He needs his own booth

Our adventure was interrupted with the call to volunteer for the annual study abroad fair at Uni of Sydney. We were both very excited to wear our home university shirts in hopes that someone would recognize it and want to go there. We were the first to arrive at our United States destinations booth but that quickly changed. Another girl that had studied in California soon arrived, followed by an Australian who studied at Washington State. Australians students were not shy to come over and see what opportunities we had in the US, but almost all of them had either California, New York or Florida in mind. We were trying to get it through their heads that New York is basically just like Sydney and they should really try and step out of their comfort zone to try something completely new if they’re going to study in another country. Not to mention that we had absolutely no information at our booth for any of these schools so we couldn’t be much help for them. The Australian guy that had studied at Foster University in Washington and had apparently traveled all over the States did not mind sharing his stories with people though, in the end convincing them to consider his host school. Riley and I could barely get a peep in, even though we were the only true Americans at the table. Finally, a girl came up to us and saw on our name tags that we were from North Carolina and asked us to talk about our schools. She wanted to go to the US but didn’t want to go to the main states like New York or California, but rather wanted to see what else there was out there. We were so thankful that someone had finally realized the whole point of studying abroad – to broaden one’s horizons and experience something new. We both think that UNCC was a better fit for her and she promised to consider it as one of her choices. I really hope that I’ll see her on my campus one day! That was the end of our time commitment and we were definitely ready to leave the Australian with all the extravagant United States stories behind and enjoy some lunch in the nice sunshine. The warm days are apparently coming to an end, or actually should have ended already but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that they will stick around for a lot longer! We unfortunately wasted a lot of our afternoon in the library catching up on American time as well as school assignments that are fast approaching. Dinner was yet another delicious creation since we made ‘slap yo mama sloppy joes,’ seriously what the recipe is called. We of course added our favorites of green peppers, pineapple and onion into the mixture and truly made it one of a kind. Riley now calls them ‘beat yo mama sloppy joes’ since we apparently made them tougher and better (don’t worry he’s not really serious). 

I don’t wanna go to class..

Well it is officially our first day back to school after spring/fall break. Needless to say I don’t think either of us wanted to be back on campus quite yet especially after experiencing the Fiji Islands for a week! I guess everything fun has to come to an end sometimes, right? Anywho, I had to head to his Asian cultures class early in the morning just so I could do a little more studying since I had my first quiz of the school year in just a couple hours (although I think it was more like a test since it counts for 35% of my grade). I don’t think I was quite ready since I had to get up at 6:20 to register for NC State Classes, but it may just be the stress of my first actual assignment. Lauren thought her class was at 11, but it was actually at 10 , luckily she forgot to set her clock back so she was able to arrive to class right on time. Talk about lucky! We both got out of our classes promptly at 12 and met at the library to eat our lunch which consisted of PB an J’s and chocolate cake! We both thought it was delicious, but we both agreed that it isn’t the healthiest lunch in in the world and that we would start to choose healthier options. I asked Lauren how her class was and I must say, it sound pretty interesting. She made puppets out of newspaper to work on hand movements and voices to match the characters. I wouldn’t have minded to trade spots with her! For my Asian Culture quiz, I think it went a lot better than I expected. The two essay questions weren’t as hard as I expected them to be. I think everyone always psyches themselves when they have a big assignment coming up. After enjoying lunch we headed to the library to try and catch up on blogs which were quickly piling up. You don’t realize how much you use the internet until its gone for a whole week! We were able to post a couple, which was an awesome feeling, but we knew we had another week to catch up on. I had to head to my tutorial so I had to leave Lauren to post more pictures on our blogs. When I arrived back to the library, I was surprised at how much she completed! She posted all the right pictures and even posted captions underneath them! She’s quite the trooper I must say. I had a couple more classes to go before I was done with my day, but Lauren was already done so she decided to head to Coles while I was in class to pick up some gravy for the left over mashed potatoes. I soon joined her after my classes were done and we headed back to finish dinner from the night before since the chicken parmesan was so big. Fresh or the day after, chicken parmesan is good anytime! We finished dinner and decided to head to the couch to watch some television. Shortly after sitting both of us were knocked out since we were still trying to recoup from the loss of sleep in Fiji. 

