And I'm proud to be an American...

......because at least I know I'm free...(plus we have way better food) :0)

So I ended up going to Raki Raki, the northern part of the main island, to spend a night in 2 of the other volunteers' villages. It was great, I had a lot of fun hanging out with the other vol's. One couple, Chris and Nan, have this awesome traditional Fijian home- aka the roof and walls are made of layers of leaves, grass, and weaving of leaves. They also are near to a cool river which, had I lived there, is definitely floatable w/ an inner tube. (mehhhh the Guadalupe).  On Sunday morning we were scheduled for a dive, BUT seeing as the appointments are scheduled by Fijian hands, they of course lost our reservation and so we were unable to go. So that morning started off a little crumby as we woke up super early (actually in all fairness the roosters woke me up at 4am...not the alarm) to get to the dive shop only to find out we're not going. From there we headed to a retired PCV's, John and Judy, house, where we were having our 4th of July party at. Their place was super nice- WITH a pool! We took a small boat that John had made out that morning to a deserted island. It was BEAUTIFUL, very picturesque. We napped on the beach for a bit, then Lydia and I headed out for some snorkeling. At first, it was a pretty good snorkel, pretty stuff but nothing out of the ordinary....THEN. I hear Lydia scream through her snorkel- 'Look it's an OCTOPUS!' They're unbelievably rare here because they not only can change skin color, but also change skin texture! It was SOOO COOL. We're talking Captain Jack Sparrow cool. Lydia and I (of course) picked up a stick and were gently poking it, trying to get it to come out of it's home. It was a purple, orange, and white-ish octopus (really pretty actually) and when I stuck the stick in, it grabbed on pretty hard with it's suckers! So as we're poking it....I start thinking, and the following is my random/ridiculous thought process:
'I wonder if I stuck my hand in there, will it sucker itself to me? Could I be able to pull it out? Would it ink me? I hope it does actually, then I could say I've been inked on. This thing is easily the size of my head....I wonder, if I were able to get it out and put it on my head, would it cover my whole head. Then I could be like Captain Barbosa.' Yes. I thought about all of that.

Anyways, so that super made my morning. It's legs were easily the size of my ankle and I won't forget how it shot out a 'poop string'. That's right. At first I thought it was ink, but it didn't form a cloud. It shot out what looked like a few strands of brown string about 2 feet up into the water. Then a small parrot fish came up and started eating it....so that happened. And for the rest of the day, if you had to go #2, you had to say you had to go make a poop string. :0) I love PCV's.

This is a photo that I found that is pretty close to the coloring of the octopus that we came across. Except the one we saw had a 'face' that was a dark plum with a baggy-head thing that was spotted with purple, orange, and pink. oh and the photo at the top is of Lydia and myself pointing to the area where we saw the octopus!

And for the rest of the afternoon we had REAL burgers, (although I had a Mexican veggie burger), grilled chicken- which was super yummy, POTATO SALAD, baked beans, RANCH DIP AND CHIPS, ICED TEA, and for dessert...sweet Chisu (Jesus) there was cake and ice cream, cheesecake, pecan pie, and rice krispie treats. I love america. After we chowed down, we just hung out, played some jams, shot some Fireworks!!! Which honestly, when I say fireworks in Fiji...picture the cheapest firework you can find in America...and that would be the equivalent of what are our 'best' fireworks. :0) Regardless a few of us vol's had a roman candle fight which MADE my day. Seriously, I love them.