The dream is over...

I've just spent the last week in Vanuatu and it's been FANTASTIC! The weather has been perfect, warm and breezy and not too humid. Our hotel is child-free so it's been so very quiet and relaxing. We've been sailing, snorkeling, diving (which was one of the best things I've ever done in my life! Highly recommended!) and eating eating eating! Plus loads of cocktails and sneaky duty-free voddies in our room, hehe...

The food has been excellent--we've been eating in restaurants the whole time and the food is all fresh and organic. We've been able to justify eating this way as the supermarkets are not any cheaper and then you have to cook the food yourself and do your own dishes! As we're on an island and everything has to be freighted in, groceries are frightfully expensive (packet of weet-bix=AU$10!!!). Plus there's the 12.5 per cent food tax which is how the government makes their money, as there's no income tax here.

But now we're all packed up and waiting for the bus transfer to take us to the airport. I'm not too sad though, because we did have such a wonderful time. All the locals have been so friendly and the islands are very beautiful. The currency is odd--I just checked our bill and almost had an apoplexy when it said Laundry: $1000, before I realised that's in vatu and therefore about AU$15. I will be able to say to my friends, though, that the BF has been spending thousands and thousands on me :)

We have about twelve hours of travelling ahead of us which I'm not looking forward to, but I have The Forest of Hands and Teeth to keep myself occupied with. I didn't get as much reading done as I thought I would as we were always off and doing things, and I had to read books for print reviews, and they take priority as deadlines are looming! But now I've done my "homework" and can relax with zombies, ah...

I've got class early in the morning which I was thinking of skipping but my teacher should have finished critiquing my manuscript by now. And if she has, it'll be time for one last edit before I start sending out letters to US agents, How exciting! I must say I have missed dear old Rodden and Zeraphina so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into writing the next 20,000 words of book two.

I'll post some photos of our trip tomorrow and have a bit more of a gush about our lovely holiday.