This is a bird called l'oiseau la vierge. They were everywhere on our hike, and made all kinds of wonderful music the whole time. In fact this one in the picture tried to land on me, but I moved because a bird flying in front of my face is not the most pleasant thing in the whole world. It was cool, and it showed that people rarely ever hiked the trail that we were on, which is cooler.
Anyways, we hiked into this place called Grand Bassin at dusk saturday. I was expecting to find just a river and hills and such, but there was a town down there, completely secluded from the rest of the world as there are no roads that reach it. I was pretty surprised, but I guess it could work, I just don't know how. Anyways, people were really nice there and pointed us in the right direction and we slept on the black sand next to this river. There were a couple of small rock slides during the night that fell into the river. So that was comforting. The morning was amazing because we hadn't seen where we were and waking up to cliffs and a waterfall just around the corner and this beautiful winding river, etc. I was really something. We explored a bit and took a dip in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. It was invigoratingly cold and I was done after a good minute. We dried off in the sun and headed up this other trail that went out the other side of the town and straight up a ridge. It was tough, but we took it at a good pace, and we were surrounded by birds, little toads and something called a tangue, which ressembles a rat-like hedgehog. In fact, I almost stepped on one (of the tangue things). Plus there were flowers everywhere and the trail was obviously not very widely used, and I felt quite at home. Plus there were ladders everywhere and big rocks, so I was quite happy. We got to a crossroads at about 4:30 and decided not to do another day (it was a good idea) and headed towards the parking lot. A guy came tromping up behind us and started to get into his car, and justin decided that we needed to ask him for a lift. so we did, and he said yes. So that was good, but he seemed really mad about something, and we figured out that his girlfriend had just left him, and he was intent on finding her...I don't know what he intended to do when he did, but he was very serious and drove like a mad man. Anyways, we made it to the bus on time, and as we sat in the 6 oclock traffic jams they have here, we decided to get off at L'Hermitage and spend the night there. It was sweet!

k, I got class now. The grades are coming in!!!

Peace!

doop-dee-doo.

so, last time I updated, I was not in the most talkative mood. I think I've been hanging out with cranks too much (i.e. - people who don't listen to me when I talk...jerks), but this weekend, I went on a sweet hike with this Welsch (sp?) kid named Justin, and it was really cool, cuz I got to just talk about everything with him; religion, women, the island, home, family, all that stuff, and all in english! :) That's helps a lot when I can talk with someone and not have to struggle for every other word. Regardless, I think that this weekend really rejuvinated me, because we saw so much cool stuff, but I really do think that it was the company that did me the most good. Justin is a genuine person, and it was great to get to know him. Plus we saw a bunch of cool birds (they're called tuit tuit's!). I'll post pictures and stories from that later, cuz I've got to talk about Piton des Neiges and the volcano now. :)

Piton des Neiges was great. The only thing that really kept it from being absolutely awesome was that the altitude got to me pretty bad. I had a splitting headache on the top for half the night (I got up and found some Ibuprofen), and the clouds were not the coolest thing in the whole world, because I was counting on being able to see the ocean. Plus there were so many people and trash all over the place. But even so, it was really a very bizarre experience to be in a place were there were almost no plants except for a couple of clumps of grass and a fern that was hiding out under the shelter of a big rock (I was pretty out of it because of the altitude and I asked it what it was doing under there. Just thought you might like to know...), it felt like Mars or something because of all the little red pebbles everywhere. The other thing that made it hard was that I ran about a third of the way down. I was sore for about 5 days afterwards. I even brought my walking stick with me when I went to the beach. So that hike was magnificent, but not really my kind of hike. Afterwards, we went to a place called L'Ilet Des Trois Salazes, which is essentially a hippie commune. They grow aromatic plants (flowers and stuff) and regenerate the soil that has been lost because of overgrading and logging. The whole time we were there there was a mist hiding whatever was thirty feet away, so the whole place was shrouded in mystery for me, and I found it intoxicating to be there. So, I'll probably spend 8 or 9 days there, working with them and enjoying the finer points of life (showering in a waterfall, sleeping everynight in a longhouse, eating food that killed/harvested within a few hundred yards from the dinner table, playing guitar, working for my food, learning the biology of the island, etc.). So that oughta be fun.

