fiji!

were now on fiji time!... )this is an actual thing- its all very relaxed does it get much better?!

We got off the plane and was we walked into a wall of heat! We arrived at about 8 at night and still boiling hot :) once we walked through to baggage we were welcomed by about 5 guys in bula skirts and flowers playing a guitar and singing! how cool is that!. We found our madventurer people and then short van ride to our house. You always know its going to be a good journey when the van has a monkey for a gear stick ( that is a very weird sentence!) . Aman is the van driver,we were in amans van (it never gets boring) he drives us to coaching, eds bar etc and anywhere we need to go! Its not just any van though- blackand glittery with a monkey gearstick and good tunes :). We got to the house about 9ish and welcomed by everyone. The house is really nice- two floors,running water,balconey,pool, good tv area and a working kitchen (dont even have that at home!). That evening we were introduced to the world of grog! Its like a fiji tradition grog aka karva is made out of pepper root and basically looks like muddy water. The tradition is that you all sit in a circle wearing your sulu (like a long skirt guys aswell) legs crossed and the someone dishes bowls of it out. One at a time you clap say 'naka' (thank you) and basically down it whilst everyone watching claps 3 times.This goes on until everyone in the circle has had theirs. Then all clap 3 times and you have a break for a few minutes where you can stretch out and tell stories/ jokes etc. Then back on it! A grog session can last a WHILE trust me you think its over everything out of the big bowl is gone but they just make more can go on through the night but there really is so much grog i can take so i usually duck out after afew rounds! Its not that it tastes scabby its just leaves a really bad after taste in your mouth, makes your tongue go all numb and furry and generally makes you quite lathargic! plus after a few bowls it does get a bit gag worthy im not going to lie!

We spent the rest of that weekend generally trying to get to know where we live and have an explore! LAutoka town is actually bigger than youd expect, we live about 15minute walk from the centre. Theres a local members club down the road from where we live called The northern club which is for lautokas finest! Has a pool tennis courts etc but we generally go down in the evenings to play pool/ darts and for a drink! We also made friends with mr. president of the club- he knows us madventurers well which comes in useful- never get bored of him bringing us drinks on the house! :) . Also serves very good and cheap food which is always a bonus on weekends when Mere and Vani our amazing cooks/ cleaners are off! especially as the only food that ever seems to be in our cupboards are baked bean, eggs, cheese, noodles and bread- you can imagine what amazing food we cook up when theres no mere about!. The sunday we went to a local resort called first landing- its only about 15minutes car ride but its right on the beach. Weve been there a few times since its soo good. Has a pool etc and has a massive stretch of beach where a small bridge leads to a small manmade island(looks like its there for weddings!) which is great to watch gorgeous fijian sunset from!. If you look out ahead of you the sea is just full of tiny exotic looking islands! (we went to one of these il explain later) these are where me and luce finish our fijian experience island hopping these on safari! Fijis great for evenings in aswell, they sell these great dvds everyweher that have liek 10 films in one for like $4 ! (About 1pound!) this usually happens post eds bar!.

On the monday morning we were up early ready for coaching not really knowing what to expect! Basically what happens on a normal day is wake up and look at the notice board which tells you whos coaching at which school at which time!. For the first few days we only had one session at a school called Arya (its exam period atm hence only one session!). Aman picks us up and we go- theres 4 of us coaching football for this week so we split the kids and spend the time doing some basic drills (this is where all the years of going to football training comes in very useful thanks chris!). Most of the kids are very excitable! and some are really good. The girls go off with helen or soph adn tend to do netball or hockey so me and luce for most of teh week had 3 classfull of 9-12 year old boys! We have charlie and mike helping too which makes it easier but all the kids really want to do is play a big game. Theh first time we saw them, play was quite funny- they literally ALL run after the ball at teh same time and push each other over etc to get it- theres a lot of arguements especially as they all seem to want to go in goal which ended up with me in goal to stop the arguements! I then let a few goals in (on purpose of course!)and that shut them up and sorted that arguement out!. At the end of the week we went to a school called 'Drasa Avenue' most of the kids at this school were under 10 and so coaching tended to involve playing 'whats the time mr. wolf?!', catch, a lot of hand clappy games and generally running around aimlessly- they were quite relaxed coaching sessions to be honest!. The rest of our spare time was mainly spent mooching around town, sunbathing by the pool and evenings watching movies and going to northern club- what a hard life!. On the Thursday night we went to Eds bar in Nadi. Everyone always gets very excited about thursdays - only day we are allowed to drink in the house (pre drinks) and then we ALL get dressed up - theres a different theme each week we go to bargain box and splash out a few pounds on an outfit. This weeks theme was life guards! Eds bar always tends to be a good night- Aman takes us and brings us back- its usuallly a late one with everyone making midnight munchie meals when we get back!. On the friday night we headed down into town to Churchill park- Lautokas rugby ground to see Fiji vs Samoa- turns out the time advertised for it to start was wrong! (fiji time) so we ended up missing the first half! still it turned out to be a bit of a dodgy match- was under 21 team which we didnt know and quite a few of them had issues catching the ball! The stands were really quite empty to but was still quite a good evening!. That weekend was another quiet one again. A few of us headed into Nadi (About a half hour bus ride). We spent most of the day just mooching around the shops there and at the handicraft market which reminded me a lot of africa - lots of wooden carving and materials etc it was quite a small market though!. We then found a Multicoloured indian temple thing we me and luce tried to look around before realising you had to pay quite a bit, cameras werent allowed and you had to have shoulders and knees covered (neither of us did!) so we thought wed give that a miss - maybe next time!. We headed for some food at a pizzeria fiji style not feeling very hungry i decided not to order which turned out to be just as well! steve and james had ordered a large pizza for about $25 which is about 8 pounds and it was the biggest pizza i think i have ever seen! literally about a foot wide! so i nicked some of theirs instead!. We decided to go to northern club that night which then for some reason turned into going to eds bar again- not a good idea it turned out to be awful and very empty on a saturday- we have now learnt our lesson! The sunday was spent relaxing by the pool and sunbathing for most of the day :) A hard weeks work!

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