Big 2.0

Waking up we knew it was going to be a great day because our two year anniversary had finally arrived. Seems like we have been waiting forever to say we’ve officially been dating for two years but then at the same time it just seems like a month ago that we did start dating. Time really does fly by when you’re enjoying someone’s company. We had originally planned to conquer the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb as our big anniversary celebration, but we didn’t want to pack everything into one week and not enjoy it since we had just gotten back from Fiji the night before. We had better plans of just having a relaxing evening together and finally cook our own dinner after a week of eating island food! Any guesses of what we made?... REAL CHICKEN PARMESEAN! Uncle Russell would be proud because it was seriously the best chicken parmesean that we have ever made. We actually didn’t have class today since our one night class wasn’t scheduled to meet today and we weren’t complaining. That meant we had the whole day to do whatever we wanted and we decided that going to the Botanical Gardens with our charged camera this time would be a good start. The sky wasn’t looking too clear as we left but we weren’t going to let a little bit of rain ruin our day, especially since we’re both a fan of it. That might have changed though when we were waiting for the free shuttle bus to come by this bus stop that is supposed to come every 15 minutes. We saw it pull away from the stop as we were turning the corner but we weren’t quick enough to flag it down. Right when we arrived at Hype Park the sprinkles started to come down and we knew that we better seek shelter before we got drenched. We scoped out a nice gazebo to have our lunch, but obviously a group of school kids on a field trip scoped out the same gazebo. Our lunch went from quiet and romantic to loud and chaotic in a matter of seconds. A man next to us had come for peace and quiet as well as we made small talk about the circumstances. Thankfully the rain let up and we quickly left the gazebo to look for a better place to enjoy our day together. We were able to get some really good pictures this time around!

The Tree of Life.

Our next stop was Hyde Park to finally get pictures of that as well. First we made a pit stop in St. Mary’s Cathedral to get some nice pictures of the beautiful cathedral but with the no photography rule we did the best we could.

We later made a stop at the NSW Art Museum which turned out to be a litte more interesting than we thought. Everywhere you looked there were massive paintings! Riley even had to run away from these guys! ;)

The free shuttle bus stopped running at 3:30 so we made sure to hop back on it to get to the markets to pick up some fresh eggs to make our dinner. We were so sad when we rounded the corner to see the doors of the markets closed. Come to find out, the markets are only open Wednesday – Sunday. However, we still needed to get eggs and we refused to pay $6 a dozen at Coles for them but luckily for us there was a Chinese store across the markets that was open and had eggs for a reasonable price. We were all set to make dinner and were happy to make dinner slowly for once. We are usually always in a rush to make dinner either because we have plans that night or because we are beyond starving. It was still a complicated dinner thougth because it is hard to make chicken parmesan in a small area! I let Riley do the cooking since he didn’t mind cooking me dinner anyways. I was able to relax in the meantime, but dinner was soon completed and it looked delicious! Our dinner was almost a three course meal since we had an entre of chicken parm with spaghetti as well as a side of mashed potatoes and garlic bread! MMMMMM! It was so good! For desert we baked a cake. Simply put, it was just as delicious. After dinner, we talked and relaxed together in peace and quiet. 

Who brings babies to Fiji?