Climbing class now, I'll update the volcano portion (with pics from this weekend!) later. :)

Love YOU!!!
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Climbing class was good, though I am quite sweaty now. ;)

Alright, so I forgot my photos/didn't feel like climbing the three flights of stairs to my room to get them, so I don't have them again. Sorry, they'll be up later.
On the other hand, the volcano was insane!!! We rented a car to go there, because they say that it's best at night when you can see the lava reflect off of the clouds of smoke and steam that it makes (as you can see). So we did that, and went from the north-east side of the lava flow at first, where you could see (and sometimes hear) this giant fountain of lava, apparently shooting molten rock up to 90 feet into the air. I say apparently because it didn't seem that high when we were there, but I guess I just didn't realize how far away we really were. It really had an 'end of the world' kind of feel to it, everyone was leaving with their children in their arms and there was a real sense of hushed excitement from everyone. It was realy, really impressive (note to reader: I just translated that from impressionant because I forgot the english word. bah). Then, we drove back to St. Denis (literally on the other side of the island) in the night, slept in our rooms in St. Denis because there was no room in the inns near the volcano, and the next day, headed down the west coast to see it from the other side, stopping at beaches that pleased us along the way. It was amazing, and I want to rent cars more often, even though I can't because I'm too young, so I guess what I mean to say is that I want my friends to rent cars more often. bah encore. So we got to the lava flow, and I noticed that the sun was doing something wierd when there was a half break in the clouds, and I think it must have been the sulfur dioxide in the clouds that was blockin out its corona and turning the clouds pale red at two in the afternoon. We walked for about two and a half hours and finally got to the lava flows, where, through the smoke and steam, you could see a bright red, liquid as all, river of rock flowing to the ocean, sometimes hurdling its bounds in great waves. Then, while I was shutterbugging away, a new flow of lava started, slowly at first, and as it established its bed, quicker and quicker, until it began to burn down the trees at the boundary of the lava flows already solidified. At that point, the gendarmerie arrived and told us all to go home, that it was closed and that it was no longer safe. So we moseyed on back, and realized that it was far too late to return the car that night, so, as I had classes, Sarah and Usman took the car for a good hike and took it back that night. All in all, that was one freaking awesome adventure. :)

Wow, that was a lot. life updates: I get my grades for one of my translation classes tomorrow (Wish me luck!), I take my Francais Langue Etranger exam thursday (wish me more luck!) and I think my other exams went relatively well; creole was a breeze, and the french to english translation class was hard, but I think I did ok. We'll see in due time... Also, I just remembered that I have these stupid ISEP forms to get all of my profs to sign, and some of my classes are over for good.....so that'll be a trick. I'll do it, but I won't like it.

More stuff on the hike this weekend after I've had time to process it....I'll leave you with this: As we descended from the pass, overlooking La Plaine des Palmistes, the melancholy sounds of cowbells reached us through the silence from the tiny white and black dots grazing in green fields, no bigger than ants. I can honestly say that the sight of cows has never rendered me happier.

Love you guys!

wah!

It's been quite a while this time, and I've seen many, many things since the last time I updated! Like, for instance, the volcano erupting, the summit of the island and all kinds of other stuff! Classes are almost over too, I tihnk we've only got a few left of cell bio, and I've already taken three of my exams, I've got three more tomorrow, which will leave just genetics and cell bio in a month (crazy!). So far I've gotten a 19/20(reunionais culture) and a 17/20 (climbing class), both of which make me pass, since all my classes are pass/fail when I bring my grades back home. So far so good. :) Tomorrows exams are gonna be tough, but I'm not terribly worried about it, I oughta do fine. Enjoy some pictures, I've got studying to do!

So it's a been a little awhile (like usual), and some stuff has changed. For one thing, I have no more actually scheduled TD (like a class on genetics problems, sorta like math class)!!! Sadly, I think I went to two out of eight, but I talked with the prof, and she told me that it really didn't matter, and that I should work through the problems, and some of the old exams,on my own, and if I had any questions to come ask her, and she would help me through it. So that was awesome. On the opposite side of things, my TP (lab) prof told me that I can't make up the labs I missed. I honestly don't know if I got a zero on them, or if I've been excused, but I'm not really, really worried, just a little worried. O, and in lab, we were going over this thing that we were supposed to do for the lab, and there was a drawing that nobody else but me had done, and the prof came over, looked at it, said "ok" and handed it back to me. I didn't think much of it until she drew the exact same thing on the board!!! She could've just said 'bien' and I would've been happy. Anyways, the important thing is that she knows that I'm not stupid, I just don't understand French perfectly. So that was good.

