Fiji To Melbourne

I feel like so much has happened since my last update even though it has only been a few days! My lazy day ended up being much more social than I had anticipated. I opted not to make the trek into town; spending time on a bus in 98% humidity doesn’t rank too high on my list of things to do, and decided to hang around the hostel instead.

I spent a good chunk of the day relaxing in the café since they had both free internet and air-conditioning but when the power went out I headed back to my room to read. I ended up chatting at length with a couple of my roommates, a girl from Finland and another from Germany (I can’t remember their names because I’m a horrible person) before we decided we should all go out for dinner together.

The person who sounded like they were dying in the bathroom earlier that morning had checked out and since the bathroom wasn’t completely covered in either feces or vomit I figured I would never find out what happened in there but I was wrong. One of the girls who had just checked in to our room was actually friends with the dying guy and invited him to join us for dinner. It turns out he was actually having a seizure on the floor of the bathroom. He was very embarrassed and I felt like an asshole for assuming he was experiencing explosive diarrhea and not checking to see if he was ok after hearing those moans/screams but we were both able to have a bit of a laugh about the whole thing after a quick chat.

We went to the resort next door for dinner and ended up waiting over an hour for our food, which was pretty ridiculous. I know Fiji runs on “island time” but we ordered two burgers and two soups, and the amount of time we waited was not acceptable. And they staggered the delivery of the food so we weren’t even all eating together. It was a good opportunity to chat with some new people though so I guess it’s not all bad news.

The following day I had another lazy day. Part of me wishes I had done more exploring while I was in Fiji but the other part of me knows I went to Fiji specifically to relax so I shouldn’t feel guilty about it, especially since the next few weeks are going to be so action packed I’ll barely have a chance to catch my breathe in between adventures. I would have preferred to do my relaxing in the sun but didn’t want to get burnt worse than I already was so avoided being outside as much as possible.

When it came time to head to the airport I made my way to reception and asked them to order me a taxi. The receptionist proceeded to walk down the street and talk to someone in a car. She then walked back and told me that was my taxi. The word “taxi” did not appear anywhere on this car, nor did it have a meter inside of it so I was slightly uncomfortable getting into this strangers car and this feeling was only amplified upon the realization that my seatbelt didn’t work. The drive to the airport took so much longer than I remembered so I was starting to worry that I was right to be wary about getting into this unmarked car. I was probably minutes away from a major freak-out when we finally arrived and was incredibly relieved when he actually charged me the previously agreed upon rate.

The airport, much like the rest of Fiji runs on island time so checking in took ages but since I was nice and early (as always) I had plenty of time to spare after clearing security. The airport in Nadi is also quite small with very few shops and not many food options so the wait seemed to drag on. The flight wasn’t much better as it was lacking in entertainment even though it was a 5-hour flight.

The real fun started when I landed in Melbourne. I was able to bypass immigration by using the self-serve machine and while it was nice not to have to wait in line, I didn’t get a new stamp in my passport and that made me sad. After collecting my bag I joined the ridiculous line for customs. It looked like the line zigged and zagged for miles and I was starting to think I would be spending the night at the airport when after a zag I realized that most of the people I thought were in front of me were actually in a separate line and I was only minutes away from being able to leave the airport.

I missed the airport shuttle bus I was hoping to take thanks to the couple in front of me who felt the need to ask a million questions. I still don’t understand what they needed clarification on. The bus is $18 one-way or $30 return and travels from the airport to Southern Cross Station with no stops in between. It doesn’t seem like rocket science but they asked questions for a solid 5 minutes while the bus I had hoped to be on drove away.

Even with the lineup at customs and the couple who asked a million questions I still managed to make it to the station in time for my train to the hostel but only just. I ran through the doors and they closed about a second later. I was so relieved to be on this train. It was the last one of the night and if I didn’t catch it my options were to walk a kilometer in the dark in an unfamiliar area or get a taxi and I’m not a fan of spending money so I wasn’t a huge fan of either of those options.

The next day I woke up bright and early to meet up with my friends April and David. We all worked together back in Blackpool and it has been almost three years since the last time we saw each other so it was great to catch up! We started our day by taking a scenic ferry ride down the Yarra River and ended up in a hipster neighbourhood where we grabbed an ice cream. To be completely honest April and David did such a good job of showing me around the city I can’t actually remember everything we did. We walked through some of the shopping streets, checked out some awesome graffiti, ate some yummy pasta, and took a stroll along St Kilda beach. My favourite part of our day together was probably the evening. David has recently started to LARP (live action role play) as a hobby and it just so happened to be LARP night in Melbourne.

Since David is such a wonderful host he had originally planned on skipping this week’s session but I was so intrigued by the whole thing I pretty much insisted he go. I spent a good chunk of the day asking him questions about the different characters people dress up as and the different rules and I think he thought I was taking the piss but I really wanted to know more about it. It turns out LARPing is crazy popular and there were about 300 people at the sports oval by the time the main event kicked off. Some of the costumes were really impressive, others were funny, and most of the girls were dressed like prostitutes.  David told April and I that all costumes needed to be historically accurate so April and I had a lot of fun picking them apart while we were waiting for the action to start. We decided that as long as you had an interesting enough back-story you could dress up however the hell you wanted and no one would care. I also learned that the white tarp in the middle of the field was a bottomless pit and the pylons on the ground marked out a river and only people with a limited amount of armour are able to cross the river and others sink and die if they were to fall in. The fighting was much slower paced than I had imagined so it wasn’t much of a spectator sport in that aspect but it was still a great time!

After one round of LARP capture the flag April and I decided we had had enough fun for one day and she took me back to my hostel. I know I have done a terrible job of describing our day but I saw a lot and got to spend time with two great people so I was a pretty happy panda at the end of the day. I was also exhausted and needed to be at a bus stop by 7:15 so I grabbed a shower and crawled into bed.