Tahiti here we are! I had wanted to go somewhere like Tahiti, Fiji, the Samoas, or something on that order, and Bev begrudgingly obliged. She understands my insatiable thirst for conquering new countries. :)

We arrived at the airport in the early evening and grabbed a cab to the hotel. The hotel was free (good) but felt just a hair off (bad). We were pretty out of whack from the flight, so we grabbed dinner at the hotel restaurant and called it a night.

The next day we woke up and the view out of our window was amazing. The pool overlooked the ocean, and it was a crisp blue summery day. Papeete was only a quick one-day stop on our way to a few days in Moorea, so we checked out and walked with our bags to the main road outside our hotel, where we picked up the local open air tram to get to the main part of the island.

We explored around and found the local market, which was pretty spartan compared to the insane southeast asian markets we had seen. We grabbed a piece or two of fruit (the islands are crazy expensive!) and tried to find a cheap place for lunch. We ended up, egads, at McDonalds, but they were selling Croque Monsieurs, so it somehow felt okay.

The islanders' English is pretty good by and large, but we still had to pull out our French now and again to get by. Anyway, we grabbed our lunch and brought it to the pier, where we picked up the catamaran ferry from Papeete to Moorea.