Message in a Bottle/Ratu

After we visited Manly Beach in Sydney on Friday, April 18th we split up: Stephanie, Brooke, and Mary went back to Paddy's Market for more shopping while Erin, Megan, and I decided shopping was a bad idea because we were out of money. So the other three left us stranded; to our own to get lost. We decided to stroll around the harbor.


"Hey Erin, I think you should jump over the edge and see how deep the harbor is," said I.

"Um...okay," replied Erin.

So we move to a part where the wall is a little shorter and Erin hops over. She starts backwards-rock climbing

Then she loses her shoe. Mean while people are walking by us and wondering what is going on. We just point and say, "She lost her shoe" as if that was what took her over the wall to begin with. I took a picture of them.

Lo and behold Erin cut her foot on a shell on her way up. Yeowch!
Being a prepared girl scout I had bandaids. BUT this job was far too big for a little bandaid. NO, this is a job for tissue and ducktape.


So now Erin had her foot ducktaped together. Awesome. Except the part where she has flipflops. Flipflops with webbed toes=no bueno. Solution: use a different shoe.

Megan is easily 6 feet tall. This means her feet are bigger than Erin's feet. So Erin is wearing one of her own flipflops and one of Megan's too-big-for-her crocs. Megan is wearing her own croc and a too-small-for-her flipflop.

We continued on until we saw some rocks. I said, "Megan, I think you should climb those rocks."

"Um, okay."

So on slick rock (it had been raining that morning) and in a mismatched pair of shoes Megan crawled her way to the top.

Yay Megan!

So we kept walking and when we came to "The Queen's Chair" (a wannabe throne in the rock) we elected Megan to go ask the Asians over there to take our picture. Erin and I waited on the "throne" while Megan, towering over the woman, asked the Asians if they could take a picture of us. The Asian looks at Megan as fear overtook her. Then she got really excited, handed her own camera to her husband and posed for a picture with Megan. After the shot Megan motioned to us and indicated she wanted a picture for us. So Megan hands her camera to the Asian woman and she takes our picture.

But then the woman hands her camera to her husband and comes to be in a picture of us. And then they switched places and the woman took a picture of the man with us. And then I got up to take a picture of the man and woman with Megan and Erin and it was CRAZY! It was like we were Asian celebrities. We were laughing SO hard about how many pictures we just got taken of us.

No sooner had we walked twelve steps when this other Asian comes up to us, putting his arms around our shoulders and in a thick accent says, "Thank you! Thank you!"
"You're welcome?" And then we look up only to see ten other Asians all with their unsheathed cameras. Someone took a picture of us with the Asian and then they switched places. We must have been standing there for a good 5 minutes with Asians just swapping in and out. We laughed SO hard, trying desperately to hide it behind our fixed smiles

We continued to walk around the harbor and came to some rocks jetted out into the sea. Megan says, "I want a picture like Ariel." So off she goes to find a rock and pose like Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid.

Well that was good, but not good enough, so Megan continued to find the perfect rock. She ended up with this:While she battled the rocks Erin found Pride Rock and I found sea glass.
If you don't know much about me, know this: I hate litter. I hate the way it ruins landscapes. I hate the way it ruins pictures. I just hate it. And I know as well as anybody else that hating something does nothing to make the situation better. So I put my hatred to good use and I make an effort to pick up rubbish everywhere I go. This is me picking up rubbish in Sydney Harbor

And in my efforts to pick up trash I found a PERFECTLY GOOD VODKA BOTTLE. It was empty. It still had the lid. More importantly, it wasn't broken in the least bit. And what do three Mormons in Sydney do when they find a perfectly good vodka bottle? They send a message in a bottle. Duh.We carefully crafted a letter. This is what it read:

Getting the message actually in proved to be a bit tricky. We kept it rolled up with a hairtie, threw in an Idaho Spud pin and stuffed a trashbag in the neck so as to help prevent the bottle filling with water. We ceremoniously threw it off and watched it drift further and further praying it would make its way to Madagascar or New Zealand or at least Melbourne.

