Happy New Year From Fiji - Tomorrow

I am teaching a Centre College class on Australian National Identity in Australia this month.

We are in Fiji on a day-long layover on our way to Melbourne. We left Los Angeles on New Year's Eve (we watched the ball drop in Times Square on streaming video on a student laptop, then blew noisemakers while we waited at the gate). When we arrived it was already the Second (thanks to the International Date Line).

I was going to store our luggage and force sociology on the students by taking cabs to a Hindu Temple and the one-block main street. For ten hours.

Wiser heads prevailed, though, and through the help of Margaret Travel Agency in Nadi airport - that is, by Margaret herself - we instead bought three rooms for the 22 of us at a modest beach resort. We stored the luggage, got to shower and swim in the ocean and the pool, eat a leisurely lunch, and head back to the last leg of the flight refreshed.

I recommend this plan to all.