Warning: This thought will probably be extremely long considering it's wrapping up twenty days.

So Austalia was the best experience I could ever ask for. I made so many great friends and did so many new things I didn't think I would ever do. At the meetings before we left they kept telling us we would come home changed, and I do feel changed. I feel like a whole new person. I know this might sound weird, but it seems like my life before this trip was just a minor part of it. I know I've said eighth grade was the best time of my life, but I've completely changed my opinion. Australia was, and I still have the rest of my life to go. I'm so excited about everything now! I feel a lot more confident and outgoing than I ever did in middle school. And I'm totally over any guys I've ever liked in middle school. I've finally realized there is a whole world of people I've never met, and I know one person is just waiting for me somewhere. I'm learning not to settle for someone I kinda like. I want somebody I can share my life with.

So at the beggining none of us thought things were ever going to go well. Our flight out of Dallas was delayed five hours because of weather and the flight attendants weren't there. Because our flight was delayed so long, we missed our plane to Sydney, but we were lucky and caught an extremely late flight out of LA to Sydney. It wasn't all that bad though because we got to get some sleep because there wasn't any flights to Cairns until the next morning. Our bus also broke down, so we spent about two hours on a dirt side road waiting for somebody to come and get us. Our first official activity was the farm stay. I thought it was going to be extremely boring, but it was were I met most of the people, and had a lot of fun. My most memorable experience was probably the goat being put into our tent. It was really cold too. It got down to -7 celcius which about 20 something farenheit. And all we had was a sleeping bag, and a sheet. At Airlie Beach we got a civic welcome. It was pretty boring, and I almost fell asleep, but it made me feel special that somebody would want to recognize a bunch of American students. I also got my first shopping experience that day.  The Great Barrier Reef was absolutely amazing. It was so pretty. We got to try raw sugar can. It tasted pretty good, but it was really hard to bite off. We also tried sugar cane juice which was really sweet. We stopped by a school one day to have lunch, but there wasn't a lot of kids because they were on holiday too. We did meet a few kids that went to the school. They were pretty nice. The same day we stayed the night at UnderWater World. While we were there the electricty went off, and the downstairs flooded. So we had to eat in the dark, but the lights finally came back on. I actually slept a lot better than I thought considering we slept on the floor. After that we went to Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort. It was so pretty there. We got to try sand toboganning there. It looked really scary at first, but it was so much fun. The only downside was you get sand everywhere. We also got to feed the dolphins. The day we met our family we got to shop at our first Austalian mall. It was so much fun because we had a lot of free time to be with our friends and do what ever we wanted. My home stay wasn't that great. There wasn't much to do, and our home stay mom didn't have any kids of her own that weren't already grown up. My bed also smelled really weird. We did get to go to the beach and do some shopping. She was also home staying two Korean brothers. They didn't talk much, and we kept losing them. We got to visit a light house. The location was so pretty. I got some of my prettiest pictures there. Probaly one of my most exciting activities was the Full On experience. We got to try the giant swing. It wasn't really that scary, but I couldn't figure out what to pull. After I figured it out though it was so much fun. We also did rapelling which isn't that fun, because I was seem to hurt myself when you first kick off. We got to go the top of the Sydney Tower. It was so amazing. The Opera House was also really pretty too. We saw a giant organ. It was amazingly huge. It had like 27 rows of pipes. We got to try cricket. It was kind of like baseball, but a little different and a whole lot harder. We enedn our trip at the Hard Rock Cafe. We were dressed up in 80s clothes, and it was so much fun. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes, and my stomach hurt. Before we left I had mixed feelings about wanting to stay and wanting to go home, but after I was back in America I couldn't wait to see my family. I saw my dad first, and I was so choked up I could barely talk. I was so happy, but I was also a little sad that I was leaving my new friends. I can't wait till' our reunion so I can see everyone. It's going to be so crazy and fun being with everyone again.