Welcome to Paradise -- Tahiti

Everyone got up around 8:30am, and felt pretty good.  Now that it was daylight, it was little easier to check out our hotel.  The Sheraton is at a great location, has a wonderful pool, but the rooms are dated.  We had a nice view from our balcony over the pool and the lagoon.  The room was pretty musty, probably from the high humidity here.  The air conditioner seemed to help that some.

We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant and it was excellent.  Ed and I had eggs bendict made to order.  With all the other items on the buffet, I was stuffed!

The natives here speak their own language (Tahitian, which I am told is closely related to Hawaiian and Maori languages) and French -- but not a lot of English, so that made for some interesting interchanges, especially for my parents.

  We hung out at the pool after breakfast for a while, but it kept raining lightly off and on, so it wasn't really a good day to lounge at the pool.  We decided to head into the center of the city to sightsee some and do some shopping.  It was in the high 90's temperature wise and very humid, so my Dad was miserable.  Very different weather than what he left behind in Wyoming in January!  Mom wasn't to hip on it either, but put on a better game face.  We found the prices to be very high here, so did not buy a lot.  Ed and I got Tahitian shirts and Mom and I bought some locally made vanilla that is supposed to be great for cooking.  I really enjoyed checking out the market area with the seafood and fruits of the area and would have liked to have spent some more time checking that out, but my Dad was needing air conditioning!  We caught a taxi back to our hotel, and Mom and Dad went up to the room to rest.   I went back down to the pool and read some and worked on my journal.  There were four ladies poolside that decided to get some sun sans tops.  I had to razz Dad that he missed the topless gals when I went back up to the room -- but I don't think he really cared!

We cleaned up, put on our new Tahitian shirts and went to dinner at the hotel restaurant.  We started with cocktails and banana chips at the bar, and then went to a great dinner in the main dining room.  I had salmon with mussels and risotto, Mom had Mahi Mahi and Ed had lobster.  We had a nice French white wine with our dinner.  For dessert, we had a mousse made with Bailey's Irish Creme.  Everyone was pretty happy with the meal.

We were in bed and sacked out by 10pm, as we had to catch our flight to New Zealand the next morning.  I was glad we were not staying another night as Mom and Dad were not that impressed with Tahiti -- and if I was going to stay longer, I would have wanted to be in one of those huts that is right over the water so I could experience that and do more things in the water.  Another time!