Exploring Suva and life on board

June 16, 2007 Suva

So I slept pretty good, got up with the sunrise at 7. While at port two people sleep on deck like a watch, which seems cooler than down below…I might try that out soon. This morning after breakfast at 8:30 (everything is timed) we had acting class at 9:00. There are a few characters on the boat for sure! Acting class is a hippy mix between pilates, yoga, and raiki I take it. It lasted for a good hour and a half and I was beat! You want to move your body is all weird ways and stretch everything including your voice. Pretty interesting no doubt. I did okay, the guy in charge of the class kept pushing me along with the other newbies to stretch more. I just had to laugh it was too funny. Today James, Julia, and Agate went into town in the afternoon to get some fruits and veggies in the market for the ship, send some emails, and exchange some money. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but the races of the people here are really diverse for such a small country. There are Muslims, Hindus, and Christians; so the people are a mix of Indian, Islamic, and Fijian. You can definitely see the differences in the people walking around Suva. Their market was like a normal fresh fruit and veggie market I’ve been to before. I’ll eventually figure out how to get this blog posted, I tried to do it on the internet today…but with no luck. Hopefully I can get this online before Wednesday when we leave port for a while for the island of Gau pronounced Now. Its about 60 km? and its supposed to be beautiful diving. I went out to explore Suva nightlife tonight with 11 people from the boat (we all were in one load in the dinghy!). First we went to this local Fijian bar/nightclub that was real low key with black Fijians, and if big burly, drunken locals asked you to dance, you had to, to be courteous. They kept picking on me asking me to dance! It wasn’t close dancing with drunkards and you only had to dance one song as the dance floor was cleared after every song…so it wasn’t too bad. After that bar we headed up the road to Purple Haze an Indian night club. Everyone was Hindu or Muslim (well besides us), and dancing with a nice guy from New Zealand, I found out that it was a pick up bar where there are lots of guys looking to pick up girls for the night. Great! LOL It was fun dancing there, because they played American music. I was cracking up watching the older officers of the boat dance to these rap songs. There were men dancing with men/boys dancing with boys everywhere though, I could have swore it was a gay bar. I’m still trying to figure out people on the ship. If anyone is coupled up or married…I haven’t really asked yet. Last night I did find out that Julia and James get together (which I never would have expected, since she gets so bent out of shape when he and Matt joke with her, whatever!) We got back to the boat about 2:30, so we are all pretty tired this morning. I did try and pace myself last night, so I didn’t get drunk and stupid with these people I just met…it worked out good, I’m not hurting too bad this morning.