Climbing on thursday!!! It was so cool! That was the first time I've ever sport climbed before. Granted, it was on something like a 5.8 - 5.9, but still, it was good. Plus it was the first time I've been climbing outside since I was 15. So that was pretty awesome.

Then Saturday, we went to Cap La Housaye (or something like that) and did some snorkeling. It was intense. Basically, this thing is just a big cap of volcanic rock that is inhabited by a bunch of fish, and is relatively calm. Plus there's a sweet place you can dive from, and some little caves to explore, and this big pool that's protected from the waves, so its really calm. There were tiny, tiny little hermit crabs everywhere, some cool underwater crabs that had a neon green strip going around their middles too and fish everywhere. I wish that I had had another underwater camera with me, cuz I ran out of pictures when I was there. All in all, I think that was the coolest beach I've been to yet, and I'm already planning a return that will last two days. I'm excited!!

Sunday, I went mountain biking. It was cool except for the fact that its not the most exciting thing in the world when you go to pick up trash because that means that there's trash everywhere that makes the landscape uglier. Anyways, it was a heck of a lot of fun, and all the rocks there have these little crystals in them. so I grabbed a couple. O, and I grabbed some coral from the beach for the girls back home too!

So all is well and good in Reunion for me. Last week I practically shut down because I had so much to do (it was all just little stuff, but very important little stuff) and I had gotten really stressed out over my grades because my advisor here told me some stuff that wasn't true. Like, for instance, that my french has not improved at all. Anyways, I got over it with the help of a friend, and now its all good now.

Plus, I've been searching and searching for the bedrock of christianity, why it is, why I believe it, etc., and I'm quite sure I found it. It lies in the resurrection, because if it weren't for that, there would be no christianity. The resurrection is the whole point of christianity and encompasses all of its ideals. I struggled for quite some time to find that, and I'm quite glad that I did. So anyways, I think that the deal is to focus on not only The Resurrection (of Jesus) but also the act of resurrecting things around me, i.e. - giving life to things that need it. :)

Love you guys! Enjoy the pictures - http://uncg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070371&l=d32e4&id=25006720

Time flies here and it's really hard to keep track of it. It's both wonderful and terrible at the same time.

So last week, I was going to go on a hike, but they told me that the trail I wanted to use was closed (I found out later that it wasn't - meh) so I spent the weekend at the beach snorkeling. I found so much cool stuff; one of my friends bought me an underwater disposable camera, so lots of stuff is already on it. One thing I couldn't get was the octopus that I saw. Octopi (?) can camoflauge themselves with their surroundings, and its impossible to tell them from anything else. I saw his little suction cups, so I knew what he was, but after he stuck his head out, it was impossible to tell him from the coral he was hanging out in. Anyways, it was really cool. The second day I went alone, so I could just go and snorkel wherever I wanted to without having to worry about someone else, and I saw this family of fish (there were two bigger fish and about 5 or 6 tiny, tiny fish hanging out in this coral thingy). It was so cool to think that something about the size of a grain of sand is not only living, but has organs and organ systems and all that jazz. So cool!!!

Last week was rough because I had more classes than I usually do (I still didn't have nearly as many I would have if I was home, but you know). So nothing really happened during the week...

