Day One

So we found the train station, and hopped on with all our luggage. It was very much like the metro, but a hundred times cleaner. It took us an hour (I think?) to get to our train stop, where a car was there to pick us up and bring us to our hotel. We got in the car and the car was all backwards! This, of course, was because they drive on the left side of the road. We made it to the hotel and told them we were here, but it was only 9am so we couldn't check in yet. They were nice enough to take our luggage and put it in a back closet so we could wander around the city without dragging our two duffel bags each around. We went to look for internet to contact home, and quickly realized we had to pay to use it- not used to that one! It was $4.50 for an hour, which I thought was kind of expensive, but I wanted to contact home. I skyped my dad and let everyone know on facebook that I made it- I figured that would be the fastest way to tell a mass amount of people haha. We walked around Surfer's Paradise (the city we were staying in for the first two nights). The city is built right on the beach, with high rises and all. I will load a picture later. It is actually really cool looking! There was a mall right on the beach and right across the street from us so we looked for some early lunch (10am here). We also learned that it was very expensive to live here. A meal was easily $10 dollars, and most lunches and dinners are $15-$30 dollars, at the casual dining places. Good thing Madison and I are good bargain shoppers! We were trying to be reasonable with the money we were spending because the prices of meals were just unreal to us. We went to see the beach and just people watched for a while. It was fun and we were so tired we didn't feel like doing much else. We checked into the hotel and brought our bags up, then went back to the shops on the beach. We went to bed around 8pm and slept for 12 hours! I haven't slept that long in FOREVER!