their names. The fireworks were awesome. By the end of the day, we were worn out (again). Once again, we fell asleep as soon as we hit our beds. The End.

Today’s Aussie word of the week is an actual slang word that is used. It is heaps. Guess what it means.

BDO

All right, at the request of my parents, Sydnie “nobody likes you, Sydnie” “Be nice. I like you Syd”, my sister, and through my sister, my old teachers coupled with the fact that I have math homework that I don’t want to do, I will update the blog with my first days of school and before. But first I should say that Eden was adding things to this entry verbally and they are in italic quotes, along with my replies (in non-italic quotes). I advise reading Eden’s part in a whiny high-pitched girl voice. “Screw you Hannah I am a MAN and so are you”. On Saturday, Eden and I went to big day out. “God Hannah, there are freaking capital letters” We had a mini adventure because we didn’t have our ids (we didn’t know we needed them) and Eden didn’t have his school id because he lost it in America. Even though Eden has lost “it was stolen” “shut up Eden” “(raspberry)” “thus proving the statement about a whiny girl” his wallet (and all of his ids), pants, and many other things, he still felt that it would be better for him to keep the tickets to the train, the concert, my permit, and his birth certificate (which he had to take because he lost his ids, is that ironic?). When we got to the concert, we were hungry so Eden and I got Subway. The Subways in Australia don’t have mustard. :”( that’s a sobbing smiley face which isn’t a real smiley face because it is sobbing not smiling. So anyway, I temporarily forgot that the Subways didn’t have mustard and the lady behind the counter didn’t speak enough English to remind me. So after I asked three times and all of the people getting Subway laughed “I didn’t laugh” at the stupid American “Now I nodded”, I gave up on that. Subway isn’t the same without mustard. After eating the swm (subway without mustard), we went to the concert. Eden demonstrated another reason to not trust him with important things when he went through the line twenty people ahead of me “it is only fair to point out that Hannah just changed that number four times” “shut up Eden, this is my blog entry, get your own” “its my blog to, Hannah and Eden’s most excellent adventure” “My blog entry, our blog.” “(raspberry)” So anyway, after I got through by pointing at him and saying he has my things, we went to see Kisschasy. At that concert, we found some awesome 18-year olds, and spent the rest of the day getting smashed. JUST JOKING. Can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. “then why should we believe that you’re joking” “maybe we can’t. Well, only we will truly know.” So what really happened was Eden checked our bag full of water and food after I told him to wait so we could change things around in Brandon’s bag to make room for them. Then Brandon and I got hot so we went and sat in the shade until the band we wanted to see was on. While in the shade, we watched this rapperdudemanboything (which is now a word because this guy needed something to describe him) “rapperdudemanboything? Hannah’s on drugs everyone.” “Eden, shut up.” This rapperdudemanboything had an entire song that just repeated his name (which was Dizzy Rascel). He was very confused as to where he was from. Sometimes he would have a Jamaican accent, an American accent, and other times, an Australian accent. So a more accurate name for him is rapperdudemanboythingwhodoesn’tknowwherehe’sfrom. It was during rapperdudemanboythingwhodoesn’tknowwherehe’sfrom’s performance that Brandon and I started crowd watching. We watched the girl who danced like a sim, the people square dancing, the people jumping with an imaginary rope (a girl trip over the imaginary rope), and the girl get side tackled and sit waiting for the paramedics to come. When we left the shade, the heavens opened and it rained a lot. Brandon didn’t understand why I wanted out of the rain until he noticed that I was wearing a tank top. Such a boy. “Reminds me of you” “Go to Hell” Until the end of the night, it was uneventful. At the end of the night, there was a miscommunication and someone “cough A**** cough. Why did you block out the letters?” “for the sake of anonymity” didn’t understand that when we said meet at the playground, we meant meet at the playground, we’re leaving. As a result, Eden and I didn’t get to eat McDonalds with everyone else. Sad day. We did have it later due to the persuasive techniques of persistent whining from Blake and Eden (who sounded like a girl). Then we got home and fell on the floor with extreme exhaustion. The End.

The Aussie word of the day (meaning the word of whenever I feel like posting one) is brought to you by Lilly Allen. Although we can’t say it for my parents sake. “Woo, I got the last word” "No, I get the last word, its my entry" "NOt when I take your laptop away" "Haha, he thinks he won but now he's doing maths and I get the last word. MUWHAHA"

Camping at Swan Lake

Here are some pictures of Swan Lake. There are 146 and you have to look at all of them because it took me 3 hours and three tries to get them here.

The Arrivals

Here are some pics from Eden's arrival and my arrival. Eden's plane ride was uneventful, except for that fact that he joined the mile high club because Tom said that it was a must do but mine had a shaky start and middle and end. Apparently, the person at baggage claim didn't realize that I wanted my ticket and boarding pass not just my boarding pass. As we were loading the plane, the man taking tickets sent me to the information desk where they scanned my passport, boarding pass, and gave me a ticket. They then torn up my boarding pass. In addition to this, they succeeded in flipping past my visa in my passport a total of three times before asking me where it was (the second page). I was one of the last people to load the flight and Brandon informed me that I owed him a cocktail because of the panic I gave him. The rest of the flight to San Francisco was uneventful. In San Francisco, we had a four hour layover in which we found our gate and ate dinner at a burger place. During the last hour, we went back to our gate. I waited in a really long line to get my ticket. When I was talking to the person at the desk, my name was called because they wanted me in another line (not correctly, mind you, my last name is not Fal-fal-fal(murmurs something in gibberish)). I was told by the person I was speaking to that the people at the Denver Airport don't know what they're doing. He proceeded to take my boarding pass, proof of purchase, and visa verification, stack them in a neat pile and shred them. Apparently in order to work in a US airport, you have to like to shred things. I went over to the other lady's desk with my new boarding pass (that looked exactly like the one now in the trash) and gave me a ticket (that looked exactly like the one now in the trash). I joined the others and we boarded the plane. When on the plane, we played light tag until the flight attendants announced that the lights should be turned off. I slept until two in the morning when they decided to serve snack. When we got off the plane, the four of us went to find a bathroom. After it was found, we changed into our uniforms and discovered that it was so hot that my deodorant was sweating (oh the irony). We went through the first bought of customs and went to find our luggage. When all the luggage was found except for my small red bag we sought the help of a nice airport worker. Nice Airport Lady (as she will hence be known) helped me find my bag which was now in a big plastic bag and she told me that my bag was efficiently packed (overstuffed) and the zipper had burst. We got the luggage onto the trolleys and headed off to platform 9 and 3/4. Just joking. We started to the other customs line. My efficiently packed bag toppled off my trolley. The others took this as a sign that I was fine and they went on without me. I was left to get help from scary men who looked like they were going to grab my luggage and run. Instead they put it back on my trolley and I went to customs. After laughing at the not funny joke about confiscating my chocolate, I went to follow the others to meet the families. According to Blake, I then saw a beacon of light. I followed the light to the source and saw Blake. But I was repelled by his ugliness and met the rest of the family. We went home, I showered, and we went to the beach where I was greeted by a saluting crowd of kids.