On the first weekend of February I had my first home-stay. I spent the day with a lady named Heirani and her boyfriend, Teamu. She told me that I needed to speak in French as much as possible so that Teamu could understand us. He doesn't speak English, but she does because she is an English teacher. They ended up taking me on another tour around the island. I was able to see the three waterfalls this time and they took me to Le Belvedere (the lookout) which is a point of land on Tahiti that is really high up and affords a great view. They also took me to a plateau on Tahiti-iti. For lunch, we ate at a little, authentic French restaurant. I had Grilled Mahi-mahi on pasta with basil sauce. For dessert, I had chocolate ice cream. As a way to save money, my host family had a coupon that said everyone had to have two courses and an alcoholic drink, so they bought a bottle of wine. That wine was really bitter and I found out the hard way that you should not drink it immediately after eating ice cream. Now before anyone says anything, the legal drinking age in Tahiti is 18, so I am not breaking the law by having a glass of wine with my lunch.
After lunch, we went to Heirani's parents' house and visited with them for a while. Due to the rain our plans to go snorkeling were vetoed so they took me to a movie instead. I ended up seeing the new Sherlock Holmes in French and I was amazing to fine that I could understand quite a bit of it. As Teamu said, at the very least I could watch the moving pictures. Ha ha, funny guy, no? For dinner we went to the roulottes and had crepes. They were delicious. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of Heirani and Teamu, but they expressed interest in seeing me again and so I am hoping to get a picture of them next time.
Valentine's Day in Tahiti is more than just one day. They have a mini market set up for 4 days so that we can shop and experience things. Since last night was Valentine's Night, Kandi, Caroline, Kelsey, and I ended up just having a girl's night out. It was pretty fun and I think we all enjoyed it. Also, last week there was a film festival here in Tahiti called FIFO. It was really interesting. We were able to see many different documentaries. It was a great way to practice my French comprehension skills.
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| The View from the look out. It is really something, isn't it? |
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| Another view. |
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| Mountain view. Gotta love the clouds even if they did mess up our plans. |
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| Me with my Pareo in front of the amazing view. |
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| Me in front of the mountain view. |
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| Anyone want to go to the beach? |
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| One of the waterfalls. I could not tell you exactly which one though. |
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| Close up of the same waterfall. |
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| Another waterfall. |
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| The view from the plateau. |
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| Foggy mountain |
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| Do these trees not remind you of the ones in the Dr. Seuess book about the turtles in the tree? |
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| Rombuton anyone? This is a kind of fruit that you do not eat the red part but rather a white squishy part from the inside. I am not joking, it sorta felt like I was eating goop. But the goop tasted good. |
