It was sad to leave St Kilda yesterday. We'd been there for two months to the day, had a fabulous landlord who would just make life easy. Once you got past the Sixties boringness of the building and came inside to the top floor renovated apartment, it was like being in your own little world. The boys and I loved the bay view seeing the ships coming in through the bay and the flickering of white sails as the yachts raced each other, the night lights down St Kilda Road, the imposing bluestone church that dominated the windows in both the bathroom and the boy's room, the hot air balloons who floating by almost every morning and just the simplicity of life there... no gardens to tend, a half an hour clean for the whole apartment, and the cleanliness of the eclectic treasure we could call home for two months.
We won't miss the three levels of stairs to climb, but then again, anything worth having is worth the effort. And we definitely won't miss the smell of dope wafting through the bathroom window from the communal terrace, but all those things are nothing compared with the lifestyle we enjoyed there.
So here we are now in Fiji - the Shangri La on Yanuca Island on the Coral Coast, 60kms south east of Nadi. No photos as yet I'm sorry, will try tomorrow. Our flight was delayed by almost an hour and a half, which was a bit of a pain as the boys and I got up early to watch the opening ceremony of the London Olympics at 5.30am, plus cleaned the apartment, packed our bags and everything else that needed to be done before we set off for hockey at 10am. Which was a little bit of a mistake, as we were late for the photos the club had organised for the team... I actually thought they were last week, and we turned up with a week to spare, and this week, with everything going on, I completely forgot. Our flight was supposed to take off at 11.30pm, but didn't leave till almost 1am, so you can imagine how exhausted we were. We struggled with sleeping on the plane, but I'm sure there was at least an hour or two of solid, but awkward sleep in there somewhere.
After we landed, everything was painless. I was silently afraid that as I had been denied two US Visas this year, that any international travel may be affected as the powers at be would see my attempts at international travel would make me closer to the US to become an illegal immigrant, and there were a few times that airport or airline personnel asked odd questions like, 'I need to see your itinerary to ensure you are coming back,' or while we were waiting in the lounge 'I need to see your tickets. How many in your party?' just randomly, something that I had never encountered before, which made me think that the US government will try to stop me from even having an overseas holiday. Oh, what would we do without a little paranoia when travelling? :)
We arrived at our resort and the room was ready for us. The boys, even though exhausted, wanted to play in the pool while I sat quietly reading my book and dozing off. They managed a game of poolside basketball which was only made more funny by the elderly Fijian who rounded everyone up to play the game telling people 'no more blah blah' and get in the pool (I first thought that he said 'no more blubber' thinking he wanted us to get off our fat lazy arses!). The weather wasn't as warm as I'd hoped it would be... there was a slight chill in the breeze which made it worse when the sun ducked behind a palm tree and wasn't emitting the heat I desperately needed to enjoy the poolside ambience.
I started chatting with a couple from Sydney who had discovered a whole range of restaurants outside of the resort that charged half the price. So we might investigate tomorrow life 'outside.' After lunch, we came back to our room for some R&R before the boys were 'bored' and wanted to venture outside again. We found another pool on the south side of the island resort and had a bit of a wade and lie on a banana lounge sipping pina coladas (well, I did!) before checking out the gym, wellness spa and the mini-golf.
We came back to the room, had a shower and got ourselves dressed up for dinner. My youngest said he wasn't hungry at all, but still filled his plate and two bowls of dessert and ate the lost (except brought home one of the bowls of dessert for snacks later). We've been back in our room for half an hour as the boys didn't want to see the nightly entertainment... exhaustion has set in, so much so, that they are both dead to the world awkwardly sleeping on the king size bed, while I lucked out on the pull out sofa bed... something I said will be rotated each night until we leave.
So that has been our last 48 hours... Hope to show some pics tomorrow and some adventures during the week, to inspire other single parents the beauty of Fiji!
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