This is actually a few posts merged together into one. Ah, the joy of limited internet access.
My mum is driving me nuts! She was flipping out when I was posting on MySpace last night. She said I was going to be sooo embarrassed when people read what I wrote and she kept yelling at me not to post anything. I asked her if she knows what MySpace is and she said no. I asked her if she has read what I am posting and she said no. I think that's all I need to say, right?
Yesterday, my great grandmother showed me a skirt that she'd made for me. She wanted me to try it on and was trying to get me to take off my pants in front of everyone. I'm glad that I was able to escape with the skirt into the bathroom. It was so small I could barely get it past my knees, so it would have been extra embarrassing to try to put in on with everyone watching. My mum says I should have just done it because my great grandmother is so old that she has seen everything before and changing in front of her is no big deal. Okay, I'll go along with that. But what about all the other people who were there, teenage boys and uncles included? That's easy for her to say - no one was trying to take her pants off! LOL, I wonder if my great grandmother would have laughed at my thong?
We went for a walk on the beach this morning. I was nervous because it was still dark and there were no other people out. My mum said not to worry because the only time she ever heard of something bad happening when she lived here was when a Japanese woman had her throat slashed by a random guy with a machete on the beach and they laid her on the counter at the hotel and all of her insides were coming out through her neck. Yeah, mum, great job putting my fears to rest. Oh, and they never caught the guy either.
When we got back from our walk, we took a short, 5 hour nap. Isn't jet lag fun?
Today we are going to do some shopping in town and tomorrow and Wednesday we will be in Praslin and La Digue, which are islands near here. I'm not sure if we will be flying there or taking a boat. We have been told that everyone who takes a boat there gets very seasick because it sometimes seems like the boat is going to flip over, so hopefully we'll fly! It's going to cost a few hundred dollars to go and all we're doing there is going to the beach, so it sounds like a waste of money to me. Maybe it will be fun though. We'll see.
*Post-trip update: We ended up taking a boat. I learned first-hand why those little paper baggies stashed at the back of each seat are important! Oh, it was AWFUL, the boat soaring up and dropping down like a neverending carnival ride.
My relatives from Australia and my brother are going to arrive here on Thursday. When they are here, we are all going to stay in little beach houses on the other side of the beach. Every time there has been somewhere I've wanted to go, like the Natural History Museum, my mum says we'll go when everyone else arrives, so it's good they'll be here soon.
The bugs keep biting me. Darn my sweet, delicious blood. I have a huge bug bite on the back of my leg and it ITCHES! I even have bug bites on my feet. My grandpa sees the bite marks and makes me put cream on them, but he forgets if I already put cream on, so he insists that I put cream on over and over and over again.
Uh oh. My mum just came in and it sounds like our plans may be changing. Instead of going to the other islands tomorrow, we may go when everyone arrives from Australia. It would be me, my mum, my brother, and my cousin Elise, because she is leaving before the rest of her family and won't be here when they go in a few weeks. My mum says it will be nice to give my Australian family a break from my brother. That seems like a good idea.
I want to buy some curry paste but my mum freaks out when I try because she says it will get all over everything. It comes in a pouch just like those tuna pouches. I don't think it will explode on the plane, especially if I pack it with my carry on. It would be wrapped in another bag just in case, but she doesn't care. Gosh darn it, I want some curry paste!
Well, I had better end this because we're heading to the internet café.
More Seychelles Posts:
Farewell Forever?
Seychelles, 2006
My mum is driving me nuts! She was flipping out when I was posting on MySpace last night. She said I was going to be sooo embarrassed when people read what I wrote and she kept yelling at me not to post anything. I asked her if she knows what MySpace is and she said no. I asked her if she has read what I am posting and she said no. I think that's all I need to say, right?
Yesterday, my great grandmother showed me a skirt that she'd made for me. She wanted me to try it on and was trying to get me to take off my pants in front of everyone. I'm glad that I was able to escape with the skirt into the bathroom. It was so small I could barely get it past my knees, so it would have been extra embarrassing to try to put in on with everyone watching. My mum says I should have just done it because my great grandmother is so old that she has seen everything before and changing in front of her is no big deal. Okay, I'll go along with that. But what about all the other people who were there, teenage boys and uncles included? That's easy for her to say - no one was trying to take her pants off! LOL, I wonder if my great grandmother would have laughed at my thong?
Doesn't this woman look so friendly and sweet?
My crazy mum does things completely different from me. I asked her where we were going this morning and, of course, she ignored me like she always does. So where did we go after the agricultural show? We drove and we drove and we drove, until over 4 hours had passed and I was completely car sick, and then we went home. Yep, my mum thought it would be fun to just drive around. Isn't there anything better to do than drive around endlessly?! I was crammed in the backseat of the car, where it's hot and there are no vents, and the seat belts do not work.
Driving here seems very dangerous to me. My mum is not used to driving on the left so her reaction time is slower than usual. And she's not that great of a driver to begin with! Think I'm just being mean? Every once in a while, we have to remind her that she's on the wrong side of the road! During our pointless drive, there were 3 times that I had to get out. Two were because we were on a one lane road over a very steep cliff and needed to find a way to pass another car. We ended up having to turn around, which is very scary on the one lane road! There's no point getting out to help my mum drive. I motion for her to keep going back or forward and she stops and ignores my directions.
Driving here seems very dangerous to me. My mum is not used to driving on the left so her reaction time is slower than usual. And she's not that great of a driver to begin with! Think I'm just being mean? Every once in a while, we have to remind her that she's on the wrong side of the road! During our pointless drive, there were 3 times that I had to get out. Two were because we were on a one lane road over a very steep cliff and needed to find a way to pass another car. We ended up having to turn around, which is very scary on the one lane road! There's no point getting out to help my mum drive. I motion for her to keep going back or forward and she stops and ignores my directions.
