miss.potatohead
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2010
- Messages
- 486
Hey there
Im currently in America, on exchange through my university for one semester. I had a quick 10 day travel period before I arrived at my host university so I thought Id write up a little trip report, so here it is! I also have a blog about my time on exchange, so if anyone wants to know it, PM me and Ill send through the URL.
Wednesday 7th August.
I was flying Melbourne to New York City through Qantas, who were the cheapest for my dates and enabled me to break my trip up with a few days in LA. This trip was originally going to be solo, but another girl who is from my university and going to the same exchange university joined with me.
The 9.15am departure meant I was awake around 4am to do any last minute packing. I sobbed saying goodbye to my beautiful cats, and even more so when I said my farewells to my family at the departures gate. Our flight was delayed due to seating issues but we finally were on our way by around 10am.
It was a typical long haul flight, made bearable by the in-seat inflight entertainment. I watched a handful of movies and TV shows and attempted to fall asleep to the large list of music available. The food was decent, for lunch/dinner I had a beef/potato/vegetable combination and there was plenty of drinks, icecream, fruit, nuts and muesli bars on offer.
We finally arrived at LAX after the twelve or so hours and surprisingly we were ahead of schedule despite our long delay at Melbourne. Unfortunately the time we saved was lost in immigration. Im not sure if we picked a bad line, but it took almost an hour to get to the front. Being on a J-1 visa, we had been warned we may be taken in for questioning and to expect lengthy delays in the process but all I was asked was why I was there, and for how long and away I went! By the time we collected our bags they were the only ones left on the baggage carousel and they just collected our customs declaration cards and let us through without a second glance.
Groundhog Day.
I had a bunch of US coins left from previous holidays so I skipped off the pay phone to let Karmel Shuttles know wed arrived. Although a bit more pricey than other shuttle companies, they were courteous, on time, had clean vans and did not circle the airport to pick up additional people. Before long we were on the dangerously scary LA highways and on our way to the HOJO Anaheim.
We checked in around 10am and our rooms were not ready yet. No worries, we took out what we needed and they held them for us. We went to Downtown Disney first and ate at Earl of Sandwich, my travel partners favourite meal place from a previous trip to WDW. I had the Cannonball which was a meatball sub and it was pretty good. Wed planned to eat here again but never got around to it. The remainder of our time at DTD was spent walking through shops and soaking in the Disney vibes. We still had time to kill so we sat in the lobby of the Grand Californian and pretended we could afford such a beautiful hotel while living as a poor uni student (and most importantly, used their free wifi .). We took the very long way back to the HOJO and went via Garden Walk which was even more of a ghost town than it was the last time I went over two years ago. Finally we were able to check into our room at the HOJO - a standard two double beds in building 6, away from the freeway and with a lovely garden view.
After a little nap we headed downstairs to Mimis Café for dinner. I ordered a Bleu Cheese & Walnut Salad which had greens, cranberries, bacon, tomato and strawberries. It also came with a cinnamon muffin which was the size of my head. Needless to say I did not come close to finishing either of them but it was a light and enjoyable dinner.
Back we went to rest our weary heads, having been awake for over 24 hours and to get ready for our first big day at Disneyland in the morning!
Im currently in America, on exchange through my university for one semester. I had a quick 10 day travel period before I arrived at my host university so I thought Id write up a little trip report, so here it is! I also have a blog about my time on exchange, so if anyone wants to know it, PM me and Ill send through the URL.
Wednesday 7th August.
I was flying Melbourne to New York City through Qantas, who were the cheapest for my dates and enabled me to break my trip up with a few days in LA. This trip was originally going to be solo, but another girl who is from my university and going to the same exchange university joined with me.
The 9.15am departure meant I was awake around 4am to do any last minute packing. I sobbed saying goodbye to my beautiful cats, and even more so when I said my farewells to my family at the departures gate. Our flight was delayed due to seating issues but we finally were on our way by around 10am.
It was a typical long haul flight, made bearable by the in-seat inflight entertainment. I watched a handful of movies and TV shows and attempted to fall asleep to the large list of music available. The food was decent, for lunch/dinner I had a beef/potato/vegetable combination and there was plenty of drinks, icecream, fruit, nuts and muesli bars on offer.
We finally arrived at LAX after the twelve or so hours and surprisingly we were ahead of schedule despite our long delay at Melbourne. Unfortunately the time we saved was lost in immigration. Im not sure if we picked a bad line, but it took almost an hour to get to the front. Being on a J-1 visa, we had been warned we may be taken in for questioning and to expect lengthy delays in the process but all I was asked was why I was there, and for how long and away I went! By the time we collected our bags they were the only ones left on the baggage carousel and they just collected our customs declaration cards and let us through without a second glance.
Groundhog Day.
I had a bunch of US coins left from previous holidays so I skipped off the pay phone to let Karmel Shuttles know wed arrived. Although a bit more pricey than other shuttle companies, they were courteous, on time, had clean vans and did not circle the airport to pick up additional people. Before long we were on the dangerously scary LA highways and on our way to the HOJO Anaheim.
We checked in around 10am and our rooms were not ready yet. No worries, we took out what we needed and they held them for us. We went to Downtown Disney first and ate at Earl of Sandwich, my travel partners favourite meal place from a previous trip to WDW. I had the Cannonball which was a meatball sub and it was pretty good. Wed planned to eat here again but never got around to it. The remainder of our time at DTD was spent walking through shops and soaking in the Disney vibes. We still had time to kill so we sat in the lobby of the Grand Californian and pretended we could afford such a beautiful hotel while living as a poor uni student (and most importantly, used their free wifi .). We took the very long way back to the HOJO and went via Garden Walk which was even more of a ghost town than it was the last time I went over two years ago. Finally we were able to check into our room at the HOJO - a standard two double beds in building 6, away from the freeway and with a lovely garden view.
After a little nap we headed downstairs to Mimis Café for dinner. I ordered a Bleu Cheese & Walnut Salad which had greens, cranberries, bacon, tomato and strawberries. It also came with a cinnamon muffin which was the size of my head. Needless to say I did not come close to finishing either of them but it was a light and enjoyable dinner.
Back we went to rest our weary heads, having been awake for over 24 hours and to get ready for our first big day at Disneyland in the morning!
Can't wait to try it though!
yes I did try and tell him who I was, but he was more interested in telling off the bratty kids who were yelling at him to shut up!