As our last day in Fiji we only had two things on our agenda. Go to the markets to get some souvenirs and make it to the airport in time. I know that I couldn’t sleep so by 7 AM I was already out of the shower and ready to get on with the day. Riley woke up shortly after and we were out the door by our set goal of 8 AM! We had decided yesterday that we were going to walk the same way we did yesterday, about 2 miles, into the markets with our suitcase then if we had a taxi pull over after we were done shopping with a good deal then we’d take it. We knew it wouldn’t be easy getting to the markets without every single taxi flagging us down and trying to get us in their car to take more of our money so we made it into a game. We were going to count every time a taxi pulled over to talk to us, every time someone yelled taxi at us, and every time a taxi driver honked at us and stared us down. As you can imagine this was very uncomfortable and got old rather quickly. We didn’t even get a quarter of a mile down this secondary road, not even a busy road, before our numbers had started climbing. Walking in the daylight wasn’t as bad as at night and we were able to catch some good scenery. Our moods weren’t too high though since we knew we were the last ones in Fiji some our newfound friend group. That definitely made us the minorities now, but we also knew by the end of the day we’d be back in Sydney! Within thirty minutes we had made it to the supermarket called Jetpoint to get some water. This meant that we were making good timing but we wanted to keep going to get to our destination before the sun got too hot! Our walk through town wasn’t bad and our taxi counting game stayed pretty stable for a while, which definitely surprised us. I was very fed up though and would give the taxi driver a stern “No thank you” whenever he had the courage to yell something at us. Word must have got around that we were mean tourists not wanting a taxi ride since the numbers didn’t increase much which slightly disappointed Riley. I, however, was thankful for the break. The people in Fiji are absolutely the nicest people though. Whenever you get within talking distance of them they will offer a “bula” and we of course are supposed to offer one back. This is how they say Hello, and they say hello to everyone! Even little kids will say “bula” which is truly heartwarming. I know that I would always get excited when we were about to cross paths with someone since I would have a chance to say hello. This definitely doesn’t happen in the United States or even Sydney that I get to say hello to everyone I cross paths with! We arrived at the markets in no time, but I guess I really shouldn’t call them markets since they are really just what we call strip malls. A single line of stores that all connect. The first couple stores weren’t too promising since I was looking for one particular thing, a sulu. Riley still wasn’t sure if he wanted to get his tribal wooden mask but he was definitely keeping his eyes peeled for a Fiji Bitter tank top. His long, almost never worn, Hardrock Café tank top may have changed from white to tan while we have been here because of the daily use it got.  He wasn’t very lucky since the only place he could find one was at the first ever hostel we stayed at. I told him that he should just go ahead and get it, but he wanted to shop around for the best price. It was off to the third store which was called Fashion Time, but I must say, there wasn’t much fashion going on in here.  I found a couple sulu’s that looked promising however they were hanging on the ceiling so when she brought one down it was clear that they spray painted “Bula” and “Fiji” on them. This was a big disappointment since they had looked so nice faraway and tempting since we were running out of shops. One of the shops tried selling me a pink sulu that said “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”, she must have not received the memo that it was the beginning of April. It was down to the last shop and I was determined to find a sulu! We walked in the store and was greeted by some Fijians who gave us the traditional “Bula”, which we thought was a good sign since none of the other shops said Bula. We asked if they had any sulus, she didn’t answer right away so the tension was rising. She looked back at her coworker but then quickly turned back around and pointed at the wall where at least 20 sulus were hanging! I’m not sure how we missed the sulus as we walked in since they are in our line of vision. I was very happy and relieved to have found many sulus to take my pick from. After long deliberation, and with Riley’s help, I finally chose a sulu, but you will have to wait to see it til I get back home! Now that our shopping list was fulfilled we were able to make our way to the airport and take our time doing so. We actually weren’t far at all and after we passed through the final taxi stop the shouts and honks somehow ceased. Maybe the taxi drivers realized that if we had made it that far without getting in a taxi then we were going to walk the last half mile by ourselves. We both felt very accomplished and proud of ourselves whenever we finally arrived at the airport, way ahead of schedule also! So ahead of schedule that we couldn’t even check in! We had said that we wouldn’t mind just hanging out in the airport waiting for our plane to take off, but now that the time had come to do that I was feeling a little antsy. I definitely didn’t wanna spend my last five hours in Fiji in the airport, although there were a lot of nice shops inside. Whenever we took a look at the lunch menus and saw the prices I knew that we were going to have to think of another plan. I had remembered seeing a nice little ranch restaurant right down the road from the airport and that’s where we headed after much persuasion towards Riley. He wasn’t happy about having to leave the airport which the suitcase in tow once again. It goes without saying that we will never pack that many clothes and unnecessary items for a beachy vacation. We had no idea that we would spend so much time in our swimsuit. We made it in no time and were able to share a delicious Hawaiian pizza. Once we arrived back at the airport it was time to check in and we were able to spend the rest of the time browsing the shops while Riley cracked open his book again. We saw another couple from Australia that we had spent some time on the islands with. I even spotted two girls that I finally realized that I recognized from UNCC. I had remembered them for their very loud and often rude voices at the departure meeting and had hoped that they wouldn’t be going to Uni of Sydney. Crazy that I would see them at a Fiji airport getting on our plane though! Really is a small world sometimes. The plane ride back to Sydney almost seemed as long as the one from LA. Maybe I’m just worried that every plane ride is going to feel that long now especially since I get the queasy stomach again and feel like I can’t do anything like read or even sleep. Riley was able to finish another one of his books which was quite something since he had just about restarted it while we were in Fiji. We quickly realized that daylight savings time had happened while we were done since we stepped off the plane at 5:30 and the sun was already setting. That was going to mean our walk home would be in the dark but we were ready to run if we had to. First we were worried about getting through customs since we had been told that they sometimes don’t let seashells through. Riley was not going to let that happen though since he had grown rather fond of our collection, so fond that he referred to them as his babies! Going through customs and immigration was a breeze this time since we beat the big crowd, but we were in such a hurry that Riley had mistakenly left his laptop case where we filled out our immigration cards. Lucky for him we soon realized it and one of the airport workers had found it and put it behind a counter. He really is the luckiest boy! Our seashells made it through customs, so now we’ll just have to worry about them again when we land in the United States. It felt so nice to be back in Sydney since it was familiar and welcoming to us, but we still didn’t waste any time getting back to Tempe to hop on a bus that would take us to the city. Everything went as planned and we were even able to stop at the uni to finally get internet connection and reassure everyone that we were safe again! Fiji islands were an unforgettable experience but Sydney truly is our second home for now and we were more than happy to be back!

