Fiji!

So my weekend in paradise is over and now I am waiting in the Nadi (pronounced Nan-dee) airport for my eleven hour flight to Los Angeles. I remember back in February (which seems like a lifetime ago) being absolutely terrified of the flight I had to take to Australia. Now, after having already experienced that flight and also an overnight bus from Sydney to Gold Coast it is not the flight I am anxious about. Now I have learned that the worst part about flying is not the actual flight, it is the layovers, customs and security check points. I have already had a decent amount of things taken away from me, and I am a bit nervous that the sand and seashells I took home for mom will get taken away at customs. I hope not, but if they do there isn’t much I can do about it and at least I tried right?
On Thursday I was completely emotional and felt unready to go back to the states and this past weekend (in paradise) has helped me calm down a lot and I am getting more excited to head back to the states. I had a lot of time to relax this weekend and I think I needed that before I had to head back into my life back home. This weekend allowed me to get rid of my emotions from leaving Aussie, and also allowed me to get new exciting emotions to prepare me to go back home. I think if I had just went straight back home from Aussie my emotions would have been everywhere and I am unsure how I would have handled that. I am DEFINITLY looking forward to being home seeing my family and friends and getting back into “reality.” I have had a wonderful time since February and Australia will always have a special place in my heart, however it is time for leave my fantasy lifestyle and go into my everyday routine of things. For everyone who feared that I would not be coming home, no worries I am. If you would have asked me that on Thursday I am not to sure I would have been able to answer that will a 100% yes. Haha!
So now to talk about my weekend in Fiji! I already updated you on how my first night was and so I now I will cover my time in Fiji from Friday until today (Monday).
On Friday I had to wake up really early due to mistake of booking a room at a resort two hours away from where I was boarding the boat to go to my next resort. The drive was nice to see in the daytime and it allowed me to see parts of Fiji that were not centered around tourists. The houses were extremely small and most of them were very worn down. I wish I would have been able to take pictures but at the time my camera was in the trunk and I could not access it. On top of the worn down houses (and schools that were built for them by the United States of America) you could see how the people were struggling when you passed a bus stop made out of bamboo sticks. Also, in a field at both ends the field goals had been set up using bamboo sticks as well. I am happy I got to experience this drive as the rest of my weekend was at a resort which had definitely been made nice to attract tourists. I now understand why traveling can change a persons perspective on life. You get to experience things from people who are less fortunate, to those who are extremely fortunate. I have a learned a lot just by traveling that is for sure.
After my drive back to Nadi I hopped on the boat ride to go to Octopus Resort. The boat ride was an hour and a half and to make the time go by faster I started to talking to other people around me (the boat only fits about 10-12 people). The first couple I talked to was an older couple and within the first few minutes I found out that they were from Arizona!!! Now this was really exciting because in the months I have been gone, I have not met one single person who is from Arizona! It was nice to talk to them about my time away and also catch up with how the weather has been acting up back home.
After talking to them for a while I then start talking to another girl named Ashley who is traveling by herself. She had been traveling with a friend throughout Australia but they each went separate ways a few days prior. She was only nineteen years old and was an English student traveling between her gap year. She was extremely nice and we would continue to hang out throughout the weekend.
After yapping away we finally arrive at Waya Island. The first thing I notice is how blue the water is and how many trees there are on the island. We are then welcomed by some of the staff at the resort with a traditional welcome song. As soon as I step off of the boat Sam calls out my name and I notice that she is snorkeling. It made it extremely easy to find her when I got there. I then sat through a welcoming and got assigned a bed number for the dorm.
After walking to my room and saying “Vanaka” (which means thank you) to the worker who carried my bags to the room, I then headed down to the beach to meet Sam. We hung out at the beach and then went in to eat lunch since it was happening almost immediately after I arrived. The area we ate was really cool and the floor was filled with sand so you could feel the sand between your toes even while you ate.
