After celebrating the end of finals (this semester's divided into two sections, in case that was unclear) at Broadway, our favorite spot to relax (pizza, beer, outdoor seating...you can't get anything better) we started getting ready for the parade around 3. Brittany has an internship with Clover Moore, the mayor of Sydney. Long story short she was invited to walk in the parade, and was welcome to bring friends. So by this indirect lucky connection we were able to participate in a once in a lifetime kind of event. While other people lined the streets for hours waiting for the parade to begin, we were instructed to show up at the park around 4 pm dressed in white tops, black bottoms and anything else we felt inspired to wear.
We had shopped earlier at Bi-Lo for cheap costume jewelry, etc and by the time 3 rolled around, we were ready. After putting on tons of cheap, colorful necklaces, star stickers all over our faces and arms, and rainbow headbands we headed out, meeting up with the rest of our group at the park. We were given wristbands (so VIP) and told by one of our groups' members that it would be a few hours and that we should feel free to relax at a nearby bar until the festivities began.
I should make clear that Mardi Gras in Sydney is not like U.S. Mardi Gras. It's more of a gay pride, LGBT kind of thing. A lot of drag queens, women covered in nothing but gold body paint and men dressed as promiscuous police cops. And as I waited at the bar I looked behind me, my vision blocked by the most extravagant feather getup I've ever seen. Turns out his name was Jacky...figures. He was surrounded by yellow, pink and blue feathers, white poodle wig and all. It was ridiculous and very telling of what the next few hours would be like.
We went back to the line and waited. For a long time. The whole experience was thrilling, though. Every once in a while music would start blasting and the waiting parade members would join in a massive dance party to Bad Romance or Sandstorm. A few times I looked beyond the fenced off area to people on the streets, looking from their windows and realized, I am in the parade. I get to be in the parade, these people are watching us. It was an exhilarating feeling.
Once the parade began we took our positions, grabbed rainbow flags and Clover Moore signs and got ready to start walking/dancing. In front of us was a choreographed dance to Eye of the Tiger and a giant paper mache tiger float. Even with our colorful sashes, rainbow headbands/necklaces and whistles we were probably the most conservative group in the parade.
We had been told prior to marching by one of our groups' members that we should "interact with the crowd as much as possible. They are hear to watch us perform, and that's what we need to do. If you are inspired...if you make eye contact with someone in particular and feel an urge to run up and hug them, do it. Hell...I've been known to kiss random people before. Have fun, let loose."
With these words in mind, we went crazy. We danced, jumping and spinning around, waved at everyone, beaming the whole time. We would sometimes run up to the side and start running, giving everyone a high five along the way. I hugged a few people with outstretched arms. We all agreed that by the end, we felt like celebrities and for no good reason. It was an incredible high. Everyone was out to have a good time and the mood was beyond joyful. Everyone just seemed to love everyone and the atmosphere was contagiously positive.
Still dancing at the end, we were exhausted and still had more to the night ahead of us. Brittany had been told that we were invited to Clover Moore's house for cocktails. So after walking down the streets of suburbs for what seemed like hours, we finally arrived. At the mayor of Sydney's house. Again....a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Her house was surprisingly normal. There was a cozy outdoor patio area, illuminated by dim lights and surrounded by a thick wall of trees and bushes. People helped themselves to wine and champagne in the kitchen. We all seemed absurdly out of place for such a nice home, sweaty and donned in rainbow attire. Of course, everyone looked like this and as a result, it eventually felt normal.
I shook Clover Moore's hand and thanked her for welcoming us to her home. Later on in the evening, she even came over to us to talk for a little bit. Of course, conversation was short as we were all petrified to say anything that risked us sounding like total idiots. After a brief discussion about vegetarianism, she went on to talk to other people she undoubtedly knew better. We left early, not wanting to overstay our welcome and left thinking, "we were just in the mayor of Sydney's house...for cocktails. Incredible.
I suppose to give myself credit, there was not much time between that night and the next morning when I woke up at 5:30 am to blog about Mari Gras. Which brought me to blog about it now. Which leads me to go on about Fiji.