White tourists ... GET THEIR MONEY!

There is nothing worse than being taken advantage of because of your skin tone or gender. We definitely know how that feels now that we’ve traveled to Fiji. Taxi drivers and shop attendants automatically stereotype us based on our appearance and act accordingly. As a group we had decided to walk to the main road to check out the grocery store since we were told that was the only store only since it was Sunday, a Holy Day. Almost every taxi driver slowed down to either stare us down or ask if we needed a taxi. Walking down the beach we were also told to enjoy a horse ride on the beach. Lauren and I were beyond tired of being stereotyped by our skin tone since they automatically assume that we are rich tourists and can just throw our money around. We understand that this society makes all their money off tourists, but this was not something that we’re used to. After a short walk through the grocery store and getting really cheap ice cream treats it was unfortunately time to part ways with the Germans for good. They had their flights that afternoon so they had to get back to the hostel to collect their bags before heading to the airport. Lauren and I had decided that we were going to stay in town to see which shops were open and hopefully get some souvenirs. Before anything we had to walk nearly two miles to the closest ATM and then back the opposite direction to find some shops. While we were resting at a bus stop from the sun we had yet another taxi pull over to ask where we were heading. We gave him the usual general answer but insisted that we didn’t need a taxi. However, this one was persistent saying that he could take us to the McDonald’s that was about 4 miles down the road for just a dollar each. We honestly couldn’t pass up on this deal since that was going to save us a lot of time in the hot sun! We made it all the way across town in a short 10 minutes, while the taxi driver of course tried to talk us into letting him take us into downtown. We were fine finding our own way though and come to find out there were some shops that were open on Sundays. The clouds were building up once again so we knew that we would have to head back soon, especially since we didn’t want to be walking in the dark! That was for sure. We were just about all shopped out whenever a guy came up to us on the street and told us about a shop that sold real handmade Fiji items, not like the Indian shops that sold the manufactured items. We were a little uncomfortable with going up to this shop, since a girl had told us about a store that had overpriced items just a couple of days before. When we got in the shop the owner asked us to participate in a kava ceremony that was accustomed for their village. We did not want to do this at all, but it would  have been highly rude for us to decline and leave. It didn’t last long, but then the owner started his salesman act of trying to sell us really expensive items by giving us a ‘great deal.’ We weren’t going to be fooled though since all the items looked exactly like the ones in the stores just way more expensive. With a loud clap of thunder we gave the excuse that we had to get home and tried to bolt out of there. He then asked for a donation for the school children in his village and gave a couple of coins, which he was not pleased with. Fiji people always want more money! We were just trying to be polite at this point since they obviously weren’t from a village considering it was Sunday, a holy day in the Fiji culture, meaning they wouldn’t be working today. The whole situation really fired us up though and we swapped some not so nice words about the experience on the way back to the main road. Finally over the situation we decided to stop for a late lunch/early dinner since we wanted to be back at our hostel way before night fall. We both enjoyed some Fiji burgers, which we had been craving the entire time on the islands. Unsure of whether or not to tip, we agreed on the former which turned out to be not the norm since the waitress was a little surprised but grateful. Oh well, we made her day! Like planned, we had an easy stroll back to the hostel which was probably a little over a mile and made it back before nightfall. We had planned to maybe enjoy the rest of the night on the beach for the last time but completely exhausted from all the walking throughout the day we were probably in bed before 9 PM. We didn’t mind though since that meant we were that much closer to waking up and getting on our plane bound for our second home of Sydney! 

