Nearing the End

So lots of fun updates for my relaxing beach portion of the trip. Highlights include Elliott saleing his sandles, a run in with the Tanzania millitary with 4 people questionin g me, a treasure hunt across the beach from the mysterious Captain Shrodinger, sand castle makeing with BJ, and a wooden giraffe. Yey wooden giraffe.

So last time I was reading my Angels and Demons. I was going to read every day, but then something got in the way. It was going to be Teju's birthday. Now I got together with the other guys (The girls are some other random town for the rest of the trip) and asked what we should do. We decided that Teju could use a huge Treasure Hunt. (Remembering his reaction to Ashley's tiny treasure hunt). So I basicly spend an entire day makeing a treasure hunt. I decide to pull some The Alchemist symbology on Teju and hav e him end up where he begins which was at the FAT FISH. So I grab 7 gold business cards from our hotel Amaan and circle a letter on each one. I put triangles and underlines also to confuse Tej u. I then hid the 7 cards all the way across the beach, and marked x's near where they were. I then put clues at these locations wh ere Teju could find the clues and then with the clues find where the gold card was. It was kind of complicated.

Here's a few hints that I laid out for him:

After getting to a lonely tree surrounded by disregards (trash) there is a piece of paper. It says "A short walk from here is a 5 sided shape surrounded by leaves. The warrior within holds your clue". It ends up there was a nearby store called the pentegram with weed leaves on both sides. In the front of the store was a warrior statue. I put the clue in the warriors hand. When Teju did the treasure hunt, he walked right past the warrior and it took him forever to find it :)

Another fun example was on the map I marked an X at Tattered Japan. Which ended up being a torn Japan flag. It then said take the number of countries that can be raised (empty flag poles) and add that to two hundred. Then go to that room to find golden clue number 2.

Anyway the treasure hunt was awsome. I had the waitress put down in front of teju a coke bottle with a letter from a pirate and a treasure map to start off the whole thing which totally surprised him. At one point in time Teju was on the 2nd floor and standing right on top of the clue (litterly) but couldnt find it. Ben took a hilarious picture. When he finished we walked back to the most beautiful sunset ever. Palm trees. Purple. A giant su n. The water had the color of the sunset on the foam next to the sand. Amazing! When we got back to the fat fish we had a cake and candles waiting for Teju.

So I put about 2 days work into makeing the treasure hunt. It was so hard persuadeing people I was doing a "treasure hunt", which apparantly they don't teach in English. I had to tape a clue on a boat and the guy kept thinking I wanted to advertise on the boat with my Amaan clue. The best was when I got to the light house.

The light house was owned by the millitary , and I wanted Teju's last clue to be at the top. So I went over. The first time I got yelled at by some guy so I left. The next day I went over and quickly taped a clue in a rusty barrel ( I had made a mini map that lead to it). Well one of the millitary guys spotted me and ran after me. Then I was surrounded by four of them. None of them could speak Enlish. They asked me if I could read the sign, pointing at that sign that said no trespass that I had walked past. I told them I didn't understand (I'm so sly). They then pointed to my journal I had in my hand and told me they knew I could read. At this point a guy who could speak Enlish came over.

He took my clue and looked at it. He asked why did I tape this Amaan card in a rusty bucket. I told him it was Teju's birthday. I don't think he really understood. I spent like 20 minutes try ing to explain what was happening (I needed to get the card back). Eventually, they let me go for who knows what reason. I then taped the clue on the back of the no trespass sign, which got removed while I was gone.

Another fun story with the treasure hunt was getting tape. Apparantly there was one store that had tape in the entire African village. I went to the grocery store and asked for tape. They tell me to go to the hardware store. The hardware store tells me to go across the street. That store tells me to go up one more. I do this for a LONG time, going to about 10 stores. Eventually, a kid guides me down a back alley and I get totally lost, but they did have electrical tape.

I bought a really cool looking mask (there are hands hanging from the guys ears) and a wooden giraffe. :) That made me run out of actual cash again. But then I realized that I wanted to get my little brothers a checker board. So I barter with the giraffe saler and ask him if he would sale it. Well I didn't have as much as he was asking for $60. He then told me he would give it to me for $30 and my shoes. I tell him my shoes are leather bound and very valuable (now I'm the saler) (they were actually discounted at Garts and killed my feet on this trip, asking to go in the trash at home). I tell him they are near brand new and he'll never see another pair. I get him down to $20 and the shoes. Well I don't have $ 20 so I go to the other stores and now the entire market is interested in my shoes. At the other store I get it down to $15 and my shoes (I only had $5 left). I begin to leave and the giraffe man offers me $10 and my shoes. I tell him no. He then flicks me off in a very strange way with his thumb behind his back. That night I borrowed some money for Teju and got the chess set for $10 and my sandles. It's sweet, hand carved pieces with giraffes as knights.

