Gypsy Nights and Great Friends

Things have been changing. 

It all started about a month ago when suddenly I stumbled upon two beautiful, intelligent and interesting girlfriends who live close!! I didn't even realize how much having friends close by would change my entire outlook on life.

Elena is a Russian photographer and model who I had heard of (and wanted to meet) since my first month in La Reunion. Lucky for me, she was looking for a blond girl to do a shoot on the beach, and a mutual friend set us up. We immediately clicked, and since the beach shoot, we started working out on weekdays. Every time I leave her house after a work out, I feel completely refreshed.

I found Rachelle, my Utah lawyer friend, online on some ex-patriot page (I was desperately trying to find other native English speakers here to be my friend!) We meet once a week for coffee to discuss politics, books, and how we can become rich on Reunion Island with our English. We just recently joined a dance/yoga/hippie class on Saturday mornings, which is quite possibly one of the highlights of my week! I was especially happy to have Rachelle with me when the dance instructor told everyone (in English) to use our "desire fingers." I think we cried in silent laughter for the next ten minutes, then we mutually agreed never to point our "desire fingers" (?!?!?!?) at each other...

The best thing is that both of my beautiful new friends have schedules that allow them to hang out with me during the day...making my daily life a lot less lonely!!

This weekend, thanks to our good friends Christian and Julie, I was able to bring all of my loves, both new and old, together to meet each other over plates of fried wasp babies.

Elena and James


Rachelle and Phillipe

I have a whole table of friends!! <3

This picture of the blood sausage looks horrifying but I assure you it was pretty good.

The next day, Julie, Christian, Richard and I had a little gypsy-themed slumber party on the beach.

After the sun set, the guys started the fire and we grilled what i suppose the richer gypsies would eat...crayfish, giant shrimp, sausages and veggies. 

The stars were bright and twinkling, the food was delicious, the ocean was roaring, and I even taught them how to make s'mores for dessert. It was utter perfection.

Being old, we were in bed by 10:30. The pounding rain woke us up at two. Thank goodness we were under a tarp! The wind wasn't blowing so we were safe and snuggly and happy to hear the rain. I went back to sleep and dreamt that I saw a giant butterfly fluttering to us. It was amazing and we stood there in shock by how big it was. It danced over between us...and landed on my arm!! I felt so honored and thrilled. Then it looked at me straight in the eyes, and somehow I knew that it was here to guide me to a spiritual awakening...

I woke up to more rain, shuffled around a bit, and fell back asleep.

This time, I was in a basement with my old best friend. A pigeon came in, and now it was he who was going to take me to my spiritual awakening. He took my hand in his beak and started flying...and I started floating next to him. I was scared I wasn't going to make it, that I was too heavy...but soon we were flying up to the ceiling, and then through the ceiling up into the sky...

It rained on and off until we finally woke up around 8. We put on some coffee.

And that's when a REAL gypsy came to the party! So this guy just shows up, says nothing, takes off his shoes and comes to the table. He ceremoniously sets his knife and rosary down before us, like we're knights and he's a messenger from a neighboring village.  He takes off his raincoat and is wearing a torn pillowcase for a shirt. He says hi, sits himself down, and says "Wow, it's so refreshing to see other people living off the land. There aren't many of us left..."

Then he inhales dramatically and says how great the flowers smell...that he can tell they are from Reunion. (They are fake, I bought them at a Chinese store for 3 euro.) We give him some bread,  and some cookies, and some jam, and then he asks to make some more hot coffee, has a banana and an orange, and then asks for a blanket because he's cold. We give him a blanket, and he starts singing. He talks to us about some random gypsy things, like living in the moment and forgetting the past, and then he starts singing again and falls asleep. We pack up, eventually bidding him farewell and letting him keep the blanket.

You know you did a gypsy party right when you start attracting real gypsies.

This is the happiest I have ever been in my life.
I am grateful.
And I feel so unbelievably lucky to have such incredible people to journey with!!

Of Land and Sea

Everyone knows the general area where the dolphins live...sometimes when you're driving along the road by the ocean you can see them jumping waves. We've crossed them a few times in the boat...but this past Saturday was the first time we've ever gotten in the water with them.

I found this Groupon for 50% off a day trip on a catamaran. (Can't find soft pretzels or microwave popcorn, but Groupon exists here...)  It didn't take much to convince Richard and a few friends that this needed to happen. 

I wanted to see the dolphins so, so badly. I said a little prayer in my head to them while boarding the catamaran. Our guide, Gregory, told us he sees them on 98% of his trips, so I was very hopeful. After only 30 minutes, we started to see fins slipping in and out of the waves. When Gregory asked if anyone wanted to swim with them and I practically exploded with happiness. 

Richard got a little taste of sailing...now we're dreaming of sailing around the world one day...this will definitely happen. 

The playful little guys came right up to the boat, jumping and swirling around us :-) It was incredible.

So Gregory tells us to get in and hold on to this rope going across the underside of the catamaran, right above the water. We all lined up on it and put our masks on. And THIS is what we saw...

There was a nice Belgian couple with us who thankfully had an underwater camera! 

Gregory started driving the boat forward. We hung on to the rope for dear life with our heads under, not believing what we were seeing. The dolphins--8 in total--were very curious, they kept swimming back and forth in front of us, flipping and turning and staring. We dorkily waved back at them. As we moved, I kept feeling little pinches on me...I found out later there were a ton of tiny jellyfish stinging us as we bumped into them. 

There was one rather hilarious dolphin who started as a blurry face from far below us...he wasn't swimming, just kind of vertically sitting there. His cute little dolphin face was smiling directly at me, and somehow he was just getting closer and closer without moving. It reminded me of those Disney cartoons from when we were little, that started out like this:

At first Donald's face is this little dot but then he gets closer and closer and BOOM he's smiling IN YOUR FACE. That's like my dolphin friend. Except he turned at the last second, right in front of me, and did a little backflip. Thinking about his smiling dolphin face still makes me laugh. 

It was one of the greatest moments of my life, jellyfish stings and all. After about 20 minutes we left them to their dolphin lives and went our separate ways.

After that, Richard and I left the sea for some higher ground. Up the mountains to a town called Cilaos for a weekend getaway with the in-laws.

Our Hotel

We did lots of little hikes through the forest :-)

What started out as Richard and I vs. His Parents became me vs. Mr. Serveaux because the other two are hopeless ;-) I don't even know who won because they don't have the same rules!!! 

Richard does this dorky mustache "joke" with that grass-like stuff on the trees EVERY time we go hiking together...now I know where he gets it from....

They even had a little motocross trail nearby for Arthur! 

 Ok so yeah it was a great weekend. :-)