I am restless. I have already spent almost 22 hours aboard a plane squished in between my fellow economy passengers. The food is terrible and I am pretty sure that I have not made any friends with the flight attendants, who are irritated with my frequent questioning of “How much longer till we get there?” Luckily, we are almost in Melbourne. One six hour flight to California from Boston and another 15 hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia completed. Now, we are in the home stretch, the final hour flight to Melbourne.

I was thankful to have two friends, Friederike and Elizabeth, accompany me on the journey to “Oz” (Oz is Australia, according to Liz’s handy Aussie dictionary). We three were greeted by several other smiling Holy Cross students once in Sydney, and all took the last flight together, each one of us wired from lack of sleep, or in some cases too much sleep, and pure excitement.

Aboard the massive Boeing 747, we all eagerly peer out the window toward our new home, the magical land of Oz. “I can’t believe this thing flies!” screams a fellow student, excited by the wonder of the scenery from 13,000 feet above. Everyone keels over laughing, “Well it’s a plane! I hope it would!” responds another.

Flash forward one hour. Once off the plane we all realize we have made it. We survived terrible food, compromising sleeping positions, and fears that we would never reach our final destination. Dorothy had to follow a yellow brick road, we had to fly across the world. Regardless, we made it, we have reached Oz, and it is even more beautiful and amazing than we could have imagined.

Best,
Simone