As you could imagine now my back pack is supre full. I have to carry around my giraffe (it is about waste high). I packaged it really well though for no materials. There is a cereal box between all fourlegs and a water bottle between the two close ones. I used a cookie box to protect a fragile leg and foot. Everything is covered in plastic bags. It really is a work of art in itself.

The rest of the day I spent building sand castles with the group. As a proffesional snow sculpotor (international award 2 times in a row for youth) I knew a thing or two about scultpting. I taught the group how to make huge towers in sand. You put in a little. At 2 parts sand, 1 part water. (avoid the shells). And pound it. You keep doing this layer after layer. Garrett and Hayden know what I'm talking about with our Seattle adventures. Well to do this I needed a bucket.

All the local women seemed to carry buckett to catch fish. Well I went up to a group and asked if I could borrow a bucket. They didn't understand. Eventually a guy came over to help translate. I don't think they still understood but I got a bucket out of it and started scultpting. At one point in time they asked for it back. I then just snuck into a guys "house" which was a tarp and "borrowed" his bucket. Buckets are a rare commodity here I guess.

The castle was pretty sweet but I got tired so I took a nap. For dinner I had steak and lobster for $8. Yummy!

Post-Dinner I stayed up pretty much all night (litteraly) and sat next to the beach finishing Angels and Demons.

I could predict the ending way too soon, so it was a bit dull, but the concepts it represented more than made up for it. Science is blind without religion, but how do we gain faith? How do we create god? Yoga romance. All the good stuff. I don't know what book I'll read next. I'm thinking about borrowing Ben's "How to recieve love" as that would help me out a lot in my life right now.

Walking home from reading I ran into a guy doing Taibo. That scared me. I also ran into my prostitute friend 2 more times since last we met. Once she was on the dance floor where all the group was dancing, I left that scene. The second time she was sitting on the beach. She asked me to come closer. I told her I wasn't going to fall for that again. From what she told me next I'm glad I didn't.

Probably the most fun was post Teju's Birthday, Teju requested that we go skinny dipping together. You are now reading the Olympic Skinny Dipping Hand Stand champion of the world. I came up with this game where you are naked and try to do a hand stand. It's really interesting as a tide goes up and down constantly. Ben MC'd the event. By the way we were doing this right in front of two restaurants. On my turn for round two, I couldn't stay up, but instead of coming up for air I just kept trying. So it was like an on and off flash of Elliott's legendary member for like 2 minutes. It was an event few will forget. Kelso attacked me for ruining his life long goal :) That night we also remembered when it is people's birthdays we put our buts on them. So we chased Teju around in the water and smothered him with our butts. Good tiems. How many people can say they did that in Africa?

We're back in Stone Town now and things are beggining to wind down. Starting to think about how I want to school to look when I get back. There's lots of changes I look forward to implementing. I can't wait to start working on makeing magic eye stuff.

Oh one more crazy fact, all the Denmark people bought tickets for the wrong day, so their Kenya flight is leaving after there trip to England. So they all have to change their flights. I didn't do this however, so I am home free, just Julie Marie, Paul , and I, partying hard in London. If it's Elliott, style, which I'm sure it will be, there will be lots of touring of the science museum and modern art museum. I'm so hardcore.

And that said, if anyone wants to ever go anywhere in the world Elliott style, you should leave a message on this board. I have fallen in love with world travel (it's an open relationship, so don't worry), and want to go to so many more places. So let me know if that sounds itneresting on this blog (if you really read all of this).

Oh one more fun thing: This morning I got a Henna tattoo.





I put a few lines there to freak out my mom. A henna tatoo is from spices and stays on your skin for a few weeks. Well I'm not to good with tattoos. I tell the lady to do whatever she wants. She asks me to write my name. Well I'm like oh cool how about Lo Serian. She's like is that your girlfriend. I told her unfortuantely I don't have a girlfriend. Well I wrote down the name wrong and she put it in my skin LOSARIAN. She then put a heart at the end, apparantly she thought it still was my girl friend. So now I'm in love with myself. But none the less hopping into the van to Stone Town I wipe the stuff all over my shirt and it smears my name. So I now have a semi-pernament tatoo that says LoSSDFD on my arm. Oh the engineers are going to be jealous back home. See you guys reall soon. This could be my last post till I get home. How sad. Then again, only 8 more days till Elliott's birthday. Woo hoo!!!

~Lo Serian

(Coincidently, Lo serian means no problems, makes you think, I also found out it means the one who is always blessed )