French Polynesia!

I bought my big, intercontinental flights from STA Travel [especially recommended if you're a student and/or under 26 years old] in Freiburg back in February. The travel agent and I spoke German with each other, both thinking that the other had an interesting accent - and then I mentioned that I was from the US, and she said, "Oh! I'm from Australia!" Then we switched to English. When she was looking up flights from Tokyo to Los Angeles, she said, "Looks like the best one is with Air Tahiti Nui, and there's a stopover in Tahiti. If you want, you can extend that for a few days and just stay in Tahiti." I certainly couldn't say no to that, so although it hadn't been even a glimmer of a thought going in, I walked out of STA with two nights in French Polynesia.

After months of sharing apartments, rooms, and sometimes even beds, sleeping on all kinds of surfaces, not having much time to myself, constantly being on the go, and so on, I was determined to just relax and do as little as I wanted while I was there. Most of my time there was spent reading and sleeping, which might seem like silly things to do when you only have two days in French Polynesia, but I don't really care what you think!

On a whim, when I was booking my hotel, I decided to stay on Moorea, an island about nine miles northwest of Tahiti [they're both part of the Society Islands, which I've read about plenty of times in anthropology books but never really thought I'd end up in/on].

I stayed at Hotel Kaveka, which I can neither recommend nor not recommend - it's pretty much what you can expect in its price range [by the way, Polynesia is expeeeensive! I'm glad I was only there for two nights]. Buuuut it was on Cook's Bay and had beautiful views [then again, so does the whole island!]. Here's what it looked like from my bungalow:

They had a little beach where I sat and read as the sun went down.

And when the sun went down, the crabs came out!

Tahitian beer at a restaurant down the road [that is, the one road that goes around the whole island].

A cat hanging out in Moorea's open-air airport.

I took the ferry from Tahiti to Moorea, but coming back I missed the last ferry because the shuttle didn't come when the hotel said it would. Instead, I took a taxi to the airport, bought a plane ticket on the spot for about $50, and hopped on the plane that left about 15 minutes later. That's how flying should be!

Baby plane!

Don't worry, though, I wasn't completely lazy while I was there - the morning of my last day, I rented a bike from the hotel and biked around the whole island. Pictures from that to come!

Overall opinion: French Polynesia is beautiful but a bit expensive and awkward as a single traveler [so many honeymooners...]. A lot like Hawaii, but French. Nice for a couple days of relaxing, if you're in the neighborhood!