Where did Aug 23rd go?

Hello from the southern hemisphere! We left Philly Aug 22nd at 5pm and arrived in Sydney on Aug 24th at 630am, so strange that August 23rd 2016 was completely erased as if it never existed. But a 16 hr flight is probably the closest I'll get to a time vortex. Ive been on a lot of planes and some long flights, but I have to admit I was skeptical about how this long flight was going to go. However, Qantas Air did not disappoint and the flight itself was actually very tolerable, thanks to nearly empty flight, spacious seats, full TV and movie selection and snack bar in the back. I lucked out and got my own row which allowed me to lay down and sleep for a few continuous hours. Stats for 16hrs from Dallas to Sydney:

• Roughly 6 hrs of sleep
• 1 book read
• 15 episodes of Big Bang Theory Season 9
• Countless games of Candy Crush

As we approached the less than 2 hr mark the reality of time set in, and I think we were all feeling a little worse for the wear and in need of a shower and some teeth brushing. Sadly no showers on board but in the back "snack bar" they had toothpaste and toothbrushes. Although the toothpaste tube bore a frighteningly strong resemblance to model airplane glue.... I decided to trust Qantas and give it a go. Yay it WAS toothpaste! 

NOT glue

Feeling slightly less gross, we disembarked, had an uneventful time through baggage claim and customs and then off in search of food. A tiny little cafe in Coogee Beach was our target, and the horde was for sure ready for some food (and the staff for some coffee....). There is no "brewed" coffee here, everything is espresso which is both delicious and the high octane diesel we all needed. True to giant toddler form, time waiting for food was spent coloring.

Breakfast arrived and across the board it was awesome. Eggs here have yolks the dark orange color they're supposed to be, the bread is AMAZING and they put avocado on everything (woot). Troops fed and satiated, we still needed to kill some time before checking into hotel (good lord I'm counting down the minutes until i can shower and change clothes!) we headed to the Queen Victoria building in downtown Sydney. Its a very old building thats been converted into a high end shopping center. Pretty cool, but wayyyyy above our price ranges and I think everyone was in post breakfast and jet lag coma so it was just a lot of aimless walking. Finally the time has arrived for us to check into the hotel at 2pm Sydney time (that's 14 hours ahead of EST so midnight on Aug 23rd for you guys. Weve been traveling for roughly 24 hrs...) Quick turnaround though since we have practice, so quick showers, change of clothes and then back on the bus. We had use of 1 court in the local university rec center, so we were sharing space with rec badminton players and little kids learning how to play tennis. Slightly different than the usual environment but I think we were a bit of an odd sight for the locals as well.

Post practice we headed out to grab dinner, and in the typical reality of team-travel, we hit a bit of a snag. Walking to dinner we experienced what the locals later informed us was as much rain in a few hours as they normally get in a month. On this trek we also proceeded to get lost, and a 15 minute walk turned into a 45 minute 50 and pouring rain "tour" of downtown Sydney's bridge overhangs and parking garages. Never fear, as always happens we eventually reached our destination and were rewarded with some EXCELLENT seafood. I had the Barramundi, an Australian native sea bass and it was awesome.

Troops once again fed, the length of travel and time changes combined resulted in peak zombie status. You know teams are tired when travel anywhere in a group is silent. We reach our beds at 830pm Sydney time on Wednesday Aug 24th (630am Wednesday Aug 24th back in NJ) We have been traveling since 2pm Monday Aug 22nd, bringing our travel time to 30 hrs. Bed is going to feel realllll good tonight. Tomorrow we're off to the Sydney Opera House and our first of 3 games. Good night all!

The team is also taking turns blogging about their experience each day, heres the link to Day 1.
Princeton WBB in Sydney Day 1