Rainy Sunday in Suva

Yadra, friends!

Well it turned out that today is pretty much a free day for us. We're spending the day buying last minute items (although most stores are closed here on Sundays), doing laundry, and repacking to board the boat to Nayau!

Oh, I realized I forgot one of the best parts of the first full day's activities! When we finally left the village (Koro Va - with "koro" meaning village, and "va" meaning four), it was dark and we were right next to a huge soccer tournament going on. We soon realized it would ridiculous to try to flag down one taxi, let along the four we needed to get all of us back to the hotel! So Paul graciously led us to a bus stop and got us on the correct bus back into the heart of Suva.

Now, the bus...AWESOME! We call the "disco buses" because there's loud music blaring through the whole vehicle...usually Bollywood style but some electronic dance music and we even heard the Backstreet Boys at one point! Open air windows and Friday night activities made it a fun bus ride...right up until the point where the bus broke down! Lol. But I have to hand it to the Fijian transportation system because we had a replacement bus roll up next to us in less than 10 minutes. That totally beats Birmingham! We finally made it back, and we can really say that we loved the disco buses...both of them!

But now to finish out yesterday. After a breakfast of coconut sprial rolls, curry rotis, and cream-filled pastries (which we've taken to calling "crack cream buns", hahaha), we headed out to the Fiji Museum. Along the way we passed a few rugby games, which I was fascinated with since I've never actually seen anyone play rugby.

The Museum itself was great, with a lot of really interesting artifacts. My favorite though was the first gallery room that had full-scale replicas of traditional sailing canoes, including a double-hulled canoe that was used to first colonize the islands. It was all incredibly interesting, especially following our ride in the outrigger the night before.

One quite interesting artifact in the museum was the boiled remains of a shoe that belonged to Reverend Baker, a Methodist missionary to Fiji back when it was first "discovered" by Europeans. Apparently, Mr. Baker greatly offended the chief when he snatched his comb back from the chief's hair. The head is sacred in Fiji, and you should never touch anyone's head...least of all the chief! Needless to say, Reverend Baker ended up converted to dinner rather than converting any natives. :-)

After the museum and lunch, we split up the shopping list for supplies for Nayau. Betsy, Catherine, Kaylin, and I were assigned to get the food supplies for our breakfasts and lunches. We missed the huge Publix-style grocery store and ended up in a smaller store that didn't have everything on our list, but we got most things. We bought a ton of rice, flour, sugar, pasta, and peanut butter. :-) Just the essentials! We also bought oatmeal, jam, Ramen noodles, and spaghetti sauce. We were going for easy to make and could be bought in bulk. I think it worked out well!

Last night I opted to chill in the room with leftovers rather than go out to dinner with the big group. Several others chose that option as well, and we had a nice evening chatting and drinking Fiji Bitter...a beer I actually kinda like! Unfortunately, I won't be able to find it anywhere in Alabama, according to Catherine, who is also disappointed by this. :-)

Today Betsy and I attempted to wash our clothes in a basin in the hotel. There was a washing machine, but no one could figure out how to drain the water from it, so we decided against that. We managed to get the clothes washed and rinsed without any major problems (the tiny closet with the rinsing since didn't have a light though...but we had headlamps! Lol). However, when we went to put everything to dry on the balcony, it was raining. Of course. We tried it for a bit, but the clothes kept getting dripped on. Luckily, Anne and Vassillika found a laundromat that was open today. We wanted to just stick ours in to dry, but apparently the guy said they were too wet, and he'd have to wash them first. Yeah, because THAT makes sense. Oh well! :-) At least our clothes won't be wet and moldy when we get to Nayau!

This afternoon is just packing and discussing what we've learned so far and what to expect and how to act on Nayau, and then free time. I'm afraid this will be my last post until I get back since we're leaving around 10AM tomorrow morning. There will be plenty of pictures and many many stories for you when I return, though! Love you all!