Bula! It's how to say 'Hello'

So here I am, after finally spending a whole day resting, relaxing, and recovering, at Wailoaloa Beach Resort in Nadi, Fiji. It's not really what you would think of when you think of a resort, and it's a good 30 minute walk to the beach, but it's perfect.

Before now it's been too crazy to be blogging, here is the last week or so in review:

We had a crazy few days moving out of our apartment early, but our amazing friend Carly let us stay at her house for almost 2 weeks. We had a blast, and she even threw us a surprise going away party, complete with 4 amazing homemade cheesecakes, and a giant sheet cake with Dar and my faces on it which Emily brought. All my clothes were tight by the time we left Eugene due to the amazing way Carly fed us.

The last few days in Eugene was a mad dash finishing all the little things, and saying goodbye. Saying goodbye to family and friends in Eugene was so so hard. Not only is this move the furthest I've ever been away, I've also never left home for more than 10 weeks at a time before. This trip is really cutting the cord from home, since I never did it going to college. And I think the hardest part was facing the fact that in all likelihood, Eugene will never again be 'home' to me.... (and even though that's sad and hard, it's probably a good thing)

Last Goodbyes - Dar & I with Emily & my sister Alee

The last goodbyes to Emily, Alee, & Dar's mom at the airport were tearful, and I lost it a little as the plane took off, but when I started looking forward to adventure time, excitement took over quickly :)




Our 5 days in LA with my aunt Cindi & her husband Todd was incredible!

Todd is working for ABC/Disney at the moment on an upcoming show called 'Mistresses' so he took us on a tour of Disney Studios!

Official visitors badges!

Later in the week...

...Dar got some AMAZING Doc Brown sunglasses...

...and I FINALLY got to try on the Lady Gaga no-heel shoes. Surprisingly comfortable and easy to walk in too! Wonder if they would have let me on the plane with these...

P-P-P-Poker Face!

While we were in LA we met up with our friend Lars, went to the famous soda pop shop, visited Griffith Observatory, played with his 3D pinter, and he gave us a tour of Honeybee Robotics, where he's interning. (They make robotic components for spacecraft)

The MakerBot

Lars and I with our prized sodapop shop goods

Below is a model of Proxima Centauri (the closest star to us besides the sun) at the Griffith Observatry. It's part of a scale-size solar system, the rest of which is in Oxford, England. So stay tuned in a year when we go see the rest of it in person :)

Proof for when we get to Oxford

Yeah Science!

The Griffith Observatory is a must when in LA.

A Classic.

Oh! And was it ever hot outside! When Dar read the weather forecast earlier in the week we thought it was an error.... but I have proof! 125 F! I kind of feel like a bit of a badass for being outside in it and not dying.

I don't know how many times the travel clinic people said "Be careful of street food in foreign countries, you can end up sick pretty quickly" I even ate shrimp from a food cart earlier in the week and was fine, but somehow I managed to wake up the day we were leaving LA with food poisoning. Dar was so amazing though that day and took care of me, packed everything himself, drove around doing all the last-minute errands, cancelled with a couch-surfing host, and booked us a hotel last minute so I could take a few days to recover. Sorry no pictures from this, haha.

And after a 10.5 hour plane ride, and some help from a pack of ginger gum, we were plopped down on this little island WAY in the middle of nowhere, and WAY outside of both our comfort zones.

Fiji is a developing country. I wanted to see what it's like to live outside of a first world country, and that's what I got. It's different, and it's incredible.

The flowers here are INCREDIBLE.

I'll be honest after we got into our room we talked about how much it would cost to move our ticket to NZ forward because we didn't know if we could handle 10 days here. But after a few good walks into town (Everyone on the street greets you with 'Bula'), seeing the beautiful flowers, hearing the wacky-sounding birds, and tasting the best Indian food of my life, this place is starting to grow on me....

Rocks are even different here :)

We spent our last few hours of daylight on a walk and collected some cool shells at the beach - it was definitely NOT what I thought a tropical beach would be... tons of garbage all over, oil and pieces of plastic in the water, and cars randomly parked around on the sand, etc. I got a little edgy when cars would drive by a little too closely and slowly, and then when a feral dog followed us around for awhile. But it was definitely the local experience... that or we were in the wrong spot. Either way, the evening ended nicely, and we'll get our chance to see beautiful white sandy beaches before we leave I'm sure.