Anyways, enough complaining. Karina filled you all in on most of the details of the past few days but I thought I'd give you my take since we're stuck in the country indefinitely.
Ok. Rewind to Sunday! Sunday we decided to be good girls and boy and went to church in the village. We got to experience a traditional Fijian church service, which I think was pretty similar to a regular Catholic church service except all the men sit in the front row and the women in back. We're slowly discovering that Fiji is a pretty sexist country...more on that later. Most of the service was singing (half Fijian half English) and then the priest gave an extremely long sermon (he had been speaking for 45 mins when our guide told us it was time to leave). Their choir was composed of several singers, a drummer (who happened to be our guide for our private snorkeling tour...don't worry mom he was a holy boy), a keyboard-ist and a guitarist. Most of the Fijian old ladies clapped and "mmhmm"-ed throughout the service, it was really interesting to watch.
After church, we hung out in the village for a while with the village children and watched them play games and took lots of pictures. Actually this wasn't really by choice...our van driver was on Fiji time but that's ok.
When we finally got back to the resort, we did some kayaking (way harder in the ocean than in a river!) and snorkeling and probably some sunbathing, sounds about right.
Sunday night was the first night we didn't go to bed at 9pm...go us! I think karina already discussed the details of Sunday nights festivities sooo on to Monday!
Here's where the Fijian sexism comes in to play (well, one of the many times). Monday we signed up for what we thought was a village fishing trip. We went out on a motorboat to the other island on what started out as a beautiful day but it soon turned into a terrible thunder and lightening storm! The boat driver didn't seem too concerned but we feared for our lives as the wind swirled and the rain whipped around at us. Scary! Nonetheless we survived the trip and visited a nearby island and got to interact with some of the village people. We got to see in their homes and the local school that the children attend. There were 85 children in the school...I think it went to 8th grade and then they went somewhere else to finish their education but I'm not sure. Recently the government took away the fee for children to attend school so now all kids can get an education regardless of their family's wealth...great news!
After visiting the village, we went to another part of the island where the girls were left to snorkel while the boys fished...apparently women can't fish they just have to snorkel while the men do the work. (karina and I made a stink about this later and were partially refunded for our trip bc we weren't allowed to fish...girl power.). Snorkeling was great, we got to see a lot more fish on this private area of ocean and drank some coconut milk out of coconuts and had a picnic lunch. When the boys came back from fishing, we grilled the fish they caught (I think it was called a tillaney fish or something...looked like a small tuna, delish). Then we headed back to our island and saw tons of flying fish on our way back!
Monday night we had our usual festivities, complete with staying up into the wee hours of morning swimming in the pool. A note about Australian men: they love their pickup lines. Here are a few: "Do you have a map? I'm lost in your eyes." "Can I see your name tag? I want to see if you were made in heaven." "Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?" Such smooth talkers!! They also love our accent. And they drink a lot. A lot alot.
Here is some new vocabulary we picked up curtesy of our Aussies:
Mosquito bites: itchybites (or itchybots as Karina likes to call them)
Tattoos: tatties
Bathing suits: bathers
Sunglasses: sunnies
"White trash": bogans
McDonalds: Mackers
(time out -- our flight is finally boarding, you know what the means...WERE GOING TO AUSTRALIA!!!!)
Tuesday was our last full day in Fiji! The weather was not so great so we went into a nearby town (when I say nearby I mean the closest real town is 45 mins away) and wandered around for a while. We bought some kava to bring home...watch out America. We got some Indian food for lunch ($4 for their vegetarian lunch special, how can you go wrong?!) and walked around the market, which is a big open air market with fruits, veggies, spices, roots, pretty much anything you need for eating. Pretty great place. Their bananas come like 12 on a bunch and their cucumbers are 3 inches in diameter. Mom and dad you can thank karina for saving me from getting hit by a car...this whole driving on the left side of the road thing is really throwing me off.
When we got back from town, karina and I took a much needed nap while mike partied on in the party area. When we came back, we found mike placing bets on the international hermit crab race! Unfortunately mike had his beer goggles on and selected team Canada for his crab of choice instead of team America...traitor. I suppose it didn't make a difference in the end though because team Ireland won the race, leaving mike and the others brokenhearted and a few dollars short. After the crab races, we played some pool and the board game tabu with the Aussies and drank the bar out of vodka, red bull, guava juice and tribe (kind of like mikes hard lemonade but more manly). Great night!
Another side note--I'm currently listening to Keith Urban on my iPod because WERE GOING TO AUSTRALIA!!!
Anyways, that brings us to this morning! We woke up to a monsoon, complete with flooding, frogs, no electricity and thunder and lightening. The river, formerly known as the walkway to the reception desk, was up to our knees and apparently had eels--thank goodness we didn't witness those! On a sad note, Melissa and Lindsey, the blue starfishes that I found and was gonna give to you as souvenirs from Fiji shriveled up and flattened and were smelly and gross so now you have no souvenirs from Fiji I'm sorry :( thanks to mike though (i wasnt touching those stinky things) we were able to give the dead starfish a proper burial in the puddle outside our hut. Who knew starfish went bad like that?!?
After checking out and saying goodbye to our new friends, we hopped a bus to the airport. A note about Fijians: they don't give you a straight answer about anything. They told us our only option was an expensive private shuttle (that wasn't actually private) but we got the inside scoop and found out we could just take a bus. So we did. Took us a little longer but we made it to the airport! Unfortunately my toothpaste was confiscated at security...apparently Colgate is a very dangerous weapon.
Things we're looking forward to:
Soap (no soap in Fiji)
Water (water runs out around 6pm in Fiji)
Toilets that flush
No more mosquito bites
Ambulances, police cars, fire trucks, hospitals...something to let us know we have a chance of survival if something happens
Indoors...haven't been indoors since we left the airport on the first day
Milk that isn't cream
Fiji was great but it's time to move along. AUSTRALIA HERE WE COME!!!!
That is a huge fish you are holding Karina. Oh my word!
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