Does it have coriander in it?

Today was definitely a bittersweet day to say the least. It was our last day on the islands, but not our last day in Fiji. We still had one more day with the Germans which we were happy for since we weren’t ready to say goodbye just yet. We had actually found out that they were all staying in hostels in Nadi that were close to each other and also where we hoped to get a bed for the night. That eased our minds a lot since we were worried about getting back to the main land and finding a place to stay. However, we had agreed that we would all get a taxi to the hostels together to make it cheaper and that was definitely a relief. Before we had to board the large vessel bound for the mainland we had our last snorkeling to go on. This one was by far the best one with a very active reef and millions of fish everywhere. Before we got off the boat and into the water our driver threw bread into the water which instantly attracted hundreds of fish. Riley jumped in the water before me and made a squeal whenever the fish started nibbling on him. That frightened me a little since I’m not too keen on fish in the first place, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. It was just kinda scary to see so much fish surrounding me at once since that it something that I’m used to at all. With all the fish to swim and play with we got a little distracted and didn’t explore the reef as much as we could have. But when else do you truly get to swim with fish? The reef was the best one that we had explored during our time in Fiji and it was amazing to see the colorful reef and fish just going about their daily life, swimming in and out of the reefs. About an hour into the trip we were completely exhausted and tired of snorkeling, which was a bummer. We had heard the two Canadian guys talk about an octopus so we wandered to where they were but we couldn’t really see anything. We later found out that there was an octopus and it was like a chameleon since it changed colors to match the reef color. That would have been quite the sight but my snorkel gear must have been too big since it kept filling up with water no matter how tight I got it. Tired of having to fight with it we decided that it was time to head to the shore and relax for a little bit. Time definitely flew by and all too soon we were boarding the boat to head back to the resort. Just like we had suspected we had fifteen back at the resort before it was time to board the boat one last time and head to meet the bigger cruise vessel. Like I said this was a bittersweet feeling since we knew our time in Fiji was coming to an end along with our time that we’d have with the German friends that we had made. We were all about to sit on the cruise ship together, but five and a half hours is a long time to keep conversation going. We were all trying to soak up the last bit of sunshine that we could get especially since the clouds were getting thicker over the mainland of Vita Levu. This was probably the weather that we had looked up before we left since it said that it was supposed to rain the whole time that we were going to be there. We made it down into the air conditioned room in the bottom of the boat just in time since it started to sprinkle when we were just 45 minutes out. We heard over the intercom that we would be able to catch a free shuttle bus ride back to the hostels where we had stayed the first night in Nadi. We planned on shopping around to see what was the best deal we could get for a night’s stay in a hostel. The cruise ship quoted us a price that was a little over our price range since we had limited Fiji money left over. When we finally touched down into the port we were more than happy to get off the cruise ship. I know that I do not travel by boat very well since my stomach had churned for the last two hours or so. Being hungry definitely didn’t help either though. We were about to locate our luggage, board the shuttle bus, and find a hostel that was more reasonable for us in no time. It also meant that dinner time had arrived. The six of us (including the German couples) were able to get a taxi for a very reasonable price (2 Fiji dollars each, which is like 1 Australian dollar) to take us to a restaurant that one of the guys in the hostel had told us about. It was called Small Plates but we were hoping that wasn’t any indication of what the portions would be like. The taxi driver tried to drop us off in the back of the restaurant and told us to walk down this alley but it didn’t look like there was a restaurant down there. We cleverly sent one of the guys to scope it out and sure enough there was a restaurant back there. We enjoyed some Chinese food with more rice than we wanted to have so soon to having that for lunch and dinner on the islands but it was good food nonetheless. We made sure that there was no coriander in the recipes though! Knowing that this really was our last meal together was so sad, but we had to enjoy the time we had together. We had already exchanged contact information by this point so we knew this wasn’t the last time we’d be talking with each other.  

