My Second PCV Vacation: Durban

   I recently went on a vacation to Durban, South Africa with a group of six other PCVs. There is so much about the trip that I could write about, but I'll choose a few highlights to focus on. Since we went during the off season we were able to get an awesome deal at a hotel right on the Indian Ocean, which meant we were able to spend time in the water all four days that we were there. The water was so warm even though it is winter time in this part of the world, and the weather was great the entire time that we were there.  It was absolutely wonderful. Our first afternoon in Durban we found, through some transport mishaps, an amazing Indian restaurant that had an all you can eat buffet! We spent a couple of hours chowing down on every bit of Indian food that we could possibly fit in our stomachs. We spent a day at an aquarium where some of us went shark cage diving, which was a fun experience. It was also really cool just being at an aquarium since I have so many great memories of growing up going to the New England Aquarium in Boston, and I miss it. The walk to the aquarium was also wonderful because we could walk along the boardwalk the entire way so we just took our time walking and site-seeing. We followed our aquarium day with dinner at a great sushi restaurant, washed down with very yummy Long Island Iced Teas. During our trip, we also found this fun street called Florida St. that had a lot of great restaurants and bars. A few of us found a bar nearby that happened to be having a karaoke night, which was fun. The person running karaoke pressured us into singing three ABBA songs with some other people, and then wanted to hear some of our "Yankee songs". (Our reaction was "Huh, Yankee songs? hmmm) .We decided to sing "Baby Got Back" and "I Want Dance with Somebody". Some of my other favorite parts of the trip were that we could watch the sunrise because we had balconies off of our rooms and the views were amazing, hot showers, and just being able to blend in. It was a nice break, and I had a lot of fun with my friends I traveled with. It was drama-free and relaxing, and I'm very grateful for that.