Pictures!

This is the new president of Palau at the inauguration January 15, 2009
This is Cadence. we sailed her up to Kayangel. It was just mildly awesome.
This is Zoey. My newest kitten. 
This is the bridge from Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom.  No, actually, it's not, but it is a scary bride up in Airai. that's mike courageously crossing it. 
Palauan dancers at a first birth ceremony. It's a big party for everyone except the new mom, who is covered in hot oil and stands in the sun for hours to let the evils of childbirth melt off her. or I think that's what I was told.

friends

Also, these are all my friends at christmas holding the presents from our gift exchange. top row: sarah, siobhan, yours truly, rick, mihnea, travis. middle row: jonathan, joel, liz, curtis. bottom row: christy, mike.

The Suri (yeah, that one...)

First Darryl Hannah and now Tom Cruise? Yes, apparently Palau is the place you run to when you are a crazy scientologist and don’t want to be disturbed because you are hiding on a boat with your gay lover. Ok, so no one actually saw his gay lover, but we did see a shirtless guy in a cowboy hat getting off the dingy and onto the Suri, the name of Tom’s yacht. So Tom was here for about a week after new years, without Katie and Suri. I didn’t see him or anything, but I heard he was actually quite nice. Anyway, we are so almost famous here by association.

In much more interesting news, I went sailing last weekend and finally made it to Kayangel, Palau’s northernmost island. It’s a tiny island, with no roads or cars, just cute little paths made of sand. They are known for their amaaaaazing lemons and bananas. We were showered with both by the kind people that live there (see picture). We spent the night on one of the small islands next to Kayangel, called Ngerbalas (I’m spelling that wrong). We built a big bonfire and cooked the fish Jirka had caught on the way there. Spanish mackerel makes delicious sashimi also. The following day he caught five more mackerel just trolling behind the sailboat. Two were twenty pounds, and again, delicious. Dad, you will be happy to hear that I actually filleted one of those mackerel. AND ate it raw!
This past weekend we celebrated my birthday! I’ve always wanted a summer birthday so that I could do fun outdoorsy stuff, and this year temporarily gave me that chance. We took a speed boat out to a very cute beach for the day. Some of my completely wonderful girlfriends choreographed and performed an amazing water ballet in my honor. Most of the day we just spent floating in the water and eating. It was fabulous. The nighttime celebration went as my birthdays typically do: I got drunk, forced my friends to sing karaoke (Joel, that was an amazing rendition of “can’t take my eyes off of you”) and danced a LOT. Oh, I also go serenaded by the mamasan at the karaoke bar with “loosen up my buttons,” which was a first. Totally rad.

THis is vivi during our sailing adventure.

Darryl Hannah and other christmas fun

Darryl Hannah? That’s not random at all…

Yeah, so the big news in palau last week was Darryl Hannah. She was here for about a week, staying at the resort where I, too, am a member. I wouldn’t say that I tried really hard to bump into her, but I will say that while playing tennis there one day, she walked past me. She was coming from the massage parlor with another incredibly tall woman. They were mostly just very tall. I don’t have much else to say, except that I am under the assumption she’ll go back home and tell her manager that she saw a lady in palau who just looked like she could be a movie star and then he’ll come find me and I’ll be the next big thing. I’m like, basically, really famous now.
Last weekend I got the chance to paddle a traditional Palauan outrigger canoe. They used to have sails, and this was how Palauans got anywhere. Now, they are just very skinny canoes, which look a lot like the skulls we used for crew, except they have an extra balance thingy off of one side. Several Palauans that used to paddle on the Palauan national outrigger team get together every Wednesday and Friday to paddle. So Vivi and I went last Wednesday for about a half an hour. It was amazing fun, and FAR more enjoyable than crew ever was in 20 degree weather at 5am. They invited us to paddle with them on Saturday, as they were heading to one of the closer rock islands where there is an old German lighthouse and incidentally where Survivor had its voting off ceremonies. The paddle was long, and fairly challenging, but it was a great opportunity to hang out with Palauans and do something that tourists don’t get a chance to experience.
Moving on…
A word about Palauan Christmas. Awesome. Every establishment here has neon lights and huge blow-up santas in the windows, on the roofs, and tripping you on the way to the produce aisle. I’ve never seen a small town so alight. Palauan Christmas songs have also been out in full force. They are mostly adaptations of American Christmas songs, such as my favorite “cling cling cling” rather than jingle bells. We had our office Christmas party last weekend and the other court counsel and I were recruited to perform a dance to this song, as well as several other Palauan classics. I’m looking for a good picture, but I’ll say that there were grass skirts and some rockin traditional Palauan dance moves. I also won first place in the fashion contest!

