We're certifiable!

And certified. Yesterday Krisi and I passed the exam, finished our skills, and sent away for our PADI scuba cetification cards. We contemplated doing the advanced Open Water Course, which includes a deep dive, a night dive, and a few other specialized dives, but today was sunny and we decided to celebrate by doing nothing. We woke up late (thanks to our certification celebration last night), ate breakfast, went to the pool, sat by the pool, swam in the pool (note to self: too big bikini bottoms are hazardous for doing somersaults in the pool), read by the pool, read on our deck, and are now going to go for dinner somewhere....so, today is not so interesting. I think I'll tell you more about yesterday, instead.

I won't lie...I was a bit apprehensive about our second SCUBA outing. First, it was pouring rain again. Second, I didn't much enjoy the seasickness, and didn't feel like going there today. Third, I felt super lazy. But I had no plans to quit halfway through, so I took the seasickness pill they gave me, and did my best to pretend that the cold hard rain didn't bother me at all. We got to the boat, all grim-faced and shivering, and changed into our scuba suits on board (by the way, neither of us brought cameras for any of this, for obvious reasons and also that we seem to have tired of taking pictures of everything, so none of you will get to see us in our scuba suit glory). But things were definitely different this time...I didn't feel like the world was all upside down and I seemed to actually be able to walk in a straight line! As a result, the process of gettng my gear together didn't seem quite as impossible and I felt much more excited to get in the water. In our first dive, we finished all our skills (the removal of the mask and putting it back on underwater resulted in a little bit of water up my nose) and spent the rest of the time just swimming around, looking at the beautiful fish and coral. For those of you have never gone diving, it is an amazing experience. You are weightless, graceful, and the world around you is simply more stunning than you can even imagine. The fish seem completely unbothered by your presence (as long as you don't bother them or they aren't cleaner fish, who ate up some scabs from our more unfortunate motorcycle crashing classmates), and there is no way to describe the feeling of swimming through a school of hundreds of brightly coloured fish. Our second dive of the afternoon was the best, as we had passed all the requirements for the course, and got to just enjoy the ride. It was so much fun, that's we're going to be doing another dive tomorrow afternoon!

In other news, I had to purchase a new pair of emergency flip flops after mine were stolen. It probably wasn't intentional theft...I had a pair of black flippys and, as is custom, I left them outside the restaurant in the pile that was already there. There seems to be accidental flip flop trades going on all the time. One of the girls in my class had hers stolen, so she stole someone else's, only to find that her roommate had accidentally worn hers home, and she had accidentally stolen her rooomates. I walked barefoot to the nearest flip flop purveyor, and tried to pick out a new pair, that wouldn't be mistaken for anyone else's. Unfortunately, none of the girls' flippys fit (woe are my big feet in a country full of petite asian women!), so I had to look at the masculine versions. I decided against the ones with the American flag that said "UNITED STATED" on them, and steered clear of the ones with sculls and fires. The most feminine pair had a young asian boy on the left foot and a young asian girl on the right, with cartoon hearts between them. I love my new "asian cartoon children in love" flip flops, and don't imagine I will ever have to part with them!