My eyes opened. It was still dark and I saw a bunch of people coming in and out of the room. It was as if they were packing their bags or something similar. I was a little disoriented but I could hear them speaking French. This didn’t exactly ease my personal discomfort about the situation I found myself in. I wanted to go home already! How could it be? I literally just got there. Being unfamiliar with my surroundings very far away from home was not something I was not prepared for, because I had never been in a spot like this before. At least when I traveled outside the country when I was a kid, I was with others and it wasn’t as far away.
I finally looked at my phone and it was 5 am or so. Very early in the morning, hence why I had not yet seen the sun. I proceeded to lay in my bunk a little longer before I finally got up and decided to go to breakfast upstairs on the 3rd floor kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and it had a full set for people to cook, store utensils, tables and chairs to sit. The food being served was French bread with plenty of rich butter, jellies, and peanut butter. For me, I was trying to do the whole trip as economically as possible so French bread with butter in the morning became part of my routine. I sat among a few other men who were speaking French and just quietly enjoyed my breakfast with coffee. After I was done, I ended up meeting another guy who happened to be from Colombia and spoke some English so I talked to him briefly. I then went downstairs to the ladies working at the hostel and asked them about where I could get a charging port that fits the outlets in the hostel and they told me to go a store a few blocks down the street. So I waited until the time came for the store to be open. I walked down the Main Street of Papeete called “Boulevard de la Reine Pomare IV” (try saying that 5 times really fast) and I slowly began to smile more. It finally settled in that I was here! I was finally in the very place I planned for months to be in. The sun was shining. The street was lined with palm trees. It was hot and humid, just the way I like it. I was in Tahiti. I found the store, walked inside and then saw the outlet port I would need for charging my phone. I bought it and then walked back to my hostel.
After waiting around in my room for my phone to fully charge, I packed some things in my bag and got ready to walk to the beach. I had looked up where the nearest beach was, so I figured today would be a good day to go out and begin to explore the tropics. I gathered my bag to carry personal belongings in, and proceeded to walk down the main road through Papeete to where I thought was the beach. I was pretty walking somewhat blindly, hoping to stumble upon a beach by my guess-stimations. I had a personal policy that my cellular data would be turned off during the time I was traveling so I would not be gauged for additional international phone service charges. This was why utilizing the time I was on wifi in my hostel was critical when I was trying to figure out where to go and how to get there.
Anyways, I kept walking down the street, weaving my way past storefront after storefront. I kept looking around as I was walking because I was awestruck again by the fact that I was finally here, in Tahiti. I took a glance over to my right and I got a magnificent (magnifique) view of the mountains in the middle of the island, with clouds covering the tip tops of them. Continuing in my awestruck state of the land I was walking on, I finally saw some open area with small palm trees spread out and roofs for people to sit under. It was a park named “Parc Aorai Tini Hau”. I began to walk towards it and what looked like an open area where a beach would be. Lo and behold, there was a beach! It was the kind of beach I read and saw pictures of with its key feature, black sand. Due to the fact that Tahiti and many of the islands in French Polynesia were formed by volcanoes, black sand beaches are common, particularly on Tahiti. I sat down in front of a sea wall and observed the beautiful Pacific Ocean. I took it all in for a little while and decided to head back to the shade of the roofs that were right before the beach.
It was here that I had my first obvious encounter with culture shock. As I was sitting on the steps under the roofs, I was looking to my left when this woman probably in her late 40s or so walked up from the shore and sat down about 30 feet or so from me on the steps under the roof. I continued to just observe the beauty of the coast lined with palm trees and rocks on my left when out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of her proceeding to removed her bikini top. To be honest, it took me a couple of seconds to process what exactly was going on as I obviously wasn’t used to watching a middle-aged woman take her top off in plain public site like that. I turned my head as not wanting to stare like a perv. “Am I really seeing this!?”, I asked myself. I turned my head after 20 seconds or so, expecting a towel to be wrapped around her body. Nope. Her tata’s were still bare and out for all of the Tahiti to see, but I did see her looking like she was about to put a new bikini top on. So I turned my head and waited some more time for her to put that new top on sure enough she did when I looked over. However, a couple walked up to her. It looked like it could’ve been her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend. They looked like they were about in their early 20s. And then, the daughter removed her top in public site and put a new top on herself. Yep, I was clearly not in Western PA anymore. It was my welcome to Tahiti moment (and no I don’t photographic evidence of any of this occurring if you’re a guy and wondering).
Eventually, the three walked away and I was back to enjoying the beautiful nature of God’s creation on this side of the world. A few minutes later a man came down by me saying “Bonjour” as he sat down by me. “Bonjour!” I replied. He then proceeded to ask me where I was from. “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in America!” I replied. He never heard of it before. I asked him if he lived in Tahiti and he said that he did although he was originally from France. I then observed that he was wearing a Vegas Golden Knights t-shirt, so being that I’m a big hockey fan, I asked him about his shirt. He exclaimed to me that one of his relatives lived in Las Vegas and he attended a Golden Knights game with them when he visited. I told him I was a Pittsburgh Penguins fan and I liked Vegas because they had our past goalie, Marc Andre Fleury. He said that everyone loves Fleury in Vegas and I agreed about that and how we miss him in Pittsburgh. We continued to talk about a lot of things like family, the weather in our respective countries of residence, Tahiti and more. He spoke some English and we were able to have a lengthy conversation. Finally, after a while, I decided I wanted to head back to the Hostel as I can tell I was getting a little sunburnt. We formally introduced ourselves. His name was Erwin and he told me was walking back towards the city too. So we continued to walk back and talk. We asked each other what we thought about the respective leaders of our countries (The president of France is Emmanuel Marcon) and gave our honest opinions and no I will not be sharing those here as there is a right time and place to do so and its not here. We reached where my hostel was, shook hands and he added me on facebook to keep in touch and told me that if I needed anything to contact him. Once again, I was impressed with the hospitality of the people of Tahiti.
Later on that afternoon, right before the grand sunset of over the ocean, I went out to chill in the park across the Main Street through Papeete. The name of this park here was “Place Vai'ete”, which was a waterfront park and gathering spot right across from where the Mahana Hostel was. And the cool thing about this place was every night, food trucks would come out, with seating and lots of great eats. After taking a walk around from one end of the park to the other, enjoying the gorgeous sunset over the bay, 6 o’clock hit and the food trucks were ready to serve their respective delights. I decided to sit at one of the tables and immediately the waitress for the specific truck brought me a menu. I felt like I was in a dream paradise sitting in a park on a warm night facing palm trees and the ocean. I ended up ordering what would be my go-to meal of the trip, fried chicken with steamed rice and lemon sauce. The food came out and the chicken was piled very high off the plate. I was stunned at how generous the portion was, along with the amount of French bread they gave me. I couldn’t finish it all so I asked for a box to take home what was leftover of the chicken and rice. I was even more thrilled because I had a meal for another evening so anyway I could save money was a bonus.
By then, it was dark so I walked back to my hostel and begun to get ready for bed. I was genuinely surprised at how well I got around for it being my first full day and dealing with jet lag from 17 and half hours of traveling and 6 times zones. Up until that point in the evening, I felt ok. It was about 8 pm but I was sleepy so I went to bed early that evening. Finally, I began to get comfortable in Tahiti. Erwin was a real God-sent as he was a reminder that I didn’t have anything to fear as far as the people go. I fell asleep having made the most of my day, looking forward to the next day where I would go back to the beach and enjoy this beautiful paradise I found myself in, on the other side of the world.