Day Zero...Dia del Departure

It was almost alliterative.

I write this (well, type...) sitting in the ridiculously luggaged and absurdly lavish mall that is the Los Angeles International Airport International Terminal. Tonight I am getting on a plane and flying to Brisbane (by way of Fiji).

Fred was a super-lamb and drove me in to LAX on a Friday night and is enduring his safe (and hopefully traffic-free) ride home. It was nice to spend some last minutes with him laughing at some satellite radio-broadcast stand-up comics and knowing that I am a lucky man having him to come home to in 3 months.

As expected, I am now much more excited than nervous. Following getting my packing sorted and the final hurdles of flight check-in and airport security, I sit here with a bottle of water and an overpriced salad patiently sitting out my obsessive earliness. The general relief from my worry is possibly also impacted by the sheer exhaustion following a week of worry, as well as the long day of early-rising, packing, and travelling to LA to catch my 11:30pm flight. I need to stay awake for at least until the flight...to caffeinate or not to caffeinate, that is the question!

I will be arriving in Brisbane around 10am on Sunday. A shuttle will take me to a backpackers hotel where I will rendezvous with my other UC cohorts. We will have the afternoon off, so I hope to get some business sorted (obtain a burner cell for my time there, explore bicycle rentals...) and hopefully take in a meeting. I know that Monday we are reporting to the University of Queensland St. Lucia campus for orientation and our first lectures. Then, Tuesday morning we will be off to Giraween National Park.

I think I packed my camera connector, so I cannot share the photo I took of the pizza place here at LAX that will serve as the day's entry from the Department of Redundancy and Repetition Department: 800° Degree Neapolitan Pizza. So, essentially, "eight hundred degree degree neapolitan pizza." Nice!

And did you know that Tums are kosher? I don't see why not, but still an interesting thing to have learned today.