Day 1: The flight (and I guess part of a day on land too)

I made it!

When I got to JFK I ran into Brianna, my cousin Alyssa's friend who I had met before.  It was nice being able to travel with someone I had already met.  Our flight from NY to LA was exhausting and not the smoothest.  Thankfully I'm not so bad with flights so it wasn't awful.  I had the whole row to myself at first, but then this angry woman stormed over, threw all the stuff from the aisle seat into the middle and plopped herself down with a blanket over her head and went to sleep.  No idea why she was so cranky but it did mean I had to climb over her and hope she didn't wake up.  I didn't get to sleep at all and watched the Avengers and 2 chick flicks.  When they gave out dinner I saw this religious guy talking to the flight attendants, and I guess he saw me looking since then he asked if I was Jewish and wanted his Kosher meal.  Made up for the cranky lady.

I hung out with Brianna and two other girls at the airport in LA and yet again our flight was delayed.  Anyway when we finally got on our flight I was exhausted and passed out right away, thank goodness.  Not gonna lie I think the 15 hour flight was better than the 5 hour to LA.  I slept and watched movies.  Yet again the middle seat was empty, and this time the guy in the aisle seat was really nice and on my program.  I think in total I've already watched 6 movies.

Toward the end of the flight the sunrise was beautiful.  The sky was black with brilliant stars and the very edge of the horizon was this beautiful red.  It was what I would imagine a desert sky to look like.

Anyway, I'm here now and all moved in and unpacked.  Our building is a BU building with apartments.  My apartment has 4 rooms, but so far there are just 3 of us so we're assuming that's how it's going to stay.  So we have an extra bedroom, a living room (2 couches and a nice tv), a small kitchen, a full bathroom, and a half bathroom.  The toilet in the half bathroom is so weird! It flushes by turning on the sink.  We think that maybe the drained water from the sink then refills the toilet, and then the sink eventually automatically turns off.  So it seems pretty efficient except for the fact that it sprays everywhere when you actually try to wash your hands in it.

My roommates are great: Kate and Alex.  Alex is from Detroit and went to Jewish day school for 10 years also.  We hung our mezuzot together.  She also goes to BU.  Kate is from Portland but goes to Bucknell.  The three of us get along really well, and named our invisible fourth roommate, Blaire, who we still aren't sure if someone might end up there, and we realized we can see into the apartments across the street, which is sort of weird, but luckily we also figured out how to use our shades.

Speaking of streets, it's so confusing crossing them, but what's even more confusing is that when walking they also walk on the other side of the sidewalk.  It took us a little while to figure out why we kept running into everyone, and even after realizing we still keep walking to the right by mistake.  Turns out they pass to the right.  We've been trying hard to keep track and understand.

The money, despite my being used to shekels in Israel, is confusing.  I understand that dollars can be in coin form, but why are the 2 dollar coins about penny size, when the 20 cent coins are poker chip size? I'd much rather lose 20 cents then 2 dollars yet I'm now more likely to lose 2 dollars!

Ok that's about all the interesting news I can come up with for now.  Sorry about the parts that aren't actually interesting at all, but I met a lot of people just walking around and at our barbeque tonight.  It's only 7:30 pm but it's about bed time. Goodnight!