Traveling and Fiji Day 1 & 2

Travel day: February 13th, February 15th (We completely missed the 14th) 

The travel time, though it was 23 hours, truly wasn’t bad! I think the most antsy I got was during the first 4 hour flight from Houston to LA because I got super hungry towards the end of the flight. After I got off the plane in LAX I immediately got some pizza, and after that the time passed pretty quickly. During my 7 hours layover I watched some videos on my phone, did some of my readings for classes in Fiji and then headed to my gate. The international terminal in LAX was really weird. When your first enter, it is filled with designers stores and lots of food options and it looks how you would imagine an international terminal in a big city, however as I kept walking and walking and walking and took numerous turns down weird hallways, I finally reached my gate and it felt more like I was in a warehouse than in an airport. I met up with the other girls in my program and then grabbed some dinner while they watched my luggage for me. Then we all loaded onto a shuttle and they took us to our plane where we began our 11 hours and 30 minutes journey to Nadi, Fiji.

For the first two hours of the flight, I continued my readings for my Fiji classes and then I got ready for bed and tucked in for what was 7 hours of me trying to sleep. I know I did get some sleep because I would wake up occasionally, but I spent more of the time laying awake, trying and failing to get comfortable. After about 7 hours of that, I finally gave up and went into the bathroom and got ready for the morning and got back into my Fiji readings for the last 3 hours of the trip. Once I had all but one reading left, I packed all of my stuff up and listened to an audiobook about Australia that Mrs. Flores recommended to me. After we landed at around 7 am, our group met back up right outside the plane and we headed to customs and, though we had messed up our forms a little bit, thankfully Fiji still let us all in! 

Day 1: February 15th

After we got through customs, we quickly found a man holding up a AIFS sign. He introduced himself as Roland and said he and the woman with him, Ann, would be helping us out this week. We later would discover that Roland and Ann, much to our enjoyment, often playfully bicker back and forth (let it be noted Roland is very gay) so they have kept us laughing at their witty jabs the entire trip. From the airport, we went in two shifts over to the Trans International Hotel; I was in the first group, and we hung out in the lobby and waited for the second group.

Once the second group arrived, Roland told us we could head to our rooms to freshen up, which we discovered required us lugging all of our luggage up the stairs to our third floor room, and then we went to go grab breakfast. After breakfast and some wifi time in the lobby, we had a few hours to spare, so we all put on our swim suits and jumped into the questionably dirty hotel pool. We spent time getting to know each other and then went to shower/get ready for lunch.

We had multiple options for lunch, and I was excited to see buttered chicken with rice on the menu, and thankfully it was delicious! After lunch we headed out to the Sri Siva Subramania Swami Temple, which is the largest Hindu temple in the southern hemisphere. We had to cover up our shoulders and our legs with jackets and wraps provided by the temple and we also had to take our shoes off. While our guide was giving us our tour and explaining the many colorful painting on the ceiling, he cut his foot open but continued to give the tour while tracking blood around. At one point he tried to go mop up his blood prints, but when we walked by later they were still there, so that was pretty weird and a bit concerning. When we were done, we took some pictures outside the temple, because pictures weren’t allowed inside the temple. Also, while we were there we saw the teeniest kitten wandering around and so I, of course, had to snap a few pics.

After that we wandered around downtown Nadi for a bit and then loaded back in the van and headed back to the hotel. When we got back most of the girls went to the bar, and after sitting with them for a bit, me and my roommate went back to our room and worked on our homework for Fiji classes. We had dinner at 7pm and then after dinner everyone went back to their rooms to get ready for bed. Luckily, my mom bough me some jet lag pills that worked wonders, and considering the time change and lack of sleep I got, I was feeling like I would on any normal day; however, I didn’t have any trouble falling asleep that night at 9:30 in our rather uncomfortable beds.

One of the most surprising things I discovered about Fiji is just how much it rains here! I would say about 75% of the day it was raining at varying intensities. And then when it isn’t raining, it’s incredibly humid. Since I got off the plane I have felt almost constantly damp, especially whenever I go outside. At first it was a bit annoying, but after a while I just kinda got used to it, especially as I look around and reflect on how incredible Fiji is and how lucky I am to be here! And let me tell you, nothing feels better than a nice cold shower after a sweaty day. 

