What a trip! I don’t even know where to start… After 28 hours of traveling, I arrived in Sydney where I spent 8 full days being touristy. I got to see the Sydney Opera House and the bay bridge… went to the aquarium and animal park down town. Got to browse through the botanical garden… took a tour bus to 27 different destinations throughout Sydney. I even got to go to the top of the Center Point Tower, which is the really tall building in the center of the city. The architecture was magnificent, the weather was in the 70′s when it was suppose to be in the 50′s during this time of year… One of the last days we drove outside Sydney to a zoo-like place where Cook’s Turtle (when it was alive) lived. They still had tons of native animals there, including a kangaroo petting zoo, platypuses, Tasmanian devils, and koalas. I got to pet both the roos and the koalas.
After a great 8 days with Mike and Allie, we packed up and headed to Fiji. Talk about beautiful! We stayed on the main island, at a resort right outside the town where the current president was raised. The resort was on a bay so we could see across it to the Nadi, one of the main cities in Fiji. The mountains were beyond words, and it was off season so most the time we had the resort to ourselves. On the second day we took a boat out to another island where there was snorkeling, better beaches, and more great views. We hit it off with the locals, which ended us up in town during part of a Fijian funeral (Christian, but they had some derivations) The whole town was involved, we stopped so our bus driver could pay his final respects. Two elder brothers died within days of each other.
The last day was the wedding, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. A Fijian choir as well as traditionally dressed ring bearers/flower girls. There was no rehearsal so I was freaking out that I’d mess up. Oh, and I got to sign their marriage certificate!
Anyways, I’m exhausted, and my brain isn’t fully functional due to jet lag, so sorry the brief details. I’m off to bed.