Nat's First Day

Day 1 - and No i am not doing this every day!

So I arrived on Monday at ORD at 1PM for my 4:30 flight. Didn't expect to get there in under 3 hours from my moms so my long day started out to be a bit longer. Not much excitment on the first leg from ORD to LAX other then the first book i had with me got finished.
Arrived at LAX and went directly to the Air New Zealand counter to find out how much it would cost to upgrade my seat from the Cattle yard.
So for $300 extra i could get a lazy boy seat in there Premium Economy area. With little hesitation I took it. My lay over was only about an hour so no sooner did I get in the terminal and i was heading twords my seat. So i get on the plane show my ticket to the flight attendant and he says - oh you know where your going, upstairs. I was like what? and he points upstairs. Really only one word can explain the next 15 hours of my trip - AWESOMENESS! Free movies, free beer, fantastic food, and no one sitting next to me. It was worth every penny to upgrade. I was able to extend out the time i was awake and sleep soundly during Australia night time.
My lay over in Auckland was very minimal and the flight from Auckland to Brisbane was also very uneventful.

I arrived in Brisbane at 7:30AM Brisbane time on Wednesday the 22nd. Everything is smooth sailing until I'm sitting there waiting for my luggage and I see a sniffing dog making its trek around the facility. (checking for quarantine items etc) Long story short the dog smelled something in my bag, and I about had a heart attack. Chrissi had bought some beef jerky for me for the trip and I had it in my carry on bag. I had just thrown it away, as I wasn't allowed to carry it through customs. Luckily for me I had nothing left in my carry on and by 8:15 i had my bags and was sitting in the Car with John my new boss heading out of Brisbane.

John took me around Brisbane a bit to get a feel for the city, plus ran me on a few errands that I needed to get done today. Set up a bank account - which ended up being a huge hassle, but at least it is done now. Then into the office to get some paper work started and to meet some of my new co-workers. this took until about 2pm when Johns boss dropped me off at the mall.

At the mall i was on a hunt for a cell phone company. The next 3 hours where a total nightmare. 2 of the company's won't even talk to me until i had been in Australia for at least a month. a 3rd company wanted to charge me $900 for a pay as you go phone. Finally I got to the last company who most have felt some pity for me because they somehow made it all work out. I felt having a phone was very important to have with all of the house/car searching i would be doing over the next few weeks. I'm very grateful that it all fell into place.

I got back to my hotel/suite around 5 took a shower and wanted nothing else but to fall asleep, but my day was not over yet. John picked me up around 5:30 to take me to his house for dinner. His plan was to try to keep me up as long as possible to help me get on Brisbane time. I had a lovely dinner with John and his family, they are incredibly nice people, he is going to make working here that much easier. One note about John, he is Gethro Gibbs from NCIS. He has about a 20 foot sail boat in his back yard that he built from Scratch. the craftsman ship was truly amazing.
I got back to my hotel room around 8 and was asleep at 8:05 I was pretty much the walking dead the last couple hours. I awoke this morning around 6 feeling pretty refreshed, thought i know today is going to be another exciting day. I will get my first driving experience and the hunting for houses begins. Wish me luck!