I returned to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti to collect G. We had a mission in mind for this morning. The sun was quite filtered today, and the real feel temperature only(!) in the mid-90s. We set out to do the Papeete walking tour. We had done parts of it in the past, of course, just by walking around, but wanted to use today, a day with cooler temps and almost no traffic (pedestrian or car) to play the tourist and follow the official map from Tahiti tourism. The initial site was, coincidentally, Notre Dame, which is also the location of the kilometer marker 0. These markers circle the island of Tahiti, and are used for directional information. It's quite handy since there is really only one major road, the perimeter road around the island.
We walked past the Assembly of French Polynesia and several monuments and statues. It was funny to greet other tourists using the morning to do exactly the same thing, all of us with our maps in hand stopping every so often to read a description.
The most attractive area was the tree lined boulevard with the federal buildings, and the presidential palace. Blog readers Rick and Monika had emailed me, suggesting we visit it. Tours are offered Tuesdays and Thursdays; we will try to see the inside of the palace next Tuesday.
We walked back to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti along the park-like waterfront. We had not known, until we read the walking tour map, that our hotel had originally been the location of the American Consulate, and the building next door used to be the Stuart Hotel, where Henri Matisse stayed when he lived on Tahiti beginning in 1930. He painted Papeete harbor right from his hotel balcony, but, given his artistic style, you'd never know what it was. ;-)
It was 1:30pm by then and we were getting weary. We returned to our room (bliss!) and had some lunch. We're glad we had purchased food yesterday to see us through the holiday; we saw only one cafe open today. We had chips and sandwiches and coconut sorbet, took showers and napped a bit. By the time we woke up, it was after 4pm and the city was cooling off a little. It's become our favorite way to spend our evenings...we cross the street to the long length of waterfront park and join the joggers, walkers, bicyclists; in line skaters and razor scooters. Tonight was particularly active as many family groups with lots of kids were at the park. It's still amazing to me to be somewhere where January 1st is celebrated much the way July 4th is at home, with picnics and BBQs and fun in a park (instead of housebound watching football games while it snows outside).
Les Roulottes were not set up tonight, so we're having tropical juice mixed with sorbet for dinner. The next two nights should be very active, with roulottes and live music along the waterfront. We are here five more days, and have tentative plans for all of them, now that I'm starting to feel better (am I better or is it just that it was cooler? I'm not sure...). Reader Linda emailed that she was bringing more ibuprofen for me (huge thank you for that!) on January 7th. The supply line will be in place right up until the end; in fact, Jill will be driving to the Grand Princess cruise on January 24th and offered to bring supplies, but said she knows that we'll have good (normal) shopping in Hawaii. To think that I was concerned about stretching things to last. We were supposed to be home two weeks ago tomorrow and instead won't be returning until a month from tomorrow. Well, I said at the outset it was time to shake things up a bit, but even I never I imagined how this winter would unfold.
And thank you to Martha (we miss you!) for sending not only a photo of the Princess float in the Rose Bowl Parade but also a video. We loved seeing it, and. though it was the only float I saw, I can't imagine a prettier one.
Things I learned today:
A cloudy day in Papeete is 100 times better than a sunny one. 1000 times. It makes the day more tolerable.
This town is quiet on New Year's Day...at least, until the evening.
G can happily watch French TV. I'm amazed. He insists he needs the sound on, for the sound effects, even though he doesn't understand a thing. Every so often he repeats, "Mon Dieu"; or "certainment", or "je ne sais pas", then proudly announces he's catching on to this. The funniest thing was when he said yesterday. "Let's go," and I said "On y va!" I have no idea where that came from, but it was buried in the part of me that is still 15 years old in Soeur Judy's French class.
Fabreeze is my new BFF. I've always been a fan, but it is saving us while we're here. 7 t-shirts, 5 pairs of shorts, 10 sweaty days...things I have to re-wear the next day get sprayed with Fabreeze at night and hung up to dry. They're actually tolerable the next day. It's a very good thing.