Our time together ended with us enjoying an intimate moment with the Opera House and the Sydney Bridge. Don't worry, when we met up with the other half of our six-some we bragged about our AWESOME day: first aid, celebrities, and sending a message in a bottle.

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In Fiji on Tuesday, April 22
I think I got even more bug bites in the night. After the temple today I think I'll count. We ran to the bus to go to Suva but then realized it was the wrong bus. So we sat in the lobby in the while and waited. When the correct bus finally came we all moved toward the back. I sat next to a guy named Ratu. When I asked his name I wasn't sure I heard it right. He said, "Ratu. Romeo. Alpha. Tango. Unicorn." It means chief. He's going back home to Suva. He's been gone 4 years because he's in the army in the Midlands-not London.

What I learned about him:

• He's in the army...the British army
• He's been travelling straight for 24 hours and he's so excited to see his family he hasn't been able to sleep.
• He dives, surfs, and harpoons his own fish
• He likes Backstreet Boys and Timbaland
• He's the best looking Fijian man I've seen

This picture makes it look like he has braces. I assure you he looked better in person.

Conversations we had...and just plain awkward moments:

• My favorite food is chicken fettuccine alfredo. He didn't know how to make it or what it is so I told him, "First you get chicken and you grill it. Then you cook noodles and you cover it with white cheese sauce. Eat it. And you smile for a week.
• His favorite birthday was his first...even though he can't remember it
• How to say "if you like chicken raise your hand" in Fijian
  'Kevaka o vinakata na toa laveta va ligamu"
• He showed me a British pound. I showed him my American dollar and he kept it
• Ratu told me he has a cell phone. I pretended to sound impressed. (Who doesn't have a cell phone?) Then he asked if I had one. I said no. (Who brings a cell phone to Fiji?). He asked if he could have my number. I told him he would need a calling card. He offered to give me his number. I told him I didn't have a calling card. He asked what I was doing on Friday. I said I was going to the beach with my friends. He asked if I had email. I did. I gave him my address and said maybe we could do something on Friday because he'll be down there anyway.
• He grabbed my braid and said I had long blonde hair. I rubbed his head. He has fuzzy black hair.
• When I put my hand on the seat in front of me to brace myself when the bus went over bumps he was quick to embrace my arm
• I took hold of my forearm and asked if I had good muscles. I flexed. SO naturally I did the same thing to him. Wow. The man has muscles, what can I say?
• He plays rugby and showed me the house of some Fijian who now plays for the Brisbane Broncos.
• We were talking about scars and I showed him the one I have on my lip. He touched it.
• When we stopped he put his arm around me, pulled me to the window and pointed out his mom and sister.

We got off the bus and he greeted his family while I sat with my friends. We snuck this picture of him.

I was telling the other girls how good looking he is when suddenly he appeared behind me and introduced me to his mom-who hugged me when I was going for the handshake. Then he introduced me to his sister. I went for the hug. She kissed my cheek. Then I gave him a hug and he totally kissed my cheek.

Stephanie told me he was aiming for my lips. Everyone agrees he's the best looking Fijian. They all want him to come to the beach with us on Friday.

We went to the temple and when we got back to our hotel I emailed Ratu.

The next day I checked my email.....

NOTHING! Nothing but a returned email. What? Oops. I had sent it to yahoo.com instead of yahoo.co.uk. Silly me. I quickly righted that wrong and resent my message.

The day after that (Thursday) I checked to see if Ratu was coming the next day. I opened my email and started screaming hysterically. It sounded a lot like this: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Everyone within earshot thought they knew what just happened.

"Guess what!"

"Ratu's coming!!" Oh, they were so hopeful.

"No! Even better!"

"Ratu's coming and he's bringing friends!"

"No! Even better!"

"Ratu's coming and he's bring his family and you're getting married!!"

"No! Even better! SOMEONE FOUND MY MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE!!"