That night we went down to watch the sunset (which was gorgeous) and had drinks out of coconuts! I am not sure how much alcohol they put into it shot wise, but when I counted it was nine seconds worth of pouring different alcohol into my coconut! However the coconuts were huge and so the rest of it was filled up with some sort of juice and you could not really taste the alcohol all that much.
When I went to bed I realized that we each had a personal mosquito net, fan and light by our bed. I liked this because it made it so that I could chose to have the fan on or not (and of course knowing me I had it on the entire night).
The next morning I woke up and enjoyed the breakfast the had put out for us. The weather was not the greatest and it started to rain and so I started to read On the Jellicoe Road a book I had picked up for a friend in Australia. I ended up reading the entire book in two days because I had so much down time. After the rain it cleared up and we were left with a gorgeous day. I hung out by the beach and read for the majority of the day.
At night after dinner they resort had game night and me being very competitive was one of the first to join in on the fun. The first game was a harmless (but somewhat painful) game of Limbo. I did not win but I did make it a decent way into the game. After Limbo we played a drinking game with the same groups. Each person had to run to a cup of beer that was about thirty steps away, drink it as fast as possible, place the cup upside down on their head to prove the cup was empty, spin around the cup two times and then run back to their team. I am very competitive; however drinking beer is not something I am very good at. I attempted to drink the cup of beer as fast as possible and ended up with half a cup of beer down my shirt… the only good thing about that was the when I turned the cup upside down to place on my head there was none to get into my hair. My team loss this game, but just barely.
Really wanting to at least one game, I signed up for the next game as well not knowing what it was. Little did I know that for the next couple of minutes everyone in my group would basically lose any pride and dignity they had, while playing a game called “Poop the Potato”. Each person had to hold a potatoe between their legs run to a bucket without dropping it, and then “poop” the potato into the bucket. If you missed the bucket, or dropped the potato you had to go back and try again. Once again, my team just barely lost. This makes it three games in a row I lost…which I am very sad about. Sad in the Chelsea “I wanna win” type of sad.
The last game (if you can call it a game) is catch the cork. Basically the person who caught the cork off the champagne got the bottle of champagne. Well...make it four losses for me! The same group won all four games and ended up with four bottles of champagne while we each had beer down our shirts and had just pooped a potato. All well, it was fun even if I didn’t win. Plus, I am not a fan of champagne so I didn’t mind giving it to someone who was.
The next day was the last full day in Fiji. After breakfast we went snorkeling. The water was so blue and the clarity was absolutely perfect. I saw so many different type of fish and at one point I was right next to a school of about thirty bright yellow fish swimming around me. I wish I would have had a underwater camera because the fish were so bright and the water was so blue. I also saw a fish without a tail and every time it tried to swim the water would push the back part of its body and it kept having to swim sideways. I also saw a transparent fish swimming around as well. There were so many unique fish and it is really awesome to be able to swim around with them.
For the rest of the day we just hung around and at night there was a movie playing out by the pool. They set up a giant screen for us all to watch Revolutionary Road, which I had seen about a week earlier. Since it was still early I watched the movie, however for a majority of the time I was just looking up at the stars and the milky way.
The next morning we had to wake up and get all of our stuff together to pack and leave our wonderful Waya Island and to head back to Nandi. We hung out until two just walking down the beach and then had an hour and a half boat ride back to the mainland.
When we got to Nandi we got dropped off at Raffles hotel to hang out for a few hours (it was four, our flight leaves at ten) and all we really did was hang out, take a shower, and change into our clothes we would be wearing on the flight home.
It is now about thirty minutes before I am going to get on my flight home and I am getting pretty excited to go back to the states. This was a perfect end, to an AMAZING semester! One I will never forget that is for sure…and that scary part? I am officially a SENIOR in college!!
Well I am going to turn off my laptop, make a lap around the airport before I have to start my 11 hour sitting session! My next entrée, I will be back in the States!
Love you all!

XoXo,

Chels