A: me
I’m in American Samoa, which I must say, is more like Samoa than America.
For the first time since I’ve started my trip, I’m in a ‘nice’ hotel. By ‘nice’, I mean “Days Inn” quality. I have hot water, internet, a bath tub, and air conditioning. I’m living large. Baseball is on the TV, the electrical plugs are normal, people drive on the right, and I’m walking distance from fast food.
When I started my trip, I told people I was going to stay someplace a bit nicer every two weeks or so. So far, I haven’t needed to. I’m staying here primarily for internet and taking a bath. I can get cleaner with my arm in a bath tub than I can in a shower.
I cannot describe how bad I smelled as I arrived here. I can’t properly wash my armpits. That alone should give you some idea of what I smell like. Add the smell of a what a cut smells like when you take a band-aid off, and you have something uniquely foul.
I walked around Apia today and took some photos of the parliament building and the harbor. The drive to the airport was really interesting. The drive into town was dark when I made it. Samoa is really religious. Really. This is part of the Pacific Bible Belt. There are churches everywhere. The entire trip to the airport seemed like a continuous stream of children in school uniforms. Every mile or so, they’d change colors, but it was kids coming home from their religious private schools everywhere. I don’t even know if they have public schools in Samoa. (I’m sure they do, but it just seems like there isn’t)
Apia was a ghost town on Sunday. I toyed with the idea of going to church just to see what it was like, but woke up too late.
It was really hot and humid in Apia today. In hindsight, it might have been more humid that hot. The climate in Fiji was really nice. Not humid or hot. Samoa was really sweltering. Pago Pago just got done raining when we landed, so I can’t tell here. I assume it is like Samoa. It isn’t that far away.
Tomorrow I’ll try and see a doctor, go to the post office and get my mail, upload my Fiji photos, and probably take about 2-3 more baths. I’ll also plan out my next few weeks. Now that I know when I can get to Tokelau, I can plan on when I can get to Tonga.
Traveling to Nuie might be out of the question. They no longer fly from Samoa or Tonga. The only flights are from New Zealand, and I have no desire to fly back to New Zealand to fly to Nuie to fly back to New Zealand to fly back to Samoa or Fiji. I’m not going to Norfolk Island either, so I might leave that for a future trip to New Zealand.
After Tonga and Tokelau, I”ll be off to Vanuatu and the Solomons. I think I’ll also visit Papua New Guinea while I’m in that area. It will be the easiest way to visit it rather than doing it on the way down from Asia. Then back to Fiji and working my way north to leave the Pacific.
I’m off to watch American TV and drink carbonated beverages and let my Flickr uploader run all night.
Good luck to everyone I know at the NFL National Tournament in Kansas this week, especially the Apple Valley Extempers. Bring home hardware, so I will infect you with my flesh eating bacteria.