Student Bloggers

By Cristina Vaca, STEM Summer Research - Brisbane, Australia

Hi! This morning all that separates me from my Australian adventure is 24+ hrs of travel (I haven't actually figured out how long it is because of the crazy time difference). Stay tuned as I "live tweet" my experience. My apologies in advance for my inevitable ranting and sleep deprived deliria, I really am excited and extremely thankful to be traveling to Brisbane.

• HOUR 1: 7:10am EST- My flight to San Fransisco is delayed an hour and a half :(
• HOUR 3: 10:30am EST - Somewhere over CT: my plane has wifi, this is amazing! It also makes me feel old that I find this so cool... kids will definitely make fun of me for this in the future
  • 10:51am EST - Someone just ordered a vodka tonic before noon. I guess flight delays really get to some people
• HOUR 4: 11:14am EST - Meal one consists of water and Skeeter Nut-Free chocolate chip cookies. I was just sent a list of Top Ten Most Poisonous Animals in Australia; I have great friends. Okay number two is The Honey Bee and its "barbed stinger" so I'm feeling pretty skeptical of this list.
  • 11:21am EST - just got free chips, lit.
• HOUR 6: 1:25 pm EST - Just woke up and I'm Hungry! Time change screwed me over, I did not realize this flight was so long. I got some cheese. It may be wrapped in plastic, but if you know me you know I LOVE cheese :)) The steward said they ran out of the fresh kind. Is there such a thing as fresh on a plane?? Oh well, I'm enjoying my plastic wrapped cheese. It's 3:00am in Australia so this can count as my late night snack right?
• HOUR 8: 3:36pm EST - We're descending to SF and overall flight one was not too bad. Somehow orgo papers and music kept me entertained for six hours. I'm thankful I'm not the one driving this hunk of metal.
• HOUR 12: 4:00pm PST - I'm eating In-and-Out Burger!! I have a seven hour layover in San Fransisco, so I convinced my uncle to come get me at the airport and take me to lunch. It's my first time at In-and-Out, and overall I am pleased! The burgers are great, better than Shake Shack on the east coast in my opinion, the fries I found stale.
• HOUR 13: 5:39pm PST - All delta flights are delayed out of SFO and people are losing it. I'm just hoping I don't lose my bag and that I get to LAX on time to make my connection.
• HOUR 14: 6:00pm PST - Flight delayed two hrs in SFO, I'm watching the Bachelorette. Rachel is goals
  • 6:29 pm PST - Apparently flight delay means free snacks for everyone. I'm not complaining
• HOUR 17: 9:09pm PST - Okay I'm officially exhausted. Exhaustion hit me all at once, and suddenly I'm not feeling great about this 14 hour flight
  • 9:43pm PST - Guysss I calculate it and it's over 30 hrs of travel. I'm #dead (ed. note: reading this back, the sleep deprivation is starting to show. Please bear with me and my through the rest of this post)
• HOUR 18: 10:15pm PST - They're playing Despacito at my gate at LAX, this almost makes me feel more awake
• HOUR 19: 11:12pm PST - I've been awake for 21 hours, and Froot Loops have never tasted so good. I'm sprawled on a couch by my gate waiting to board; there are people laying on the airport floor at this point. Apparently this flight is also delayed due to a medical emergency
  • 11:23 pm PST - They're playing Pitbull and my head may explode. This is not the freaking club; They should be playing guided meditations so people don't rip their hair out from travel induced stress
  • 11:24pm PST - They need to "turn down for what," this music thats what. It's 11:00 at night on a Sunday.
  • 11:52pm PST - Flight 3/3 delayed. We're approaching 3:00am EST and I just want to go to sleep in my fancy seat
• HOUR 20: 12:50am PST - This plane is ginormous (yes that's a word I am going to use rn, it's 3:00am EST)! The airlines definitely make you walk past the fully-reclinable first class seats on purpose as an incentive to purchase one in the future. They make you bask in what you're missing out on as you wait in line for your coach seat in row 52.
• HOUR 34: 6:00am QLD - I immediately passed out on the flight, and even slept through the dinner service. There's one hour left of this flight, and I miraculously slept through most of it.
  • 6:47am QLD - Breakfast is an asparagus omelet and blueberry muffin. It's pretty good as soon as far as plane food goes. We can see the coast of Australia from the window as we are approaching. The people sitting next to me are from a suburb of Brisbane, and their son teaches at the University of Queensland!
• HOUR 36: 8:56am QDT - 30+ hrs later I am here

Cristina is a student at the University of Pennsylvania and is blogging from her summer abroad on the STEM Summer Research - Brisbane program, in Brisbane, Australia