Sydney Arrival

We just spent $8.95 (Aus.) on a box of cereal. I really hope that was just an expensive convenience store and not the regular Australian price.

Thanks to our friend, Steve, we were upgraded to business class and enjoyed the most wonderful 14 hour flight of our lives. We had reclining beds to sleep in - they were almost like cribs for adults (weird, but comfortable), were waited on hand and foot, watched a bunch of movies, and the food was half-decent. This experience has ruined us for future long rides in economy class that will be inevitable at some point.

We spent a lot of time today walking and waiting. At times it kind of felt like we were playing an adventure video game where you have to go to one person and they give you one item, and then you have to bring it to another location to use that item to get another item, and then eventually after a long chain of events you get the one thing you really need. Signing up for a phone plan requires more paperwork and proof of ID than starting a bank account, apparently. There is an overly complicated system where you have to have a certain number of points to identify yourself to get a phone plan - your passport is worth a certain number of points, a bank card is worth some, etc. But, if you're like us and just arrived in the country, you can open an account but you won't get the actual card for several business days, and some phone companies won't accept an official letter from the bank saying you have an account with them. I think they just want you to go on a scavenger hunt. If you don't have a local address yet, they make you jump through these hoops to get all of the things that would make it easier to find somewhere to live. Anyway, after picking the phone company that gave us the least grief, I now finally have my first iPhone. 

I have no more working brain cells at the moment to come up with a clever ending to this post.