Flying Fears

The flight(s) from San Francisco to Nadi (pronounced "Nandi") were surprisingly smooth! After a brief 5-hour layover in Los Angeles, and bellies filled with our last burritos, we were ready for our 10.5 hour in-flight nap. Justin was smart enough to request the exit aisle and we had plenty of room to stretch out and snooze.

With only an hour left until landing, it suddendly dawned on our bleary-eyed selves that we should probably review the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS') that our teammates had stuffed in our pockets before sending us off. (MSDS' explain the hazardous properties of the water sampling chemicals we were carrying with us).

We spent the remainder of the flight making sure our story was straight, and that we had a quick (and truthful) explanation for our complicated luggage. We nervously imagined solitairy cells with stern Fijian FBI agents querrying us on our bright green vials.

With these fears in mind we anxiously approached the immigrations officer, handed him our passports.... and... well. nothing. He didn't even say hello! From there we proceeded to the customs/baggage check, where as our baggage was scanned, the officer robotically asked us if we had any fruits or vegetables.... nope! And that was that.

Bula! Welcome to Fiji!!

(Bula is the Fijian phrase for hello/welcome. It is repeated to us every few minutes by pretty much everyone we see).