But this past weekend, we (me and david and melina) tried to hike to this wonderful view point called 'La Roche Ecrite.' All was going well at first (we got lost a couple of times, but what else is new?), and even though we couldn't see the big views because of the clouds, there was plenty to look at right next to us. The trail was beautiful red mud at times, and reminded me a lot of home. When it was cut out of the mountain instead of placed on a ridge, the walls were dressed in moss and tiny little plants, ressembling a miniature mountain range with miniature trees. Spiders made their homes there as well; big, shiny spiders, black like the aliens in "Aliens." And the whole time, the Tuit tuit, a native to Reunion, flitted past and around us and filled the air with its songs. Enormous fallen trees told us that the polluting noise of a chainsaw had never reached these glades, and it sat well with me.
Sadly, the poetic qualities of the day were spoiled in the night, when a steady rain, along with a 40-50 mph wind kicked up and absolutely soaked us because the tent we had wasn't actually waterproof. Of course, taking the tent down was the worst of it all, but it wasn't so bad, because the gite sells hot chocolate! I think I'm beginning to get spoiled, because at the end of every day, you don't find a cozy little shelter in a clearing with a picnic table, you find a mini hotel, complete with a restaurant, cabins and everything else you could possibly need (usually including a wonderful house 'rhum arrangé'). So maybe I ought to not get used to that. :)
Anyways, the next day was magnificent, despite its beginning, where I fell down because I was so numbed by the cold and I forgot to put in my contacts, (Plus I wanted hot chocolate) and the fact that we decided not to go to the actual view point because we were sure that we wouldn't want to walk that far on the trail the way it was (it would've added another 8 Km). But as we descended, the sky cleared up, and we got our first view of the ocean from the mountains. It's big. Also, where we had camped the night before is called La Plaine de Chicots, but its not really a plain like we know, its more of a bunch of rolling hills, a place where people can live. So we had these gorgeous rolling hills spilling out before us and in the distance, razor-sharp ridges and immediately afterwards, the sea. It was stunning. So stunning that I'm glad we didn't have it for two days straight, because I would not have paid attention to the small stuff the first day. So that was cool.
Speaking of the geography of Reunion, I found out that this island is not like Hawaii (I think) and its not simply a hot spot. The lava underneath the earth forced it upwards, and thats why you can find the kind of geological formations that you do here, because the island is not only composed of new igneous rock, but also ancient ocean crust that had been forced upwards into the air. After that, there were all kinds of fissures and seams that split up the bed rock and caused it to slide all around on it self, and there were other smaller volcanoes that helped too, and its very, very complicated and very, very cool. For those of you who know him, tell Dr. J that I'm thankful that I had his course right before being here because I remember more about rocks and can understand more here. :)
So right now, life is good, and I'm actually beginning to really, really enjoy life here. Plus I'm becoming a pretty good cook!

I love you guys!

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

So, this (<-----) was saturday's backdrop. When I took this picture, I was actually standing on this (It's the one under this.)













All in all, life saturday was pretty good. Friday was great too, because it was my first biology class, and, after searching for hours upon hours for it, I successfully had a cell bio class, and understood the vast majority of what the teacher said. Oh, and lately I've taken to playing my guitar outside the dorm, and the first day I think about 20-30 people showed up. The next day it was around forty, and both times there were a couple of reunionnais people there who, by the way, don't seem to like to deal with internationals very much. Plus they think that I'm really good, so that's always fun.

Then, on sunday (yesterday), I went canyoning. yessssssssssss...

This one on the left is the first one, where you had to climb out a little ways to the rope, then clip on, then descend down the bottom, most of the way you're being pelted with water (which is surprisingly bewildering when you're dangling fourty feet in the air). When I got to the bottom, the pack that was suspended from my harness got stuck on something, but I was so disoriented by the waterfall on my head that I couldn't figure out what to do for a little while. so I just stood there and feebly tugged on my pack, and then on the rope, and then tried to walk, remembered my pack and started all over again. eventually I loosed the rope and then worked on my pack and I got out alive. But it was scary. The one on the right is the last big descent we did, and it had a zipline (WOOOOOO!) So that was freaking awesome.




This is the first one (<-----). Oh, and there were big stretches where we had to get to the next descent, and so we just slipped and slid our way along this slippery stream! It was awesome, because the stream bed was one big, volcanic rock, which is very carveable by water, and so leaves nice little waterslides all over the place.





Here's a good one!----------------->
If you can't tell, there's a person in that giant splash. yep. And then, all of a sudden, the stream dried up, and we had nothing else to do but hike down to the big arch (which I forgot my camera before going on the little side trail!) and then out. But it was awesome, and we drove back up by the east side, so I made a whole tour of the island in one day, and saw the giant swath of the destruction from the lava flows from the new volcanoe. And this was the last thing that we saw before rolling back into St. Denis...

O yeah, and we did this too...