As if getting a question about Fafa from Aussie Nicole wasn't enough, nor the great and wonderful Senifa, today I got a comment from Philly Nicole. I can no longer postpone a blog entry. I'm sorry that it takes me so long to actually get on here and to write a blog post. I do enjoy writing, but often times, it is painfully slow. I don't exactly know why it takes so damn long to write stuff, but it does none the less. I think it might be because the funny similes and the outstanding vernacular that I rock when I write take a LOT of energy sometimes. Its not easy being so funny all the time. When I think about the pressures of having to be funny, I get all nervous and put off updating the blog. So please, don't take offense if I don't hop on immediately and respond or whatever. I'm lazy and crack easily under pressure. Please forgive me.

Alright, so I'll give you the quick update on how things are going and then hit up the commenters with an obligatory "what! what!"

Fafa: Rocked like a mutha-hizzle! Hands down, the best two-nights and three days that I've spent in Tonga during my last two years here. My only regret about fafa is that I did not go there sooner. The place is pretty pricey on my shitty peace corps salary. Realistically it would take me about a year of saving up as Peace Corps volunteer and eating ufi, Otua's starchy gift of love, every night to be able to afford the weekend. The total cost between Caty and I for the whole weekend was $1200 TOP, about $600 TOP per person (for you math whizzes) or, even cooler, $300 US (still doing math there smart guy? $1 ~= 2 TOP) for the whole weekend. We brought our lunch for three days and some very good 'pouched wine' to supplement our voracious drinking habits because we wanted to feel just a little guilty for having a great time. Now, to the folks in the Developed World that may think, "Holy Mystical Poop! Only $300 Bucks for a reclusive, beautiful tropical resort island populated with midgets and a magical waterfall that shoots out margarita's all day long! What a steal!" I say to you, "SHUT UP!" When you're living peace corps poor, you moan about 10 cent raises in the price of $1.50 beers. To those volunteers that are like "Dude! You guys spent $1200 pa'anga in three days!" With a bonafide exclamation point at the end of your sentence, I say: "SHUT UP! It was worth it. Playa hate all you want. I use American cash supplements to make my two years enjoyable!" Caty and I had a bombtastic weekend and have been assured that they will name part of the island after us. We will be immortalized in song and interpretive dance.

So here is my recommendation to anyone travelling to Tonga that has some scrill to kill (aka: money to burn! (in Tonga) (during vacation): GO TO FAFA ISLAND! Tell them Jim sent you and enjoy yourself! Throw stones in the ocean, get served drinks by midgets from the magical margarita waterfall and experience Tonga minus the crap that makes Tonga, Tonga!

Returning to America: That's right, the rumors are true, in less than 30 days, I bid farewell to this little "smaller-than-the-square-kilometers-of-memphis-tenessee-in-the-middle-of-the-South-Pacific" that I've been calling home since I got to HELL Tonga. Right now, I'm sort of a mixture of emotions and I plan on elaborating on this much, much more during my next couple of posts. But, as it stands right now, I will be arriving back in the illadelph at 2:30 p.m. EST on December 14th. (I actually ran over to the travel office right now to make sure that everything was cool *it wasn't*). Scratch that, my updated Itenerary now looks as follows:

SERVICE        FROM                TO                     DEPART  ARRIVE
-------------- ------------------- --------------------- -------- -------
AIR NEW ZEALAND - NZ 26
TUE 13DEC      TONGATAPU TO        LOS ANGELES CA         2100     1230
   FUA'AMOTU INTL      INTL
1 STOP                             TERMINAL 2             DURATION 12:30
   RESERVATION CONFIRMED   Y ECONOMY
   ON BOARD: SNACK
   TONGATAPU -APIA
   APIA -LOS ANGELES CA
   EQUIPMENT: BOEING 767-300/300ER


UNITED AIRLINES - UA 98
TUE 13DEC      LOS ANGELES CA      PHILADELPHIA PA        2315     0718
   INTL                INTL                            14DEC
NON STOP       TERMINAL 7          TERMINAL DOM           DURATION 5:03
                                           NON SMOKING
   RESERVATION CONFIRMED   Y ECONOMY
   ON BOARD: FOOD AND BEVERAGES FOR PURCHASE
   EQUIPMENT:AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A319

Therefore, I will be arriving back in Philly at 7:18 a.m. on Wednesday the 14th of December!. God, just writing that makes me feel better! Honestly, I can't wait to get home. I had all of these plans to go travel the world and do lots of fun stuff, but to be honest, I really, really just want to get home and see my friends and family. I especially want to spend Christmas with my family. A lot of people say two years goes by in the blink of an eye, and sometimes I can agree with that. I personally feel that two years can also feel like two frigging years. So those are the specifics of my traveling as it stands right now. I'm going to elaborate much more for the rest of the day on HOW I feel about my two years here in Tonga. I'll get more into that later on.

