Thanksgiving- part II

Yep that’s right. Two posts in one day. I wish I had my memory stick with me right now and could upload more pictures but unfortunately that is in my room. We just got back from our Thanksgiving dinner. It was surprisingly very good and complete with turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and pig. Unfortunately there was no pecan pie. L I am now stuffed beyond belief and just checking my email quickly before I head to bed where I am sure I will sleep soundly.

Today was quite busy. We had a group meeting to go over logistics for our presentation and paper this morning. That was followed by an interview with the general manager of one of the private energy companies in Samoa. It was actually a really interesting conversation. Most of my interviews have been with people in government, which is all fine, but it was interesting to get the private perspective. Plus, he seemed to be incredibly intelligent and I learned something about LNG. I had a really short phone interview with someone else in the private sector and he told me that kasava, a popular root crop, actually yields more ethanol per hectare than sugar cane so that was interesting as well. After that meeting I walked about a mile down the road to my next interview, stopping along the way at the Samoan National Museum. It’s a three room exhibit in the upstairs of the former government building. It’s not too big and doesn’t have a huge collection but it does have some interesting pictures from a hundred years ago as well as a few items from other countries in the Pacific.

I came back and relaxed for about an hour and then went in search of the Tongan boys to play some tennis but they weren’t around yet so instead I tossed around the Frisbee with a guy from Tokelau and one from the Cook Islands. They are two of the only students still around campus, and they will be flying home soon as well. After about fifteen minutes of that we joined Dan and Jared throwing/kicking the rugby ball. I’ll be honest. I don’t think I’ve ever touched a rugby ball so I had no idea what I was doing. They then decided that it would be a great idea to play a game of touch since a few more people had come out by then. Of course, I had absolutely no idea how the game worked so when they decided that I needed to be the one who scored I was like umm…ok…It was fun however and I think I’ll definitely be out there playing with them come tomorrow. After rugby we showered and headed to dinner- which was delicious, as I mentioned earlier. And now off to bed. Hopefully the centipede that dropped out of my lavalava this morning as I went to get dressed has exited my room because that might be pretty bad otherwise.