our weekend in the capital...

So today has been another morning at school, and the kids had a nurses visit for vaccinations, however due to the serious lack of organisation at the school, half of the kids from our class couldnt be checked as their parents didnt even know about it and therefore didnt give them permission to be checked! Their teacher Miss Linda is really worried about Swine Flu (in Fiji they are honestly more paranoid than the UK i swear!) so she was worried about the children not being checked today so hopefully the nurses will come again soon.

Anyway this weekend was such an experience (good and bad!!) We went to the capital of Suva. On the way we stopped off at this zip wire place. It took almost 2 hours to get round the whole line with 8 huuuuuge zip wires!!! it was sooo cool! The first one took you across the river, we then had to climb up the mountain abit, and the next 7 gradually took you down to the bottom again! Amie and I keep doing our geordie ant and dec impressions as everything reminds us of im a celebrity get me outa here!! We also learnt the fijian for awesome "Wananavu" which we shouted on virtually every zip wire. When we eventually made it to the city, we were excited about seeing our appartment. We were five girls and Grace had booked us our own appartment and Vanessa (whos italian) was going to cook us pasta that night...HOWEVER when we arrived that was not the case! The lady at the appartments decided to change her prices from $80 to $130! So we ended up in a backpackers hostel, (that looked like a hospital) with two japanese men and two local fijians. They were all lovely but still not quite what we had expected. Friday night we went for an amaaazing indian and then out to our first fijian club! This was our latest night so far so once we got back we were fast asleep!! Saturday morning we decided to check out of the hostel, we were meant to stay for two nights but two other volunteers to stayed with us told us about Raintree Lodge, this hotel in the rainforest so we decided to relocate there. When we returned from breakfast on Saturday morning we arrived to see a fresh fish left in our bathroom sink...the japanese men had bought it at the market that morning and moved it to the draining board in the kitchen area and started cutting it up for fresh sashimi!!! We couldnt believe our eyes, there I was trying to brush my teeth whilst this man was taking apart a fish! SO glad we didnt stay- it would have stunk of fish that night! Also forgot to say when we arrived the japanese men were asleep, it was soooo funny! we couldnt turn the lights on because we didnt want to wake them so we just sat there in the dark laughing!!! Anyway when they eventually woke up they started talking to us, asking questions, and suddenly out of nowhere one got out a harmonica!!! He wanted to play a tune from each country each of us came from (germany, switzerland, usa, england...etc) may i just add at this point he was also changing...infront of us. So i return from using the bathroom and suddenly turn to my left and see a half naked japanese man playing 'london bridge is falling down' on the harmonica!!!!!!!!! SURREAL MOMENT!!

anyway....so we left on saturday and headed into the rainforest- where it was indeed raining alot! We went to this amaaaazing waterfall and swam in the natural pools and some of our crew found a huuuuge rope swing and I have some amazing photos of people flying in mid-air! It was one of the best experiences as it was so beautiful and you just couldnt believe where you were!!! We were starving when we arrived at our beautiful lodge in the rainforest (and extremely wet and cold!) but we couldnt believe our luck when we found out they did ALL DAY BREAKFASTS!!! So we had PANCAKES!! (with bacon and maple syrup - MY FAVOURITE!) it was perfect and really warmed us up. So for the rest of saturday afternoon we got cosy in our duvets and watched dvds before an early night. Sunday just consisted of a four hour drive home!!!!! It was great though to be able to see the whole island, and we stopped to buy fresh bananas from some amazingly cute kids on the street in a small village. Sunday night was another volunteers social and Chrissy's last night so we had a huge bbq at our house (however we all ended up inside watching Sex and the City due to the rain)

The rain has definately gone now as its SOOOOO HOT TODAY!!! We are off for lunch and then BEACH TIMMMEEE!! yeyyy

hope everyone is well at home, and thankyou grandad W for my text. Grandad C I read your email to Amie so I hope you can read this blog soon!

Take care
Lots of love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx