Tonga: a novel

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, and welcome once again to my blog. Speaking of blogs, ever thing of the word blog? I mean, its kind of a strange word. Blog. Sit under a willow tree and contemplate the meaning. Is it a verb? A noun? An adjective? All of the above? Can a person be bloggy or blogish? "Hey have you met that new kid Carson? He's a real blog."

Right, enough of my mindless rabble. Lets get to it. This time, I will be informing you of the events that took place during my mid-semester break trip to the Kingdom of Tonga. First off, a little bit on the history of Tonga. The entire Kingdom is comprised of 170 some islands in the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line. Due to the fact that it is so close to the line of date, it is the first country to greet the new day. Pretty cool in my opinion. More facts. The population of the 170 some islands is roughly 105,000 and 40 some of the islands are inhabited. Also, it is the only country in the Pacific to never have been colonized. Thats enough facts for now. I am going to break my journey up into each individual day in an attempt to keep all parties involved in an organised mindset, myself included. Shall we?

Friday

The journey all began on a friday afternoon. Megan, Jesse, Brittany and myself walked our rears down to the train station to catch a 2 o'clock bus bound for Christchurch. At the train station, we convened with Trevor and hopped on the bus. We set out on a nice long bus ride with a not so nice bus driver. He was kind of a dick, but thats beside the point. And his music taste was comparable to that of a 13.6 year old girl, or Trevor. The bus ride was pretty uneventful and boring. The majority of my time was spent doing sudoku puzzles and napping. After about 6 hours, we arrived in Christchurch and met up with the twins, John and Michael. We all got some much needed dinner and then returned to the cathedral square to wait for a bus to the airport. While we waited, we did some "hardcore parkour" as we liked to call it. This

involved jumping over some benches and stairs and people and all sorts of good fun. Great way to amuse ourselves. Jesse and I were a good team, as is evident in the picture.

Moving on! A little bit later me snagged a bus to the airport, where we would be posting up for the night. Sleeping in an airport is just oh so much fun. Not. It was fun at first but then it got pretty annoying. You see, the airport never sleeps. People were moving about all through the night, being very loud at some points. The picture here shows the port at like 4 in the morning, or something like that. Oh, almost forgot, all the hardcore parkourers met up with Olivia, our little British friend, in the airport. The more the merrier.

Saturday

Time to start flying. Our flight left Christchurch at like 11 or so in the morning, I can't remember exactly when, but its not very important either way. We got our bags checked, watched a movie and then got on the plane. Whilst in the air, I started reading a book I got for Christmas in 2007. Huzzah! I told you I would start reading it eventually, Mom. The flight was pretty uneventful overall and we made it safely to Auckland. We had like an hour layover in Auckland so we hit up some lunch and the duty free store before heading to our gate for the final leg of the journey. Time for the flight to Tonga. This flight was longer than the first. About 3 hours or so. It was alright though cause I watched Where the Wild Things Are for the first time. I found that I really enjoyed it. Its a very simple story about living and imagination with an absolutely perfect soundtrack. Check it out sometime. We also got fed some dinner and it was surprisingly good for airplane food.

Upon arrival in Tonga, we got in line to go through customs. A very lax process I might add. There was one pretty amusing aspect to it though. When I stepped up to the desk, the woman asked me to remove my hat, as I usually do for customs checks. So, my hair was kinda messed up underneath and the woman chuckled, looked at my passport and says, "you are a boy, but, you look like a girl." Schweet. Welcome to Tonga, Dane. Whatever, I actually found it very amusing and so did everyone else. Later that week I was told by one of the dudes from the resort that I should have said in response, "well, you are a woman, but you look like a man." Probably wouldn't have been the best thing to say, but still a witty response. Onward I say! So John, Michael and Jesse all went off the the resort they were to stay at and we got in the shuttle for ours. Olivia had stayed in NZ for another day to go to her Kiwi host's 21st birthday party. The ride to our resort was not the best, let me just say that. Reason: we hit a dog. Drug it a

little bit as well. Yeah, it sucked. We couldn't stop either which made it even worse. Needless to say, Trevor, Megan, Brittany and myself were a little shaken up as a result. We made it to the resort though, with the intention of never using that taxi ever again. She gave us her card but we never used it. So we checked in and got taken to our little bungalow/hut type thing we were to stay in for the week. Cool little place. Side note: it was night time when we arrived and thestars were really, really bright and beautiful. Once we got situated we returned to the main building area and played some cards, ate some toasties and conversed until it was time to hit the hay.

