update
After a very enjoyable 2.5 weeks in the US visiting family, I am now in a completely different, and surreal, location.
As I write this, I am on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia. It's even dreamier than I expected and, which should come as no surprise given my addiction to tropical destinations, I'm pretty damn happy right now!
Why French Polynesia?
During that trip, we made a pact that we would travel to Georgiana's dream destination for her 40th birthday. Well, she turns 40 this week and we met in French Polynesia as a result!
We'll be here for a total of 10 days, trying really, really hard not to extend our stay...forever. Yeah, it's that gorgeous and peaceful, and it really is an 'impossible to worry about anything while here' kind of destination.
So far it's been days of lounging on the white sand beach, paddle boarding across the crystal clear waters wile surrounded by lush jungle-covered mountains and observing all kinds of beautiful fish, sting rays and Blacktip reef sharks swimming around the colorful reef right off the shore. It's more than ideal.
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Upcoming Plans
After French Polynesia, we'll be flying to Europe. And I was actually very curious about our ridiculously long upcoming flight from Papeete to Paris, with a quick refueling stop in San Francisco. This flight was booked on
French Bee Airlines. I had never flown with them before and while I was sure it was going to be no-frills, the price was hard (or impossible) to beat!
But then, on my way to French Polynesia, I had an unfortunate change of plans. After I flew from North Carolina to San Francisco on United Airlines, I discovered that my flight from San Francisco to Tahiti was delayed for 3 hours. After 3 hours of waiting, we were then all informed that the flight would now be cancelled.
Well, given the detailed plans and cost of accommodation in French Polynesia, missing out on a night can really mess things up and cost a fortune.
Luckily, I knew about French Bee Airlines because my return ticket from Tahiti was already booked with them as mentioned above. So I quickly went online and surprisingly, there were still seats on their flight to Tahiti that same night. I booked a ticket right away.
All that was left was to wait 4 hours until check-in for the new flight and then another 3 hours for the flight to depart. In total, from door to door, my journey took 31 hours.
Instead of arriving in Tahiti at 6:55pm, I arrived at 4:45am the next morning. But hey, it's Tahiti, so no complaining from me.
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Europe
A month in Europe will then involve a few days in Paris and a trip to Romania, which includes a friend's wedding as well. For the first time in my life, thanks to this wedding, I'm traveling overseas with suit pants right now. I couldn't convince myself to the take the suit jacket though so I hope they're okay with simply pants and a shirt :)
Anyway, that's the plan. If you have any questions about the destinations on this month's itinerary, please don't hesitate to let me know!
