Thursday, July 31, 2003

Fiji continued...

The island taught me to hate Justin Timberlake (not that it took much to accomplish that) and many other artists I had never heard of, but hated instantly, nonetheless. Apparently, good dance CD’s must be imported from the mainland and are hard to come by. And all the songs on a CD must be bootleg recordings off of FM radio (they sounded horrible!).

Nikki & Gazz liked my mini-credo, “Be dependable, but not predictable.” Maybe I should © it when I get home…

I drank nothing but water for 3 days (except for some milk in my cereal). It wasn’t that bad…

I can’t wait to unpack!!! Sheets that don’t smell!! I really hope the Randwick Lodge in Sydney is nice.

Here's a list of the people we've met so far...

The Islanders
Laura #1—met her in line at LAX; From Cincinnati, going to U. Tenn.

Laura #2— from London (Essex?); recently graduated university w/ a business degree; Friends w/ Danny (short for Danielle) since they were 11 years
old.

Danny—friends w/ Laura; nearly identical stories (gimme a break, we were only on the island two days)

Sarah & Nikki—graphic designers from England; Sarah was cutey #2; read to her on the rainy day (which happened to begin with a sex scene…uncomfortable moment aside, it would unfortunately not become a sign of things to come); Sarah seemed to be holding back, though obviously (to me, anyway) was a mischievous sprite.

Gareth, aka Gazz—4th year med student (at Warwick) from Liverpool; future breast cancer surgeon; Cool guy, fast friends; Met Ana/Leslie in the back of the
bus to the island; Buddies w/ Steve Gerrard, a young soccer star for Liverpool; Apparently Gazz is quite the footballer himself; Loved Justin Timberlake on the island; degree in Medical Biochem; Going to stay with us when he swings through Sydney.

Martha, Billy, & Harry—traveling family; Mom teaches teachers in Brighton; on a world tour collecting info for their family tree; Billy & Harry are the youngest
bartenders on the island; actually met them on the bus from the airport to the Nadi Bay Hotel. What was really cool was how the island adopted the kids. It wouldn’t seem like an island full of 19-25 year olds would be very fun for Mum and kids, but everyone took to them. Mom did a lot of relaxing because she knew her kids were safe. Everyone looked out for them, played with them, especially the staff.

Emma—Kiwi (that means she's from New Zealand); most beautiful girl on the island; Awesome personality, energy, attitude; traveling with her brother and friend, who ended up becoming BF/GF on the trip; at least that’s the closest to the story I could get from all of our collective memories. Her and here brother were the foremen on the sand castle construction, with which I assisted.

David, Sally, feat/ Edna and Nick—David is a gold digger, seriously. He looks for gold, how cool is that? They are from Australia, but live in Nadi; Sally teaches
school; Edna is sweat little 4 year old with a tendency to lower her voice when she gets nervous; The second thing she said to me was that her dad goes to work everyday. That told me something. At breakfast, she got there before her Dad and looked very uneasy, sad. As soon as she saw him she smiled and gave him the biggest hug her little arms could manage. Nick is 7 and didn’t seem too happy the last time I saw him; Hope he had a better time.

Lourdes—Spaniard who spoke English with an Irish accent; Moved to Ireland to improve her English; works for the Yellow Pages. I’m telling you folks, you
can’t make this stuff up.

Cast & Crew--Staff on Robinson Crusoe Island

Ziggy—looks disturbingly like Don Cheadle; main responsibility on the island seem to be finding the prettiest girlS on the island (i.e. Emma) and flirting with
them. Turns out he can twirl fire, too.

Jack—resident beefcake; he cleaned the toilets and picked up the rubbish on the island; the “Snake” on the island; also lead the campfire sing-a-longs; went
around claiming it was people’s “birthday”…damn 50 Cent.

Christa—the “Cat” on the island; worked the dive shop counter, DJ (though not well), and shook her hips (VERY well)...And I'm not just being a male pig,
either. That's how they introduced her. OK, so maybe the other guys were being pigs, but I'm clean!

