New Beginnings

Mardi Gras in combination with my jetlag was not a real good idea, because I could party until dawn without getting tired and I don't know what time I came home. I just know that I've slept until almost 3 p.m., when Nicky woke me up as a good friend should, otherwise I'd never got rid of the jetlag-life. Fair point. Of course I didn't have any food yet, so I went for my first shopping spree, getting groceries from the Wooly's, and since my backpack was still nowhere to be found, I had to buy things double. I don't think I've ever spent that much on groceries in my life, but I'm still eating from the peanut butter I bought back then, so that was a good buy.

The following day I was still walking around in the clothes from my journey, when I heard from Anneke that you can claim your newly bought clothes with your insurance if you've lost your bag. That was the only thing I needed to go shopping, because I couldn't wait for my bag to come back and walk around in the hot clothes that I'd left Holland in. After buying new tops, pants, basically anything I needed in this hot weather, and some fitness clothing, I was ready for the week that followed. I was not, however, prepared for my first lesson of CrossFit. Which I was very excited for. Just not prepared. Mentally or physically. So I had no clue what CrossFit entailed, never done it before, but I knew I wanted to do some kind of sports while being here and my roommate Nicky had done it at home. I think I died about three times during the lesson, because they like to keep you moving and they like you to lift heavy things such as your own bodyweight, and I am not capable of doing this. I am to this day still alive and still scared of CrossFit, but I still do it every now and then.

Charlotte's birthday was a day later, she turned 19. We made sure with the girls and some friends of the French guy that everything was nicely decorated for when she would come home from work and she was honestly very surprised. She hadn't really felt like the birthday-girl, but now she did, especially when a friend of her parents came by in person, to bring a gift-box for her and Tom. We planned to go lasergame before diner, with a group of people I didn't really know, but we had a lot of fun and we were all really competitive, running around like crazies. Afterwards we ate at a Korean BBQ, where there's a BBQ placed in the middle of the table and you cross a sheet with choices of meat which they will then bring to you. This really was the first day I got to know people from my house and their friends, and they later became my friends as well.

The rest of my first week I just made sure everything was in order, I got an Australian phone number and an Australian bank account. I started to make plans for the rest of my journey here. I spoke to PeterPans traveling agency and the woman there helped me with the things I wanted to see across the East-coast, how to see them and with whom. That's where I got a vision of what the following 5 months would look like.