Cyclone, hiking, etc.

So, for starters, embedding the pictures in the text was too hard, so I'll just put them at the end from now on. :) Or, if you wanna see more, go to this right here http://uncg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065914&l=b2f51&id=25006720
and that will have more and prettier pictures. So that's that.

So we had a big nasty cyclone here weekend before last and everything was closed for about four days. It was terrible because we couldn't go outside, but it was wonderful because no one was there to stop us from having very loud parties throughout the dorm. :) Needless to say, we amused ourselves quite well. Plus the cyclone was really only a really big thunderstorm and was nothing like hurricanes back home. So for me it was no big deal at all. Anyways, we had two days of courses last week, so that was good too.

At the end of the week, I decided that I was going hiking: end of story. Whether the trail was destroyed or not, I was going. So I told a few people that, and eventually about 11 people wanted to come. So I headed to La Maison de la Montagne in St. Denis to ask about which trails were usable. They told me that there was one...on the whole island. So at 8 AM saturday, we headed off for adventure. It was almost perfect. The water from the hurricane filled up the waterfalls and made all the plants really green. also, at night, the sky is really clear here (usually) and you could see the milky way perfectly. I woke up at about 3 in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep because the stars were so beautiful. It gets better: here the eclipse that night lasted for four hours and I stayed awake long enough to watch the moon go from a deep dark red to shining white. Plus it was nice and cool, but compared to the heat that we've been dealing with lately, I was freezing. The only thing missing was Laura... : / Regardless, that was an amazing night.
The next morning we all got up (except me, I was up already) at 7 and walked down this boggy path, haphazardly paved with planks of wood, to the Trou de Fer. It was magnificent not only because of its size and beauty, but also because the terrain rendered all of that area uninhabitable. Something that size that will stay that pure for that long is amazing.

ok, right now, the computer lab I'm using is closing, so I'll finish later! :)

love yall!
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Ok, I'm back now. Anyways, the whole deal about the forest being pure, there's so much of it that is too steep for humans to stand on it, much less live there or log it, and it is just very satisfying to know that that will stay virgin forest for thousands and thousands of years. So it was awesome.
Then we hiked out, ate a sandwich at a local place, and hopped in Mats' car for the ride home, which was fun because the car would cut off if Mats wasn't pressing the gas , but it would restart everytime he put it back in gear. Thank goodness it was all downhill. :)

And now, a new entry about this wonderfully run university I am attending: I just learned that there are courses that I was supposed to be going to this whole month. yesterday. "asroruighasofdivnmsdfnvishffgnerg," is close to what I felt. So now I have to make up all of my work in those courses I'm sure, which is not terribly serious, it just means that I have a lot of work to do.
Also, yesterday, I completed the climbing part of what is called "l'ecole de vol," or flight school, for climbing class. Yes, I said flight school...for climbing class. It consisted of me climbing as high as possible on the wall, holding on with one hand, pulling off some rope, and then pushing off of the wall, dropping me and lifting my partner (who was a little 110 lb. girl) high into the air. And that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was that for a time while I was hanging on the wall, they were changing belayers, and I was completely unsecured. Had I fallen, it would have been my last. I will never do flight school again. So I had an interesting day yesterday.
In other news, my french is very, very much better than it was when I left. You could almost say that it is good now! :) Oh, and I think I'm going canyoning again this sunday. That means more pictures!!!
So all in all, I'm doing pretty well here, even though every day I am increasingly surprised at how inefficiently the french bureaucracy works. Things are looking up. :)

I love all of you and I miss you very, very much!!!

The moon!













Trou de Fer













A cool fallen tree covered in moss and orchids!


















A grove of tamarin trees.









A cave that me and Mats found.






















Here's a video (just paste it in the browser dealy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM72ejbwItM