Naked boy—about 3 or 4 years old; only said “chocolates”; never figured out who exactly he belonged to

BULA everybody!! Robinson Crusoe Island, Fiji, July 11-13

“Oh, the people were SO nice!” Why are people always amazed when they meet nice people? Why do we expect to encounter rude, mean folks when we travel away from home? Nice people DO exist outside of our hometowns, no? Maybe we figure only nice people travel (to get away from the meanies), which leaves behind the meanies (now meaner from being left behind). I think someone should look into that.

I came to the island a common man. I left a stick spinning champion. You know, that game where you have to spin around with your forehead on a stick then try to run back to the finish line. OK, so I’m not Alexander the Great. I ran the anchor leg on our team. We had to resort to games like this because the weather really sucked the second day we were there. Light rain all day long. ANYWAY

Winning gave us our team our pick from the bar. Now I’m not a big drinker, and apparently neither were the other guys on the team because they all ordered white wine. I, not wanting to look like a wuss and order white wine, eventually settled on a rum and coke. Something didn’t seem right…I had to pee pretty bad so I went…No, not there, in the restroom. When I got back, I found out everyone had to chug their drinks and had done so in the 30 seconds I was in the can. *Sigh* So I get my rum/coke hoping it won’t be that strong and bottoms up! It wasn’t that strong. Apparently the Fijians know how to make money by watering down the hooch. But the story doesn’t end there. That something that didn’t seem right…well it became clear what it was. Ziggy calls, just the guys, back to the center and presents us each with a beer. Fiji Bitter. This is what happens when men order girly drinks like white wine instead of Fiji’s finest. And yes, we had to chug these, too. It hit me like a flash just as I was putting the bottle to my lips. I could pretend to chug the beer. No one would really be able to tell, right? If I do it right. Struggle, move my throat like I’m swallowing, act like it burns, maybe even spill a little. I later found out that neither of the other guys drank theirs, either. My friends assured my I looked the best at faking it. Small victories.

OK, Gang...I couldn't figure out how to back date posts so that they would display the date they took place. Because of this, I'm going to put up a couple of days at a time to keep from putting up 20 pages of stuff in a single post. Here's the first stuff...Enjoy!

LEAVING TOWN

The Beginning

Why all the finality? Everything I do I keep thinking, “This is my last…” whatever. Last meal, last time to see the local news (like I ever watched it anyway), last time I eat a Whataburger (now that IS important). But it won’t be the last time. Just the last time for a while. What is it about travel that makes us act like we aren’t coming back? Maybe it’s hardwired from back when we were nomads. When travel really did mean you weren’t coming back. Who knows…

I keep thinking how our perception of time changes. Five months in Austin passes in a blink, will it work the same in down in Oz? Being here for 2 weeks feels a lot longer than 2 weeks, that’s for sure. I’ve done more in the last 14 days than I probably did all last year. Probably more a commentary on my lazy ass than anything else, though.

Oh, yeah...FYI in case you haven't seen my pictures of the trip yet...I shaved my head. Go ahead, reread that again. I know you don't think you read it right, but you did. Every once in a while I have to do something to keep people guessing. I want to be dependable, but not predictable. Plus, I figured if my hair was going to leave me I would get rid of it first. Take THAT hair! I mention this here because I keep forgetting. I'll get used to it, I guess.


Sunday, July 27, 2003

Just in case anyone does, in fact, stumble on this site before I actually post anything to it, here's the deal...

I'm creating this for my friends and family to keep up with what I'm doing while I'm studying in Sydney. This keeps me from having to send out tons of individual emails (bad for me) and keep you guys from having to get annoying, non-personalized mass emails (no fun for you).

Right now I'm working on catching up with my entries for the last 2 weeks so give it a little time. I can't promise any of it will be interesting, funny, or even worth reading, but I CAN promise...well, that you won't know it for sure until you actually do read it.