Sunday

We awoke sunday morning to some gorgeous weather. It was like 80 with a slight breeze to make it very comfortable. We got some breakfast and I discovered that a continental breakfast is toast. Just toast. But that was absolutely fine because it was lot of really good toast with some jam and butter. Time to go to mass. Thats right, I actually went to church that day. The reason I went was I wanted to experience a little bit of Tongan culture. Religion is very big in Tonga so I figured I'd go and check it out. The singing at mass was the most beautiful church music I have ever heard. Everything was spoken and sung in Tongan so I didn't understand a word, but the singing was so good. I can't even describe it, but believe me, it was good.

After mass, we went back to Keleti, our resort, and headed for the beach. The beach there was unlike any I had ever been to. The water was very blue and there was a wall of coral about 100 feet out or so that the waves would break against. It was super cool. Righto. We took a dip and then went to explore some coral. Wandered around on the super sharp coral for a while and found some cool schtuff before returning to the beach. By the way, I had some dope water shoes so I could go absolutely anywhere. Never thought I would describe water shoes as dope, but they were very nice to have on this trip.

While we sat on the beach, Trevor and I invented a new game. Crazy coconuts. How do you play crazy coconuts you might ask. Well, I'll try and explain. It involves a big stick (roughly 5 feet in our case), 5 smaller sticks and a coconut with a hole on one end. Put the large stick standing straight up in the sand and place the coconut on top in a precarious position. Then, back up about 10-15 paces with the 5 smaller sticks. Then, one at a time, throw the smaller sticks at the big stick with the coconut on top. The whole objective is to try and knock the coconut off the big stick. If you land a small stick in the circle around the big stick, you get one point. Hit the big stick, you get 2 points. Hit the big stick, and have the little stick land in the circle, 3 points. Lots of sticks involved in this game. If you hit the big stick and the coconut falls off, you get 4

points. Finally, if you hit the big stick, have to coconut fall off and the small stick land in the circle, receive 5 points. There, that is how you play crazy coconuts in a nutshell, or a coconut shell for that matter. How do you win? Be the first one to rack up 21 points. Trevor and I played a lot throughout the week. I had the highest scoring round in crazy coconuts history when I got 14 points with the 5 small sticks. Not to toot my own horn, but, toot toot.

After a long day on the beach, we all got some sunburn. Trevor and I were extra crispy. The only reason we all got burnt was we only had a small amount of sunscreen and could only apply it to our faces. Ouchies. My shoulders and back were pretty toasted, but you deal. After some delicious dinner, courtesy of Jennifer, the cook at Keleti, we started playing banana grams. Its a lot like scrabble, but much more exciting and fun. The competition was pretty intense with Trevor and I rarely winning. It was a lot of fun though. We also played some card games that involved the usage of some not so nice words, but it was a lot of fun to just yell at each other in the process. This continued into the night until it was time to get some schleep.

Wow this is a long post. Persevere!

Monday

Sunny skies and warm weather greeted us once again on monday morning. After the four of us rallied and showered(ie, jumped in the ocean), we got some breakfast and looked out on the ocean. Whilst scanning the horizon, we saw a few whales. At first, you could only see when their blowholes spouted out water, but we even saw one jump out of the water. It wasn't super close to us, but we were able to see that the entire whale got air born and out of the water. Pretty cool thing to witness, let me tell ya. Once we were satisfied from our meal, we asked if we could get a ride into town so we could get some necessary goods from the store. So we hopped in the car and headed down the road in search of some sunscreen, water and a select few other things. We rolled up to this cool little store and entered. When we started to look around for stuff, I noticed how inexpensive certain things were. You know those giant bottles of Fiji water? Yeah, well at home they are usually like a bajillion dollars too expensive for water, but in Tonga a large bottle cost only $2.50, which translates to approximately $1.30 US. Also, toothpaste was incredibly cheap as well. Anywho, we got our goods and returned to the motorized vehicle. Pina, the girl who pretty much runs Keleti, then gave us a ride to Otuhaka Resort so we could meet up with the other peeps we traveled with. We met up with Jesse, Michael, John, Olivia and Jake and decided we would spend a few hours just kickin it on their beach. Time to swim. A decent way away from the beach, the surf was breaking, so we decided to meander out there and check it out. It was pretty far out but real easy to get to because you could just walk the entire way. Some people eventually gave up though and just hung around in the water. Jesse, Trevor and myself decided to continue onward and get to the waves. So, we get there and its pretty darn choppy. I start to notice that I have absolutely no control of my positioning in the ocean. At this point, it was no longer shallow enough to stand, and we were started to get pulled out to sea a little bit. Trevor and I turn to each other and acknowledge the fact that we were stuck in a pretty bad rip current, and we needed to get out of there. The two of us call out to Jesse and we all start swimming parallel with the beach to try and go with the rip. No dice. We change direction and head the opposite way. This tactic provided us with more success and we were able to slowly make progress and get away from the rip. After a little bit of swimming with the current, we managed to move in towards the shore and start to get a grip on the rocks with our feet. Once the three of us congregated, we turned to see Megan heading straight for where we just came from. Not a good place to be going. Trevor yells to Megan to start swimming parallel toward us because she was getting pulled out into the waves. She eventually makes it over to s and we explained she was caught in a pretty bad situation. She then says how she wanted to go to the waves, and the waves were pulling her closer so she just thought the ocean was making her life easier and helping her out. Not the case. We survived though and started making our way to shore. Not gonna lie, it was a bit scary for a few minutes. Trevor and I knew what to do to get out of it, but the other two didn't know until we told them. Its not cool getting pulled away from safety.

Right, so, crisis averted we got out of the water and decided to go for a little walk. About 5 of us wandered down the beach and found a few cool places and coral before returning to the group.

Back in the group, it was time to invent another game. Cocoshoes was then born. We gathered three coconuts and divided into two teams of 3 while the 3 girls sat and chatted. The way cocoshoes works is a lot like horseshoes. In fact, the rules are pretty much exactly the same, just with coconuts and two branches stuck in the ground. While we played, the dudes all decided to try and get rid of some of the unsightly and pale upper leg region. With bathing suits rolled up into short shorts, we looked pretty ridiculous to say the least. It was nice though. My short shorts counter balanced the fact that I was wearing a shirt to protect my super burnt shoulders and back. They didn't feel so good that day. Anywho, after a couple games of cocoshoes, Pina showed up to take the four residents of Keleti back to our place. Peace out Otuhaka, see you guys tomorrow.

Back at the resort, Megan went on a run while Trevor, Brittany and I chillaxed on the porch of our hut. Brittany, I just sat and Trevor made it his mission to open a coconut. You see, he had actually tried very unsuccessfully the day before so we had bought a large knife at the store to try and do work that way. HE got a quick lesson form one of the workers at Keleti and started getting the hang of opening coconuts and turning them into drink vessels. Let me tell you, the stoke factor when he got one open was quite high. Eventually it was time to stop playing with coconuts and eat some dinner. Again, we had another wonderful dinner and watched the sun set. Similar to our routine from the previous night, we broke out the cards and banana grams. We played a lot of the two games during the evenings of our trip. A couple of hours later, it was once again time for bed.

Tuesday

Tour of the Island! Vinnie, aka the man, aka our new favorite Tongan, aka a dude who worked at Keleti, took us on a tour of the entire island of Tongatapu. Tongatapu was the name of the particular island we were staying on in Tonga. First off, he took us to see the highest point in Tonga and a natural land bridge that was situated there. The land bridge was pretty cool and treacherous looking, and the highest point in Tonga was positioned atop a cliff along the ocean. Very pretty from up there. The waves were crashing down below us and the resulting explosions were quite large. The cliff side was very cool and beautiful.

We then departed and headed down the road to a cave along another shore line. The cave was pretty big and made entirely of dead coral. Kind of a creepy place because there was a stone figure of a woman lying down. The reason for this was the woman was believed to have entered the cave and died as the result of a broken heart. I forget the whole story, but that was the jist of it. Followed by the cave was a

visit to Tonga's version of Stonehenge. Like the cave, this gateway was made up of coral that had been positioned there over a thousand years ago. Its pretty crazy to think that people moved these three huge slabs of coral so many years ago. Kinda like the whole construction of the pyramids: how the hell did they do it? Further down the road, we made a stop at Captain Cook's landing. This landing was not so nice to our party. You see, Megan dropped her phone into the water. Oops. I was looking out at the water and heard a sound that sounded a lot like a camera hitting some rocks. Sure enough, it was. She dropped her camera over the railing right off some rocks and into the water. She managed to retrieve it, but it did not want to work. The memory card was salvaged though and we were able to get her pictures on the computer using another camera. So, Captain Cook, you're a bitch. Schtuff happens though.