“Are you single or are you taken?”

It’s not that hard to wake up early for breakfast whenever you’ve had a decent night’s sleep, and that’s exactly what happened! In fact, Lauren woke up before breakfast time which was a first. Breakfast started out simple with just cereal, but we got to taste our first powdered milk which is nothing good. Definitely more watered down than we prefer but we suffered through it anyways. I poured myself a full glass of it, but was only able to finish about a sip or two before I felt like I was going to throw up! We both agreed that we would only drink powered milk in cases of emergencies. Since both Cave swimming and Blue Lagoon snorkeling started at 9 am, we decided that the cave trip would be interesting since we have been snorkeling on both Wayalailai and White Sandy Beach. Don’t worry though we will be going Blue Lagoon snorkeling tomorrow at the same time. We boarded Joe’s Water Taxi at 9:30 even though it was supposed to be at 9… people here defiantly work on Fiji time. It was a long 30 minute ride out to the cave, but it was a lot smoother than all other boat rides that we have taken. When we arrived at the caves, a man came to brief us on what was going to happen, but Lauren and I had no idea what he said. Understanding someone with a Fiji accent is quite difficult. After the briefing we headed up these stairs that quickly led down into the cave. As we walked down into the cave huge rocks came from the ceiling so we had to duck our heads and crawl low to avoid them. When we hit the bottom of the stairs, we reached water which was really cold! Most of the people started jumping in before the tour guide even came down, but we really had no choice since he was talking to people behind us. The caves were extremely tall with little holes of light poking through at the top which gave us enough light to make our way around. We all swam to the middle and talked about how we would transfer between caves since we were going to see two caves in this trip. I didn’t realize it, but we were already in the first cave when we jumped in the water. He told us that we would have to swim under water to see the other cave – this idea freaked a lot of people out including Lauren! One of the tour guides went first with the flashlight since he warned us that the next cave was dark. One by one he called people over to swim into the next cave which was only supposed to be about two seconds underwater. I think by that time even I was getting a little nervous considering I had never been in a cave before let alone a cave with water! It was my turn to go next then Lauren followed after a couple of other swimmers. The cave was indeed very dark but our eyes adjusted rather quickly. Once everyone had made it through to the second cave we were eager to get a move on. The only thing that Lauren could think about was eels coming through the cracks of rock underwater and taking the whole tour guide down. We started moving through the second dark cave through following our extremely loud tour guide through the cave as his flashlight started to go out. He was able to keep it alive though and we made it to the back of the cave in no time. It was a little of a tight squeeze to get everyone through the narrow passage way especially since we didn’t want to touch the slimy walls. Lauren and I were able to hang on to this floating white foam block in order to save our energy and not have to tread water. When we arrived in the back of the cave there was a small hole in the ceiling that allowed some sunlight to come through. We took a breather and our tour guide shared a little bit of information about the cave but with the strong Fijian accent and us being in a cave it was a little hard to understand him. We did understand that we were about to yell “Bula” very loud though! Whenever we did we could hear it echo throughout the cave very well. We repeated this three separate times and the echoing effects were amazing every single time! Our tour guide informed us that we were going to make our way back through the cave and we were more than happy to get a move on. Going underwater to enter the first cave was definitely not as scary since we could actually see the rocks that we were going through. The whole tour through the cave probably took about 30 minutes, but it was just enough we think. I had heard from our friend Chris that if I asked the tour guide how to climb the walls of the cave then he would let me climb it then jump into the water. I knew that I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. The tour guide said that I could go ahead and climb up the slimy wall but he didn’t really give me much guidance on how to do so. I couldn’t get that much of a grip so I climbed as high as much as I could and then prepared myself to jump! Lauren was able to catch it all on video though and this will also give ya’ll a good glimpse of the cave!