For Christmas eve, my friends and I drove up to a beautiful beach in the northern part of Babledaub, the biggest of the Palau islands. We camped, cooked, danced and drank a lot of southern comfort. Felt very traditional…. Christmas day was gorgeous here. It was about 85 degrees and sunny. We swam and floated in the shallow water most of the day. Not the most traditional Christmas ever, but it was really a lovely way to spend the day.

Last Friday, I attempted to be a part of a group sail to the northernmost Palauan island called Kayangal. It’s about 50 miles north of Koror, so we set aside 4 days to get up there and back. We went on our friend Frank’s 40-foot catamaran, which was amazing. It had a full kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms, couch and what looked like a little fireplace inside. We got about half way to Kayangal on Friday, and anchored just north of Babledaub, by a beautiful beach.
After a very rocky and rainy night, we decided Saturday morning that the seas were just too rough outside the reef to make it all the way to Kayangal. So we waited. WE spent the day fishing, kayaking, kite surfing, eating and drinking. When the wind still hadn’t died down by Sunday, we gave up and sailed home. Not to sound defeated though, because the three days on the sailboat were absolutely beautiful! A spotted eagle ray about 3 feet wide jumped out of the water about 20 feet in front of the boat, Jirka caught a great barracuda, and we saw these amazing fish called Dugongs, which look like manatees, off the port side on the way home. We also had enough wind to fly the spinnaker, which was really, really fun! It was truly incredible. I also got some good sun, so that’s always a worthwhile endeavor! Dad, you should know that I caught a fish, albeit a very small fish!

Oh, on a completely different note, I may be directing a high school production of Mamma Mia this spring! I really love this island. REALLY.

Triathlon...WHAT!?

And I'll go back to the good stuff. although your comment about steak made me absolutely ravenous katie. jerk. SO, last weekend I participated in a triathlon here in Palau! Before you get too excited, I did it as part of a team, which felt a little bit wussy compared to the japanese men and women who came here and ran half iron man races all by themselves (that's a 1.5 mile swim, 90 km bike and 20 km run... in 90 degree heat people). I did only the run part of the olympic distance triathlon, which was a whopping and VERY painful 6.2 miles. The problem wasn't the distance per se (although that didn't help), but rather the 90 degree heat, humidity, lack of any wind and the roughly 3 miles uphill. I literally almost died on the side of the road... but I think I looked pretty cute while doing it. i'm attempting to post a picture.

After that, I went sailing on the Sea Gypsy, my friends' awesome 23 foot sailboat. we took it to one of the rock islands the Americans call Margie's beach. There, we consumed some tequila, swam with glow in the dark plankton, did some chicken fighting, and slept under the summer house to the sound of rain on the tin roof. It was pretty awesome... until sunday happened. I woke up incredibly hungover, dehydrated from the race, and got incredibly sea sick sailing back. oh, and like REALLY sunburnt. But I'm gonna say it was all worth it and really a wonderful weekend altogether. I really like it here. I've mentioned that before I think.

Alex, how on earth did you not know I had a blog? I talked about my amazing pun like ALL summer....!

Some minor things...

I'm beginning to feel a little bit like I'm bragging about how awesome palau is, when it's so cold at home, and that feels unfair. so this blog is dedicated to some things that aren't that great about Palau.  

1.  It's sweaty here.  All the time.  like dripping, unstoppable sweat.  

2. Things take a long time here.  The internet, waiting in line for things, driving places. It's definitely island living and I am definitely an uptight east coast girl who needs to learn to relax.

3.  There is no Marshalls here.

4. I'm doing the running part of a triathlon this weekend (oh, just 6.2 miles) and because it's so hot here, we start at 6 am. oof. It's also about 3 miles uphill.  I'll blog about that next week.

5.  There is no good steak here (sorry mom, I'm sad about this too). 

6. It's been 11 weeks since I've been on perezhilton.com or any other celebrity "news" site and I feel very out of touch.  updates people????

7. I only get one radio station in my car, and it's A.M.  we get a mix of palauan talk radio, BBC news, palauan songs, and palauan re-mixes of american songs (my favorites). I have no idea what songs are new (again, updates are welcome here) and good.  my ipod mixes are suffering.

8.  Rats and Roaches.  There aren't THAT many, but it's not fun to nearly have a heart attack at 7:30 on the way to work.  or stepping out of the shower. or getting out of the car.  Ok, so I've only seen two rats, but that's plenty. 

Ok, that's about it. I really do love it here. these are minor setbacks for what is altogether a tropical paradise.