After the lose of the camera's life, Vinnie took us into town to get some bbq for lunch. This bbq was absolutely

delicious. We picked it up from some little road side stand and feasted. Really good chicken and tapioca. Not the pudding though. I can't really describe what it was like, but it was good. We then went to something that was kind of like a farmers market back in the states. Some of the stands had really cool little souvenirs and such so we picked up a few things for our friends and families. By the way, thats Vinnie with Brittany and Megan.

Market exploration done, Vinnie took us to a beach and then to see some blowholes. Not the blowholes of a whale, but blowholes in the coral that the ocean shot out of. What we saw was not what I was expecting at all. The waves came crashing into the coral and the built up pressure from the water would shoot the water way up into the air. It was super duper cool and there were some huge waves barreling into the coast line. The dude that lived in the house kept offering to give Trevor a massage if he sat in the little stool, but Trevor wasn't feeling it. We then piled into the van and headed for home.

Upon return to Keleti, we sat around and waited for dinner. Then, our compadres from Otuhaka showed up to join us for a meal. We all gathered round a table under the thatch roof thingy to converse and eat. Again, we had another quality meal. A couple of hours later, the kiddies were picked up and Trevor, Brittany, Megan and I got together with Vinnie and another Tongan dude to have a kava ceremony. Now, kava is something that is made from the roots of a tree and ground into a powder so you can mix it with water and drink it. We gathered round the large bowl and began the ceremony. I was the first unfortunate soul to try the stuff for the first time. Its pretty disgusting stuff. Like, really gross. If you had to imagine what it would be like to drink muddy and dirty water, you would have kava. And, not only is it gross, but each time everyone fills up their container, which was pretty much a bowl, you drink the entire thing at once. Not only is it a lot of liquid to drink, it tastes really awful and we did it about 15 times. I was struggling to not vomit. I don't know why but out of the four of us Americans, I think I thought it was the worst. No one enjoyed it, but I was especially repulsed. The one Tongan dude pretty much just laughed at us the entire time. You can keep the kava, thank you very much. The concoction is supposed to make you kinda sleepy and put you in a drunk-like state. Didn't do either for me. It just made me want to spew dirt everywhere. I held it down though and we all went to bed.

Wednesday

Time to do some kayaking! Alright, so the weather wasn't too sweet on this day, but we had planned to go kayaking and by golly, we kayaked. We met up with the children from Otuhaka and got in the water. The people we rented from were real friendly and they actually lived in the states for a while. Anywho, we headed out. Olivia was kayaking for the first time and she did an excellent job in a double kayak with Megan. A short time into our excursion, it started to rain. No one cared though, it was fun to cruise around in the rain. We checked out a little peninsula thing and maneuvered through an area that reminded me a little like a jungle, or somewhere a big ass anaconda would be hanging out. We hit a fence. Well, time to climb over and get back into the open water. We then found out that silt is Brittany's least favorite sediment. When we got out of the kayaks to go over the little fence, our feet just sank in the silty bottom. Funky. Trevor had to spend like 10 minutes fishing around for his jandle(flip-flop)

but he eventually found it. We then started to get moving again, and the rain picked up. After a little bit more exploration, we decided it might be necessary to turn around and head back. Michael and I may have taken the more difficult route, but it was definitely worth it. The two of us went out into more open water and battled the choppy waves that were resulting from the rain. It was good fun and we cruised through the water with our sun glasses on to act as windshields so we didn't have to squint and stuff. We quite enjoyed our time bouncing around in our kayaks. Michael and I then decided to turn our two personal boaties towards the rest of the group. Hi-ho-silver! AWAY!!!! We all gathered on the tip of a little peninsula thing and got out of our boats. Then, the rain really started to come down. I mean the sky opened up and unleashed its watery wrath on us. Time to head back. We all scurried into our kayaks and headed for the rental place. We hustled through the rain and eventually came out on the other side of it. Strange weather. Despite the now ceased rain, we kept heading to the rental place cause some peeps had had enough. I still wanted to go check out another little island so I rallied John, Michael and Megan to go explore a little bit more. The island was just a short way from where we were, so we floated on over there. We circled the island and then headed back to the rental place and the coastline to see some cool trees. The open water was still real choppy, but much more difficult because we weren't approaching it from a straight on angle. The four of us then got out of our kayaks and waited around with the others for our respective rides to pick us up.

Vinnie showed up to get us, and Jesse came along! He was spending the remainder of the trip at Keleti with us 4. We bid farewell to our friends and headed into town to get some more bbq before returning to Keleti. Again, another tasty experience.