*Funnily enough, all we drink here is Fiji water! (tap isn’t safe for drinking)*

Day 2: February 16th

I woke up this morning at 7:15 and I think this may be the first time I’ve ever done that on my own. My roomie had woken up a bit before me, so we both got ready for the day, packed up and then headed down to breakfast. After breakfast we all loaded into the van and started driving towards Suva. We stopped about an hour into the trip to visit the Sigatoka Sand Dunes. From the initial uphill climb, in the intense humidity and heat, we all realized this wasn’t going to be a leisurely tour. From the heavy breathing behind me about 2 minutes into the trip, I could tell we were all a bit out of our comfort zone.

*Climbing the first hill*

It was very reassuring, once we crested the first hill, when our tour guide stopped and remarked how uncharacteristically humid and hot it was. Also, Ann and Roland, who are both from Fiji, were dying along with us, so we knew we weren’t just being dramatic Americans. Once we hit the beach the walk was pretty flat, which was greatly appreciated, but we were all still pouring sweat. However, the beach was absolutely stunning and we were all really happy that after over a day in Fiji we were finally seeing our first beach!

After our hike we all went into the bathroom to try to freshen up, not that we accomplished much but it made us feel better. Then we loaded back into to the blissfully air-conditioned van and headed to lunch. After about 30 minutes we arrived at a beach resort where we would be having lunch, and after ordering we all wandered over to the beach for a while. Finally, around an hour after ordering our food, our waiter began bringing out the food, however, it took around 15-20 minutes for all of our food to arrive. Almost everyone eventually gave in and began eating, but I wanted for the last girl to get her food and was rewarded with a cold pizza :(. I was surprised the food took so long for a group of 10 when the restaurant was practically empty other than us, but as our guides continue to remind us, everyone here operates on “Fiji time”. After lunch we all got back in the van and finished our trek to Suva. We arrived at the university we would be studying at (The University of the South Pacific, a university owned by 12 countries, with 14 campuses), which is where our host families came to pick us up. After a short wait, me and two other girls, Rian and Marissa were the first to get picked up by our host mom and then we made the quick trip over to her home. Our host family home is wonderful and spacious and she has a nice big family that immediately made us feel at home, however, we were a bit disappointed to discover that they had no wifi or air conditioning. We spent some time getting to know our host mom and then I headed to the bathroom to take a much needed shower. After my shower we took a walk to the nearby shopping center to buy sim cards because not being able to use our phones was getting old fast. We got a bit lost looking for the place we needed to go, but after running into our host sister in the grocery store, she pointed us in the right direction. I was pleasantly surprised by how cheap the sim card was ($12.70 in Fiji dollars which is about $6.50 in US dollars) as well as 4.5GB of data ($8 Fiji dollars, so about $4 US dollars). I am still using my data limitedly because the point of this trip isn’t to sit on my phone all day, but it is really nice being able to communicate with people from home every now and then when I turn my data on. Thankfully, when we are at the university on Monday and Tuesday morning we’ll have wifi, so my goal is not to have to buy more data, but if I do it’s super inexpensive, and they have places to recharge your sim card everywhere. After we walked back, our host mom treated us to some homemade Chinese food and it was delicious!

She is an amazing cook and so sweet, so we already love her. Also, right next to the home there are some bats eating out of a fruit tree and since we ate outside and they leave all the doors to the porch open here, we have been hearing the sequels of bats all evening which was a pleasant surprise. Furthermore, we had observed some little lizards crawling around on the high ceilings in the living room, which we have come to realize is pretty normal here after we also saw lizards crawling around on all the walls outside our hotel room. Our plan for tonight is to do some journaling (we have daily journals that are 70% of our grade for the classes we are taking here), the other girls are going to shower off, and then we’ll probably have an early bedtime because we are all exhausted. Thankfully our rooms have fans for each bed, but we’re all still a bit worried about the heat tonight because we’ve been pretty hot the entire time we’ve been in this home. We even had one point that we were all sitting on the couch together taking turns fanning each other!

However, I am lucky because I’m coming from Texas, while the two girls staying with me are from New York and Wisconsin, so they just came from snowy and freezing cold conditions, so the heats been a bit shocking to them. Tomorrow, we are spending the day with our host family, and I’m not feeling like I’ll have to opportunity to go to mass, but considering the circumstances it is what it is. Luckily the other girls on the trip are either staying with out host moms sister or her niece, so I think we are all going to spend the day tomorrow as a big group. Someone had even said that we may go to the beach or a pool, so if we do that should be fun!