After packing quickly the next morning (I always procrastinate packing until the last minute), we met in the lobby at 6:30 for our 8:15 am flight. We groggily took a taxi, went through security and got on the plane. As soon as I got on I instantly thought, yes. It was a VAustralia plane, part of Virgin Airlines. Remembering Virgin from spring break last year, I knew this would be a cushy flight. Not to suddenly be an advertisement for Virgin Airlines, but they are great. In-flight entertainment including screens on our seats to watch movies and listen to music for free, etc. Not to mention "Party in the USA" was playing as we walked on the plane which, albeit really strange, was hilarious seeing as we've been trying to get bars in Sydney to play the song since we've arrived in Australia. Without luck, anywhere.
Anyway.
Four hours later and two hours ahead of Sydney time Sarah, Brittany and I arrived in Fiji, went through customs and were greeted by a giant "Bula!" sign. The first "Bula!" of many. We waited for a good amount of time for a shuttle before someone informed us that shuttles run few and far in between, and taking a taxi would cost very little. It was only about six Fijian dollars to get to our SkyLodge hotel, which is actually about three U.S. dollars. Side note: that was one of the best aspects of our trip, the way everything was actually half-price in a way.
A few minutes later, we arrived at our hotel, a place for backpackers connecting from Fiji's mainland, Nadi, to the islands. It was nice enough, but nothing too remarkable. The weather didn't help. It was a rainy, humid Sunday, making it hard to get too incredibly excited for the week seeing as there had been monsoon warnings up until our departure.
After dropping off our luggage in our room, we decided to venture out into town to see if there was anything interesting to explore/anywhere to eat. It only cost a dollar to go into town and pretty soon we were on our way.
There ended up not being much to the town, a fairly long strip of low buildings, all closed because it was Sunday evening. We eventually found a restaurant after a little bit of walking, one of the people who worked there standing outside from the lot, beckoning us in. Our waitress was really nice, teaching us not only that Bula meant hello, welcome, and a bunch of other things along that line but that "thank you" is "venaca" and "goodbye" is...something that I don't remember. Then she asked if we had tried Kava before, which ended up being a big ceremonial drink in Fiji.
After we finished our meals, she motioned us to follow her. We crossed the street, up the stairs in an alley and right as we were about to start feeling uneasy we were brought into a shop that sold local artwork and other souveniry-type things. People I'm assuming were her friends welcomed us in, and told us that we had to be welcomed properly to their country. So, sitting down on a mat we waited as one of the people made us Kava in a giant wooden bowl. After clapping and jumping through other ceremonial hoops, we each took turns drinking the stuff. None of us really liked it at all, but it was a nice gesture. Of course, after the man said that the Kava was on him, and after he pulled necklaces from the wall declaring that these were also on him, we knew we had to buy something. Still, I knew I'd have to keep my backbone to keep from getting scammed. Sure enough, he tried to rip us off by offering to carve our names in wooden blocks "for our family" for about $90.00. I said "no, thanks," stuck to a $20.00 jewelry box and, although he was clearly annoyed with me we got out of there and took a taxi back to our place.
The next morning we got up early to catch our bus to the boat docks which led us to the islands. After getting off the bus and reaching into my pockets I realized that I left my phone on the bus, but at that point there was nothing I could do about it. Even though there was no way I would be able to use my phone in Fiji, I had been using it as a way to keep track of time. For the rest of the trip, I really did feel cut off from the rest of society, being without phone, Internet and now, any way of keeping track of time. Despite the frustrations of losing my phone, that aspect was actually really nice.
After getting one last coffee before reaching the islands, we boarded the ferry and got settled for a two and a half hour trip. It was still raining as we left, and the weather seemed to contradict the people seeing us off, singing happily with ukuleles and guitars. Once on the boat, I realized for the first time that I somehow managed to completely disregard the fact that being on an island meant the need to provide entertainment of our own. As in, I neglected to bring any books whatsoever and ended up relying heavily on my iPod on the way over.