Back at the resort, we watched a movie and waited for dinner time, seeing as the weather outside was quite windy and creepy. Now, I usually keep these things pretty PG, but this is worth telling. We convinced Vinnie that he needed to hang out with us a drink a little bit of tequila, seeing as he served us kava the night before. Well, we played tequila slap shot roulette with our big Tongan friend. The way it worked was, someone spun a knife and whoever it pointed to had to take a shot of tequila and get slapped in the face by the person who spun. This was a hilarious experience. Imagine a large Tongan man with 3 kids hanging out with 5 twenty year olds slapping one another across the face. One of the times I spun and it landed on Vinnie. I gave him a good slap across the left cheek and we all starting laughing even more because it was the first time Vinnie was to be slapped. Well, he got his revenge. A few turns later he spun and it landed on me. Oh goodie. He landed a solid one right on my left cheek and I lost it. It was a solid strike and I couldn't stop laughing. Overall, it was great night of just hanging out with Vinnie and slapping each other in the face. Kinda bizarre, but fun.

I applaud you for making it this far.

Thursday

After the not so ideal weather on wednesday, thursday provided us with very nice weather. What did we do with that weather? Pretty much absolutely nothing. The 5 of us just relaxed on the beach all day. Megan, Jesse and I did do a little bit of snorkeling though. We decided to

check out the blue hole that was in the swimming area of our beach. The pool was about 7 feet deep and 15 feet wide in the shape of a circle. There were so many cool and colorful fish hanging out down there. It was much better than just using a snorkel around the swimming pool in your friend's backyard. There were also tunnels that went all through the coral, but we didn't have scuba stuff so we weren't about to go swimming through there. We then just explored the rest of the shallow water and found some more cool fishies and crevices made of coral. When we finished up snorkeling, Jesse and I went up onto the coral wall where the waves were breaking. I

had been up there a few days before and Jesse wanted to check it out. It was cool to stand up there and watch the waves come in and explode on the coral. Getting out proved a little tricky for Jesse as he received a nice cut behind his knee from the jagged coral. No need to fret though, we got it taken care of and loaded up with anti-bacterial schtuff. The rest of the day we all just laid out on the sand as Trevor made a hermit crab battle royale. He found a bunch of hermit crab guys and put them in a hole with a stick to climb up. It was pretty funny to see them climb all over each other as they maneuvered out of the hole.

That night brought more really good food and a whole bunch of cards and banana grams. I wasn't joking when I said we played a lot during the evenings.

Friday

Our final day in Tonga was another gorgeous one. After we had a little bit of breakfast, we hurried into town to catch a ferry to one of the smaller islands nearby. We nearly missed the

boat because it was about to leave right as we pulled up to it. A close call, but we made it. The ferry was a little boat that could fit around 20 people or so. It took us about 15 minutes to get to the island, and we posted up for the day. Right on the shore there was a little bar/restaurant type thing and a dock with a bunch of tables and chairs and such. Off to the side, there was a rope swing that I immediately checked out. Kind of strange that it swung out over the water because it was not deep enough whatsoever for you to jump off. I guinea pigged the swing though, and it was good to go for just some good old enjoyment

and swinging. When the tide came in a little bit you could even skim the water with your head or feet if your heart so desired. Mine did, and I ended up getting a head full of sand because I skimmed the beach on the way to the water. All good though, it was pretty funny.

After a little bit of swingage, we decided to take a stroll and see if we could go around the entire island. Turned out, we could. We walked along the beach for about a half an hour or so and ended up back where we started. The island wasn't too too big and it was pretty cool. Trevor and I then went into the bar thingy and found a pool table to occupy some of our time. Did I

mention the fact that the floor of the bar was sand? Well yeah, it was, and it was awesome. Any establishment that has a sand floor is a-ok with me. Anywho, we played a little pool, I lost, and we went back outside to lay on the beach. Well, I laid on the beach while Trevor found a hammock, Megan sat in a chair and Brittany and Jesse read. I thoroughly enjoy just laying on the soft sand without a towel or anything. Just straight sand is very comfortable. A few hours later, after some more relaxing and a tasty lunch, the tide was high enough for me to do a few jumps off the dock. Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy doing such things, so you can imagine I was pleased. Righto, after a few flips and checking out some fish, we made friends with a brother and sister who were from NZ. They let us borrow their snorkels, and we took turns going out to inspect a shipwreck that was right off the island. Creepy stuff. It was schweet to swim out there because the water was so clear and nice, but the whole rusty and sunken ship thing kinda sketched me out. There were a whole bunch of fish out by the wreck though and they came right up around us. I watched a school of these black and yellow dudes swim all around these 2 other peeps who were snorkeling by the ship. The coolest part for me was being able to free dive all the way to the bottom and check that scene out. It was probably like 20 down or so, but I wasn't gonna go to the deeper section by another end of the boat. So that was cool beans. I swam around for a little bit more and then got out to play some ping pong with Trevor. In the process, we befriended a little puppy dog. Looked like a mix of a black lab and something else. Trevor decided to call him Sal, short for Salvatore. He was a little baller. Shortly there after, a bell rang, signaling that the ferry was about to head back to the main island. We gathered up our schtuff and meandered onto the water vessel.