Apologies: Many of you may have read Senifa's (aka: Jen Across the Sea) comment that she isn't quasi-cool, but actually cool. Well I have some problems with this. On two to three different occassions, I've had conversations with Jen about the following topics: 1.) Inventive ways to make garlic bread, 2.) Why I rock and should go over and talk to 'that blonde chick' during King Tupou birthday party while it was obvious that I was uncomfortable and doing everything in my power to avoid uncomfortableness and stop the insanity 3.) how much better the english dental system is than the American dental system. Based on these three limiting conversations, I will let you, as readers of my blog make the call. Are any of those conversations cool? Actually, I'm just joshing. Jen wears cool like Tongans eat sipi. Its a fact. What this post should have actaully read is cool QUASI-OLD. I meant quasi old, not quasi cool! You can see from my thousands of typos and mispellings that frequently, I don't give the Palangi Files the type of love and attention to detail that it should receive. The reason why I say quasi-old is because of the fact that even if Jen is a little bit older than me, its so hard to believe because she has skin like a 15 year belly-dancers, eats her peas one at a time, and has a laugh as young as a First Sunday mass is long. Do you understand now? It was only a mistake! Forgive me grand inquisitess.

So, I started this post at like 11:30 and it is now 5:45. I blew almost 6 hours away today doing absolutely nothing. I'm drunk with nothing its so lovely! So I decided to include a picture that I think is pretty damn funny. As you may or may not know, Tongans love candy and sweets, but hate paying retail. Many of the local chinese copyright infringers have decided to captialize on this obscruity by introducing "Olio: The Occident's Favorite Cookie®"Anyone think that might be copyright infringement? I do! While the packaging may be very similar, there are some slight differences in product consistency, with the biggest difference being that, well, Olio cookies taste like sh*t and Oreo cookies are the best cookies in the world. The funny thing about the cookie picture there is the spelling. There is no 'R' in the tongan language, so 'R's are generally substituted for 'L''s. Pretty market specfic huh? Someone is making a killing selling these to JUST tongans.

Its actually taken me about 6 days to write this friggin post so I'm going to hastily finish it. Apologies. For some reason I can't seem to stay on topic.

Aunt Nancy! You are a rockstar! Thaks for being so awesome and I'm actually quite looking forward to a bit of snow although on my list of things that I will miss, tongan winter weather is right on up there.

Philly Nicole, I'll be home before you know it! My email address is my psuedonym at the name of this website dot com. Sorry for the sneaky post, but the second I add my real addy, I know I'm gonna get popped big time with SPAM.

Senifa, I truly am sorry. Can you forgive me? PS - The last post was nice! Malo!

Kali, its stuff like your comment that makes me glad I'm over here. I don't hear it enough, really and thanks for the support. Sorry we didn't get to meet up. I could have been a contenda... ;P

Caty's peeps. Welcome to the jimsphere aka - palangifiles.com. Fear not the ramblings. I may even let Caty guest write if she promises to be marginally humorous. Seriously though, stop kidding.

Billadelphia! Can't wait to rock some breakfast with you buddy! Keep me posted and dood! send me an email. How are things?

Round of applause for the Shaffers on the purchasing of a new house and the eating of an enitre block of welfare cheese in one night. Incredible.

Pete, since you can't read, you'll never understand what these things are. I still think you smell like britian.

And for some more shocking news for you to consider... Tonga was recently named the fattest country in the world by the WTO. The fun never stops. I'll try to write more later.

Oh yeah, for you linux fruit cakes out there... I'm in a bit of a "pickle" if you will, having recently trashed the /etc directory on my backup server here at school. If you like me, speak geek, understand this sentence: "Software RAID 5 configuration and performace is VERY compeitive with traditional hardware based controllers" and love me, Check of I need help post here: rm -rf /etc and reconfiguring software raid 5 0 comments - Post a Comment