Canberra at last!

Hello everyone! I apologize for the delay in updates!
okay, first things first: Thank you to all who have emailed me! I love nothing more than finding big long updates in my inbox. It will definitely make the adjustment so much easier to know I'm not forgotten! I promise I will get back to you, it may take me a couple of days though, as internet access is not as easy as home.
Next- contact information!Finally!

home:
Lauren Seymour
c/o Lauren Sanders
2 Gilday Place
Fadden
ACT 2904
Australia

phone: 011-61-2-6291-9907 (in effect now!) I recommend if you love me enough to call, use a phone card ($20 from target for about 250 minutes or so... a very good deal! Look for the international one). Just remember that this is the family line, and we're 16 hours ahead of Virginia.
mobile: 011-61-4-1663-5777 (this is just mine, call ANYTIME, seriously!)
I do have instant messenger here (still anmlcracker) but at Uni (school) I'll be using Windows Messenger under the name Anmlcracker@aol.com. If you haven't already, download the latest version and add me to your contact list so we can chat!

Okay, I think thats all the housekeeping. Letters cost about 80 cents USD to send to Australia and packages a fair bit to send by air (so keep them as light as possible if you send anything to spare your wallet). I'd love care packages- feeling a little isolated on the other side of the world! I'm asking anyone who has the time (which I know is sparse, no worries!) to send any pictures they have ... of what, I don't really care- just things to remind me of home- so VT, Richmond, NoVa, DC, whatever, seriously. Ihave a huge (and empty!) bulletin board in my room that I'm going to put whatever anyone sends on. I know it sounds silly, but it really helps make that ache of missing everyone at home just a little bit smaller!

Okay- now! What have I been up to? Well...
Monday we had a final orientation session at Cairns. It was hot as hell and soooo humid. We had to check out of our hostel rooms by 8:00 so we had to put all of our luggage in a big locked room. Which if you can imagine 40 peoples huge overseas bags in one midsized hotel room = CHAOS. We listened to a bit about the Australian education system, and then the Uniwireless guy came and distributed our prepaid cell phones. Let me just tell you- if you thought our cell phone providers at home were difficult- HA! This is the most confusing system ever. It's all prepaid, but there's all sorts of restrictions and conditions, and this that and the other. Anyways, i have a mobile now, so feel free to call it whenever. It's weird how naked you feel without it for a couple of days, but we all agreed it was nice to have uninterrupted conversations for awhile.
After the lectures we watched the superbowl a bit (GO PATRIOTS!) and then it was time to bring down all that luggage. Our counselor Robyn had a fairly brilliant idea. Instead of trying to find our individual luggage, we just made a big conveyer belt around the hostel and grabbed whatever was handed to us. Then we boarded the bus, all nice and hot and gross, for the Cairns airport. There we had to wait awhile for our luggage to arrive from thehostel and then we hastily checked in and boarded our Virgin Blue flight for Brisbane.
Everyone was fairly nervous- finally what we had been waiting all these months for was happening! We all went on a group flight to Brisbane where half the kids departed for University of Queensland. The rest of us grabbed some food and waited for our flight to Canberra. Oh, btw- it's pronounced Can-bra, not Can-bear-a. Just some Aussie (ozzy, not aussssie) lingo for you. We boarded that flight and then it was another 2 hours to Canberra. Let me just tell you also, that virgin blue attendants are snippy! When we arrived at the gate in Canberra, we all took off our seatbelts almost as soon as arrived and one of them said "thank you everyone for waiting for the fasten seatbelt sign to be turned off". Yikes!
Okay, so finally, Canberra. The weather walking from the plane to the gate (tiny airport) was DELIGHTFUL. Of course as I'm walking into the terminal I'm already starting to cry and cran my head looking for Lauren. First I see her dad with his camera (he takes pictures of everything) and then I saw gorgeous Lauren and ran up, absolutely sobbing. We looked like a bunch of crazies I'm sure. Oh well, it's been such a journey to get to that point, that nothing felt better than that hug! Then we grabbed my huge luggage and went off to Fadden.
Since then its been nice to just unpack, do some laundry and chill out. My feet werefairly destroyed from the walk in Cairns that night, so they've had some healing to do. I'll post more details tmorrow about what I've been doing in Canberra, and hopefully some pictures of the house too, so you can get a clearer idea of where I am.
Tomorrow I have a bunch of orientation things to do, and hopefully some enrolling in classes. It would be nice to know what I'm taking next semester.
Thanks again for all the emails and comments (make sure you put your name so I know who from!) . To all who saw me freaking out before I left.. just know that I am so happy here. All that stress and unhappiness from home has evaporated and I am just on top of the world! Of course,I miss you all, but you'll still be there for me when I come home happier and I can't wait to see you all!!!!!