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Now that I’m thru my disclaimer, we can now jump into what we all really want: My legendary Tahiti trip starting Day 1! I will share my first day of this adventure starting October 15, 2019 - ending October 23, 2019. I cannot say enough about how much anticipation there was to go to Tahiti. I knew it would be life-changing for me. Planning every single day in over a 5-month course in advance after many hours of research, I believe I had it all figured out and it would be a breeze. Boy, was I in for a reality check. Not that anything went really wrong on the trip because nothing did, but as the old saying goes “some things are easy said than done”. Without any further to do, let’s start the Day 1 summary!
DAY 1
Alarm sounds. It was 4:45am October 15, 2019. I gradually rose up from my couch and began to get dressed. I didn’t sleep much that night, as there was simply way too much brain activity with my mind already in Tahiti. I had already packed all my bags the night before so all I had to do was get my clothes on for the day and eat a little something so I could hopefully sleep on the flights without being held up by an empty stomach. My friend Patrick who is an Uber driver picked me up at 5:15am, taking me to Pittsburgh International Airport for a 7am flight to my first layover in Denver, Colorado. I live about 40 minutes or so from the airport so I basically had one hour to spare for my flight departure. “One hour?! Are you crazy Joe?!” you might be saying. I had acquired TSA pre-check which is essentially a background check for TSA. Upon acceptance, you miss all the long lines at airports and don’t need to take your shoes off. With all that, you are through security checkpoints in about 5 minutes. For just $80.00 for as many flights you go on for 5 years, you are through the airport much quicker and it takes the stress of getting on-time to your flights and not worrying about possibly getting a pat-down because you forgot to remove that one little item from your back pocket.
So I got through the check-point as quickly as I was told I would after I got my boarding passes for my flights. I arrived at the gate for my flight and it was already boarding. Perfect timing. I got on the plane and flew away to Denver. Denver was my first of 2 layovers. My other layover being San Francisco. I arrived in Denver and what do you know, there was snow in the jetway and I felt a cold draft come in. “I’m so happy I’m going to Tahiti”, I said to myself as I walking as quickly as I could off the jetway. I only had a 38-minute layover in Denver as the plane to San Francisco was boarding just less than 10 minutes after I arrived at the appropriate gate. I boarded my flight to San Francisco which was just about an hour long. I arrived in SF with a 2-hour layover so I decided to get something to eat. I did what the average American would’ve done, got a combo meal from Burger King. I had a large drink so after I was done with the Sprite I ordered, I could fill the cup up with water as I was super thirsty. And what do you know, not long after I finished my meal, drink and then drank my water, I had only sat a few minutes when it was time to start boarding for the flight to my dream destination: TAHITI! I boarded the flight and happen to be seated, in the middle row of a Boeing 787, next to a Tahitian himself.
Finally, the plane left San Francisco for the very big jump across the pond (Pacific Ocean) for 8 and a half hours. Needless to say, I had plenty of time to kill via sleep and making friends with a local before I even arrived in Tahiti. His English was ok, but as I assured him, it was much better than my French. French is the main language in Tahiti and honestly, I wish I took more time to learn it before I went. The gentleman and his wife, who was sitting behind us, were on their way back from visiting their son and his family in Arizona. He was very kind and began telling me things about Tahiti to do, visit and safety tips with the sun while I was there. He then gave me his number and told me if I needed anything, to call him. I thanked him tremendously and we formally introduced ourselves to each other. His name was Alfred, my first friend from Tahiti that I made. For a moment, I felt like I belonged, and I hadn’t even set foot there yet!
I tried to sleep on the flight but if you’re like me and always prefer your own bed, sleeping on a plane is not an easy task even if you’re tired. I kept drifting in and out of sleep, waking up mainly to eat the food being served on the plane and filling out customs paperwork for when we arrived in Tahiti. Finally after 17 and a half hours of total travel time, almost 15 of those hours being in the air, 2 layovers, maybe 3-4 hours of sleep for me through all that, we finally landed at Faa’a International Airport in Tahiti! Any exhaustion I had gone away after a massive amount of adrenaline kicked in. We all got off the plane going down a flight of steps since they had no jetways. Immediately I felt the heat and humidity of French Polynesia hit me and I was excited. We walked into the arrival area where we were all treated to a couple of gentlemen playing ukuleles and a woman dancing as you see in the brief video below. I knew I was in the right place. Finally got through customs without any issues, got my bag from baggage claim and began to walk out towards where the arrival signs were.
But then I felt like I needed to double-check my reservation at the Mahana Hostel in Papeete (the capital city of French Polynesia where I was staying). I normally wouldn’t do this, but I printed out a copy of all my reservations for flights, hotels, rental car, etc. Of course, I had the emails on my phone, but the wifi at the airport was only good for a half-hour and I didn’t want to use data on international charges while I was there. I checked my print out and noticed my reservation was beginning Oct. 16th and of course it was 7 pm Oct. 15. I realized that when I booked online through the site I used for booking my flight and hotel, it told me I would arrive in Tahiti on Oct 16th, it meant East Coast USA time which was 1 am Oct. 16th, not Tahiti time. I was in a bind for a moment. I couldn’t stay at the airport overnight, but what if the Hostel was full? Where would I go? So I stopped, got my American Dollars converted to Tahitian Francs (almost a 100 Franc to 1 American Dollar ratio), got bottled water, and then finally got myself to just call the hostel and see if they were able to check me in a day early. Fortunately, they were, so I went outside the airport to get taxi to the Hostel and then I was on my way. After only about 10 minutes on the ride, the taxi pulled up to my hostel. The driver got out, helped me get my bags, I paid him and checked in to get to my room.
Being in a hostel was a totally different experience for me, as I had never done it before. I just put my bags underneath my bunk, got out of my traveling clothes and laid in bed. There were a couple of other people in my room, and I asked one of them about the charging ports for my phone as I noticed my port I brought from America didn’t fit what they had. Immediately all the apprehension hit me. I suddenly was very uncomfortable.
“Joe, what have you done?!”
“You’re 6000 miles away from home in a foreign country by yourself. You don’t speak the language. Why did you do this again?!”
“You’re in way over your head”
“What if that guy across from you in the other bunk steals your stuff?”
These thoughts and more raced through my head. I had only been outside America just twice in my life when I was 13 and 14 years old. I went to Canada and Mexico. Fast forward 15 years later and I traveled by myself very far away. Hardly anyone in Pittsburgh would ever think of traveling this far by themselves to somewhere so remote. And of course, I was the “weirdo” who attempted it. Pathetically, I began to feel homesick already. What was I going to do? I finally got myself to calm down a little and decided I was too tired to be anxious and I fell asleep….
To be continued on Day 2