Our island, Waya Lailai, was eventually called out and as we "made our way to the back of the vessel" I realized that there was no close island in sight. That's when I looked down to see our luggage being thrown from the ferry to a very small motorboat, rocking in the huge waves being caused by the storm over our heads. My series of thoughts went, "oh, a boat. Crap, we're getting in that boat. Crap, that's a long jump. Crap, that boat is REALLY wet." And once we were sitting on the floor of the boat, getting soaked as the boat jumped over waves and water crashed over us, it became clear that the water was not only soaking us, but the insides of our bags as well. Luckily, the only damage made was to my passport, kind of wrinkling it up/bending it out of shape but nothing beyond that.
Eventually we jumped out of the boat and into water up to our knees, given a hand by people on the island. It was the afternoon by the time we arrived and after given a quick overview of where to put our belongings, when breakfast, lunch and dinner was served, etc, we decided to explore a little and just lay out and relax on the hammocks, despite the weather. By this point, through, the clouds were starting to go away and by dinner the sky was pretty much entirely clear.
Waya Lailai was absolutely beautiful. Facing the ocean, we could see a few other islands in the distance, while we were surrounded by remote grass-roof huts that served as reception, housing, the dining area, etc. Facing the other direction, we saw woods that seemed endless and elevated quickly to a giant mountain-type structure 1,000 feet high. It was my first time on a tropical island and definitely met my expectations.
After dinner, the Fijians of the island went through some ceremonial dance routines, such as the War Dance, the Fire Dance and the Bula Dance. We were encouraged to join in on the Bula Dance which almost everyone did enthusiastically.
The next morning we woke up early for snorkeling. This was the first time I've ever gone and it was incredible. There were tons of fish and coral (I suppose that's what you expect when you go snorkeling, but I was still in awe) and the leaders of the trip laughed as they caught fish and held them out to "friendly" sharks a few feet long. Maybe they were friendly but we decided to keep our distance.
Later on in the day we went on a Summit Walk. I expected this to be a fairly strenuous sightseeing hike. It ended up being an exhausting, straight uphill, sometimes climb where the path was unclear and dangerous. In flip-flops. We were improperly warned and for a lot of the hike I felt nervous, losing my grip on the rock as we climbed up the mountain. Still, the views were breathtaking and definitely not anything I would have seen otherwise.
The top was the bad part, though. We were instructed to put our watter bottles down, needing both hands to climb across a rooftop-shaped rock formation that plummeted straight down on either side. At this point we were 1,000 feet from the bottom and I was absolutely terrified. When it came my turn to cross I was near tears and halfway across, I had a mild panic attack, losing my ability to breathe and began crying and shaking. Still, I made it over and after a moment of recovering I was able to take in the view surrounding us. I am not going to deny that it was astounding. We could see three islands from where we sat, including the one on which Castaway was filmed. The huts that we were staying in looked minuscule from our spot, and the ocean was this amazing, bright turquoise-green-blue. Of course after ten minutes or so here, I had to cross over the rooftop-shaped formation once again, thinking the whole time to myself a combination of "don't die, don't die, don't die" and "what kind of liability concerns does this violate?" Still, we eventually made it down, exhausted and with a pretty good story to tell.
The next day we made our way a half hour out to Korovou where we were, once again, greeted by people singing and playing guitars and ukuleles for us. I instantly saw the pool and thought, "THIS is what I was expecting!"
The rest of the trip was very relaxing. I borrowed a few books from Brittany and Sarah, and we just sat out for two days by the pool, listening to ridiculous reggae/old hip-hop--think Ashanti--blasting from the speakers by the bar.
The second night there, the patio broke out into a giant dance party where everyone clammored to the bar, offering their iPods to the DJ and we danced to everything from Ain't No Mountain High Enough to I Gotta Feeling, with an overload of techno music along the way that some British backpackers seemed to be particularly fond of. It was all perfect: dancing in massive circles together under a completely clear sky with a view of the ocean that seemed to go on forever, surrounded by palm trees and colorful lights.
It was sad to leave but--as anyone who knows me knows--I can only spend so much time relaxing before I go crazy. By the end I was ready to move and do something other than lay out on a towel with my brain turned off. Still, I want to go back at another point in my life though I realize that, like the Mardi Gras parade, it might be another one of those once in a lifetime experiences.
Either way, having to buy a new phone aside, I'm happy to be back in Australia and I can't wait for my internship to start on Wednesday. I'll be sure to update on that as soon as it starts. Until then..