There was a small market set up outside of the cave but of course we didn’t bring any money with us so we just browsed. Soon enough we were back in Joe’s water taxi and heading back to the resort. We made it back way before lunchtime and since our friends were out snorkeling in the Blue Lagoon all day we had a whole day of relaxation in front of us. In fact, we laid in the hammocks for a solid 2 hours reading and talking which was priceless. As our last days on the island were winding down we were more than happy to just enjoy the peace and quiet. Stefan made a point to find us once they were back at the resort to share their stories of the day. It was nearing sunset and we had planned on going back to cliff to watch the sunset but the clouds were covering the better half of the sky so we decided it would be smarter to stay behind and pack our belongings instead. We would be heading back on the boat the next morning and with reef snorkeling beforehand we knew we wouldn’t have much time in the morning to pack up. We were able to finish quickly since we didn’t bring much with us and even had time to shower before dinner. We had also talked Stefan into playing a game with us and Anna before dinner so we met them in the dining area. The game was called something like Hec-mec and Braught-worm egg, or at least that’s what we understood it to be. The game was very interesting; it involved several dices and then dominoes with numbers and worms on them. Lauren was so unlucky that she was never able to roll a worm, but I on the other hand was able to collect a few worm dominoes. Anna was clearly in the lead though when the dinner drum called which made Stefan very happy since that meant he could stop playing. It was Curry night and man, oh man, it was delicious! It was also served on this huge platter so there was plenty of food to go around. We enjoyed our last dinner meal on the islands together and sat with the German couples. Soon it was Bula Time and the host of the island asked everyone to stand and introduce themselves and state whether they were single or taken. We don’t really know why this information was necessary but it was definitely awkward to say the least. Even when people tried to leave that answer out of their introduction the host would straight out ask him/her if they were single or taken. We think that he just wanted the information for his personal use. The girls at our table got off easy though since the guys took it upon themselves to introduce themselves and their girlfriends. Lauren made the comment that we were the couple table since we were just about the only couples on the island. Once the awkwardness was done we moved on to a game called Sand, Water. There was a rope laid out on the floor and the side we were standing on was called Sand and the other side when you jump over the rope was the Water. It was a simple game since all we had to do was jump to the correct side whenever we called out sand or water. Riley of course lasted until there were only three people left in the game and then until there were only two people left meaning that he was a winner! We enjoyed the rest of the night just talking at the table and made it a deal that we would stay up at least past 9 o’clock. Since we had only played one game that night we made a joke that the second game was to see who could stay up the longest. We obviously were not the winners of that game but we found it to be quite the accomplishment to make it all the way to 9:15 before calling it a night. Nights go out at prompty 10 o’clock so we were that we had to all be safely in bed before then. With a long day ahead of us the following day we knew that an early bedtime wouldn’t be such a bad idea.