Bula!

After two, fun-filled weeks of packing up my American life and husband, Corey and I began our journey to Melbourne. We spent our last “American” hours at the Los Angeles Airport, patiently waiting for our connecting flight to Fiji. The connection in LAX only reminded me of how much I despise the airport, and people that “secretly” cut in lines – you know those people, the ones who pretend like they don’t know what’s going on when lines are queuing up European style, and suddenly they are in front of you! The one upside was seeing Ty Pennington from Trading Spaces/Extreme Home Makeover. He totally looks the same (and by the same I mean hot) at 10pm in an airport as he does on TV.

10 hours later, we crossed the International Date Line and arrived in Nadi, Fiji for our stopover! All the international flights arrive early in the morning. On our taxi ride to Denarau Island, we saw the sky transform from darkness into a warm glow as the sun rose over the mountains. We were only at our hotel long enough to change, and grab a bite of breakfast before being whisked away on our South Sea Island Cruise.

We spent the first half of our day snorkeling off the South Sea Island, where we saw blue starfish, sea cucumber, large masses of coral formations, and really neat fish! The BBQ lunch was also spectacular for an all inclusive day trip! After lunch, we hopped back onto the catamaran, and cruised around the various islands in the Mamanuca group, picking up and dropping off passengers. Each island was distinct in its own way, but all appeared to provide nothing short of relaxation.

The captain seemed to have made more stops than were advertised on the brochure, because we returned to Port Denarau nearly 45 minutes behind schedule! It’s not a big deal if you’ve got time to spare, but we were in jeopardy of missing the only flight of the day to Melbourne! Like contestants racing for a million dollars on the Amazing Race, Corey and I rushed to find a taxi driver who could get us to our hotel and airport FAST FAST FAST! We didn’t win a million dollars, but we did make our flight!