Longue Temps!

So I appologize profusely to the 3(?) people who read my blog for not updating in exactly one month today. I have been insanely busy what with travel and Keely and school and everything else. Alright, part one of my one month recap:

From February 26 to March 28, we went on a huge trip to Reunion. Reunion is a department of France, off the coast of Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean.



It is one of the newest islands in the world, made from many volcanoes, a lot of them are still active. Ouiam's mum offered to work at a clinic while we were there so we stayed in an apartment that one of her colleagues owned. This is the view from my window.



Many afternoons were spent on the beach, Reunion has some of the best coral reefs in the world and they are right by the shore. Ouiam's father came a few days after us and the day after he came, we went into the mountains for the first time. It was amazing, I've never seen anything like it before, the bright green trees with strange flowers and waterfalls flowing from the tops of the extinct volcano.



At the time I didn't know that the biggest volcano on the island, the one we were going to walk on, was extinct and had a bit of a panic attack on the way up. The roads were insane and everyone felt rather sick by the end, but we got there finally and went on a lovely walk. Everyone was supremely impressed with my hiking skills, surprising yes, but only cause they don't have enough nature to truely hike in France. We went up into the mountains another day to do canyonning, its basically rappeling down waterfalls on the side of a volcano (crazy i know). The craziest was the last volcano which you rappel down facing outward directly underneath the falls. So you are basically inside the waterfall surrounded by water pounding on you (it hurts!) and the noise is incredible. So for the second time in the mountains I had slight panic attack. But overall the days in the mountains were fantastic. However, the best part of Reunion was the surfing!


I had never done it before but we were in a school run by 2 guys who didn't speak english but were awesome. Ther first day we went it was pouring rain and the sand on the beach was black, very pretty. In the end I was able to stand most of the time annd even turn. I really miss it alot, aparently they do it in Dieppe but the water is freezing! The people native to Reunion are called Creole and have an amazing cuisine including samosas and carry (rice with special sauces) and grilled chicken.



On the weekend Creole people almost always have picnics and a friend of Ouiam's parents, his girlfriend, Mimose, is Creole and invited us on a picnic. It was beside a small volcano, and a beach where you can't swim because there are sharks (ahhh!) and crazy undertoe. But we braved the dangers and proceeded to eat some of the lovely creole food mentioned above. Also I ate shark when i was there, and no it did not taste like chicken but it was fantastic anyways. The last night was very very strange.



Mimose invited Ouiam's mum to come dancing with her and some friends at a night club, she invited Ouiam and I too, so we figured that even if it sucked we could always drink. The nightclub was amazing, I want to set a movie in there or write a book about it. It felt kind of like being in Fear and Loathing only you weren't on drugs, everything was just fucked. It was this huge building with all these different themed rooms and Mimose and Ouiam's mum left us to explore. First was the jungle themed room that all the youth hung out in, Ouiam and I attempted dancing for about 30seconds, when we realised the dancefloor was basically a giant sex pit. There were cages. So we sought refuge in the restaurant, only to discover there were pornographic paintings of really manly women all over the walls. At this point we ran to the nearest bar and asked for something strong. The lovely bartender said he would make us his specialty but we had to promise not to drink anything else after because it was so strong. Basically it was 2 shots each of some sort of alcohol with baileys and something else, drank through a straw. We were pretty much instantly hammered. On to the next room, salsa! Very good room, danced with one of Mimose's friends, salsa is difficult when drunk! We stumbled across a fifties themed room but for some unknown reason were ushered out rather quickly. The final room was where we spent the rest of the night. Watching all the 40+s dancing like zombies and laughing our asses off. When the song from Pulp Fiction (the one from Jack Rabbit's twist contest) came on, we moved to the dancefloor, impressing all with our moves. The best was when Mambo #5 came on and we basically freaked out. The next day we had our 12h flight back to France. I fucking love Reunion. (more pics on facebook as usual)