Vinnie picked us all up and we headed back to Keleti to start packing our things for departure. We had one more thing scheduled before we left Tonga though! A cultural night at the cave we had visited earlier in the week. We all bid goodbye to the fine fellows and femellows at Keleti and Vinne, along with his wife, took us to the cultural night. The fools from Otuhaka met us there and we feasted. There were like 160 people there with a buffet of traditional Tongan food. I stuffed my face with things such as octopus, raw fish, piggy that had been roasted on a spit, salad, clams, some super sweet and delicious dessert thing, chicken, potato salad and some other stuff. I returned to the buffet 3 times. Needless to say, I was quite full. After dinner, everyone made their way into the cave for a show. The show included different performances and dances about the history of Tonga. They were all very cool, especially the last one. These 3

dudes came in and whirled fire sticks around. They were doing some pretty crazy maneuvers with these flaming sticks of death and everyone ooed and ahhed. It was a pretty cool show and I'm really glad I got to experience it. After that, the cultural night was concluded and we just sat out on the sand and scoped out the stars. We saw a couple of shooting stars and Olivia was super pumped because it was only like the second time she had ever seen shooting stars. The first time was when we went camping in the Catlins. When we finished up with our star gazing, we rallied the troops and headed to the airport for our 3 am flight. Vinnie and his wife dropped us off around 1 in the morning so we could just wait in the terminal for our flight. We were all sad to say bye to Vinnie cause he was such a nice dude and he was great to us all week. I think he was a little sad to see us go because it seems like its rare to have a group like us visit the resort.

The terminal was pretty uneventful for the most part. Trevor, Megan and I all bought shirts, John bought some kava (mistake on his part) and Jesse got iced. We then boarded the flight and headed for New Zealand. Peace out Tonga.

Saturday

When we arrived in Auckland, it was about 5 in the morning because of the time zone change. During the flight, we were told about the earthquake that occurred in Christchurch. This could prove to be interesting. All the flights to Christchurch were canceled for the day and there were no direct flights to Dunedin. Awesome. We managed to rebook 5 seats for a 7 am flight to Dunedin on sunday morning and 2 seats to Queenstown for Jesse and Brittany at around 10 am saturday. So, John, Michael, Trevor, Megan and I posted up for what we expected to be a long ass stay in the airport while Jesse and Brittany hopped on their flight to Queenstown where they could catch a bus to Dunedin. Around 11:30 or so, all of us had fallen asleep, except for Trevor. Its a darn good thing he happened to be awake because he heard an announcement that they had created a direct flight to Dunedin for 12:20 that afternoon. We all woke up, Trevor explained what was going down, and we rushed to get in line to see if we could get seats. We got up to the window and inquired about the flight. We were stoked to find out that we could get on it! And it would be a free transfer! Dope sauce! We checked our bags and ran to the security checkpoint at like 12:05. Our luck had drastically turned around and we were so pumped that we didn't have to kick it in the airport til the next morning. The flight home was awesome, pretty much just because we were making it back without too much hassle. I did a little reading and before I knew it, we had arrived. The 5 of us split the cost of a taxi and made it back to Queen and Forth streets. What a way to end a crazy trip. Going to Tonga was definitely an awesome experience, and I am so glad we all had the opportunity to go together. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention one of the best aspects of the entire trip. We did not shower once all week. It was lovely. The ocean acted as our source of cleansing. I had so much sand in my hair as a result of it, but it was so nice.

Well, that concludes this addition of my travels down under. I hope you enjoyed reading this story because I really enjoyed writing about it. I'm usually not a fan of writing classes in school, but I love writing for this blog so you fools can read it. Hope you are enjoying it! Peace and love.

Oh, one more thing: just got the package Gramma, thanks a bunch. And here are some more pics for you all to enjoy.