Adele
We went for a walk on the beach this morning. I was nervous because it was still dark and there were no other people out. My mum said not to worry because the only time she ever heard of something bad happening when she lived here was when a Japanese woman had her throat slashed by a random guy with a machete on the beach and they laid her on the counter at the hotel and all of her insides were coming out through her neck. Yeah, mum, great job putting my fears to rest. Oh, and they never caught the guy either.
When we got back from our walk, we took a short, 5 hour nap. Isn't jet lag fun?
Seychelles cars are ADORABLE!
We went to the 30th independence day parade last night. There were lots of interesting floats. Each had a big number in front of it and represented a year in Seychelles history, so we thought that the parade was over when it got to 30. When we got home, we found out that the floats went up to 59. I'm glad we didn't stay for all of them though because just the first 30 took a looong time and it was cold and raining. At the parade, we tried deep-fried banana, which tasted like banana bread. We also drank SeyPearl, which is soda that is made here.
The logo is a Coco de Mer, which is the largest seed in the world. My parents had one in our house when I was growing up. I could always count on it for easy laughs when friends came over.
Today we are going to do some shopping in town and tomorrow and Wednesday we will be in Praslin and La Digue, which are islands near here. I'm not sure if we will be flying there or taking a boat. We have been told that everyone who takes a boat there gets very seasick because it sometimes seems like the boat is going to flip over, so hopefully we'll fly! It's going to cost a few hundred dollars to go and all we're doing there is going to the beach, so it sounds like a waste of money to me. Maybe it will be fun though. We'll see.
*Post-trip update: We ended up taking a boat. I learned first-hand why those little paper baggies stashed at the back of each seat are important! Oh, it was AWFUL, the boat soaring up and dropping down like a neverending carnival ride.
My relatives from Australia and my brother are going to arrive here on Thursday. When they are here, we are all going to stay in little beach houses on the other side of the beach. Every time there has been somewhere I've wanted to go, like the Natural History Museum, my mum says we'll go when everyone else arrives, so it's good they'll be here soon.
I'm not sure this guy wanted his photo taken. Being a tourist is fun!
The bugs keep biting me. Darn my sweet, delicious blood. I have a huge bug bite on the back of my leg and it ITCHES! I even have bug bites on my feet. My grandpa sees the bite marks and makes me put cream on them, but he forgets if I already put cream on, so he insists that I put cream on over and over and over again.
Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!!! Why must my leg be so tasty?!
My great grandma is praying right now. Every morning, she sits at the table with cards that have pictures of people. (Saints?) It reminds me of Carmen on Sunset Beach, who read tarot cards and said "Dios Mio!" in every episode which predicting all the terrible things that happen on a soap opera, such as her son, the priest, sleeping with his brother's wife because they were trapped in a cave. My great grandma prays without interruption for over 2 hours! I'm not sure what else to say about that. I just thought it was interesting.
Uh oh. My mum just came in and it sounds like our plans may be changing. Instead of going to the other islands tomorrow, we may go when everyone arrives from Australia. It would be me, my mum, my brother, and my cousin Elise, because she is leaving before the rest of her family and won't be here when they go in a few weeks. My mum says it will be nice to give my Australian family a break from my brother. That seems like a good idea.
I am back from town! We ordered snacks from a little shop. My mum got 6 Pates and 6 Pamoussas, which I told her was a ridiculous amount and I was right, as we were only able to eat 1 of each. They had 2 other things there that I have never tried and they were only 1 rupee each, which is about $0.20, but she said we had enough food. Aaargh!
We went to the SupaSaver and waited in line for over an hour. It is always busy there. We spent about 250 rupees but I got a few interesting things to take home. There are only hand baskets at the SupaSaver, (it's so crowded that shopping carts would be impossible to fit) so we weren't able to buy everything that we needed. It's a good thing though because we had to carry all of our groceries back to the car in the hot sun, which was parked about 1.5 miles away. Prices are not as absurd as my mum was expecting. Bread was about $2 and it was just baked in the bakery. A large bottle of soda was about $3. We got some little packages of chocolate cookies for about $0.30 each.
We stopped at another grocery store on our way home. They had almost everything that the SupaSaver had at almost the same prices but there was no crowd and we could park directly outside. Whatever shred of appeal the SupaSaver still had went right out the window. Shouldn't someone have told us about this place?
We went to the SupaSaver and waited in line for over an hour. It is always busy there. We spent about 250 rupees but I got a few interesting things to take home. There are only hand baskets at the SupaSaver, (it's so crowded that shopping carts would be impossible to fit) so we weren't able to buy everything that we needed. It's a good thing though because we had to carry all of our groceries back to the car in the hot sun, which was parked about 1.5 miles away. Prices are not as absurd as my mum was expecting. Bread was about $2 and it was just baked in the bakery. A large bottle of soda was about $3. We got some little packages of chocolate cookies for about $0.30 each.
We stopped at another grocery store on our way home. They had almost everything that the SupaSaver had at almost the same prices but there was no crowd and we could park directly outside. Whatever shred of appeal the SupaSaver still had went right out the window. Shouldn't someone have told us about this place?
I'm glad I've never seen a spider like this at home!
I want to buy some curry paste but my mum freaks out when I try because she says it will get all over everything. It comes in a pouch just like those tuna pouches. I don't think it will explode on the plane, especially if I pack it with my carry on. It would be wrapped in another bag just in case, but she doesn't care. Gosh darn it, I want some curry paste!
Well, I had better end this because we're heading to the internet café.
More Seychelles Posts:
Farewell Forever?
Seychelles, 2006