Not that anyone will notice ...

But I'll be conspicuously absent from our lovely little PC community for a while. The wife & I are leaving tomorrow afternoon for 11 nights in French Polynesia. We'll be spending 5 nights on Moorea, 3 on Raiatea and 3 on Bora Bora.

I should be through most of my PC withdrawal by the time we arrive, but you never know.

I'm sorry I'll miss the next 2 weeks of "Barak should be President! ... He can't win. Hillary should! ... You're all idiots. McCain's the man!" Then again, maybe I'll be better off without it.

 

I know someone there has a computer ... I booked my rental car on Moorea via email.

I think I'll be better served by trying to shake my PC addiction before I jump in the water to feed reef sharks, though.

Once I develop all the film (no digital for me) I'm taking & scan it in, I'll post some pics.

 

It's a little late to make that exchange, but we'll keep it in mind for the next time. We're definitely doing a day on Tahaa. Unfortunately, I don't dive. I thought about getting certified while we're there, but we're actually doing this trip somewhat on the cheap. Maybe I'll get certified somewhere near home.

Thanks!

 

Pleasure. It's my wife's dream trip and we figured better now than later. We're not having children, so we don't have to wait until they're out of school. Why not now?

 

Unfortunately, no Prii were available for rentals there. On Moorea & Bora Bora we had Fiat Pandas and on Raiatea we had a Citroën of some kind. Nice tiny cars, but it took me a little while to stop poking the dashboard when we stopped. I'm glad I still remember how to drive a manual after a 12-year layoff.

Muffins would have been good. Especially for the extensive plane ride(s) home. Trip was AWESOME and well worth it. Just trying to get myself back on Eastern Time before going back to work tomorrow.

Most of the time we didn't have any problem. French & Tahitian are the official languages, but a lot of people speak English ... especially in the hotels & restaurants. As with any place, when you get further from population centers it gets harder.

The toughest time we had language-wise was when we took a tour of Tahaa. The primary tour guide didn't speak much English. Fortunately, his son does and the English speakers on the tour went with him.

On Moorea & Bora Bora we never had a problem. Raiatea & Tahaa don't get as many tourists (Raiatea was described to us as "Moorea 20 years ago"), so it was a little tougher there.

My wife has a decent understanding of French from HS. Plus she has a gift for language retention that I don't (I can't remember squat from my 2 years of HS German), so we were OK if we got stuck. There were a couple times where she asked a waitress something in French to avoid any miscommunication.

At grocery stores I just said "Hello" to the clerks to get everything straight right up front that I speak English. If they gave me a price in French I just said "English?" and they either gave me the price in English or showed me the price.

Everyone on all the islands was very nice & laid back. So there wasn't any worry about whether anyone would be "upset" that we weren't speaking French.