Instead, we had a few housekeeping goals for our two days in Papeete:
1.) Find out why G could not play iTunes content, purchased through our Family Sharing account and already downloaded on his iPhone. It was one of those things that would have been so easily remedied at home, but was much harder to fix on the road. We needed to be logged into WiFi simultaneously, and Google the issue and play with different settings. (In case you ever face the same issue, the solution was to kick him out of my family group and then re-invite him. Go figure...but it worked)
2.) Color my hair for the first time since we left home 40 days ago. I was oh-so-blonde after the days in the sun and salt water. The Hotel Tiare Tahiti bathroom is all tiled, and a safe environment in which to apply that toxic solution.
3.) Give G a haircut (we need to look presentable when we re-join the Pacific Princess on Sunday!)
4.) Do some hand laundry. I will not miss that when we're back on the ship!!
We completed items 1 and 4 and still made it to breakfast around 7:30am. This time, we knew to ask, and received scrambled eggs with our tropical juice. bowl of fruit, chocolate croissant, tea or coffee and a baguette (natch!). It was nice to start the day with some protein. The Reservations Manager, Monique, made a point to stop by and welcome us back, and we ending up chatting until 9am. She is the sweetest lady, and we just found out today that her daughter is in medical school at Drexel University in Philadelphia. I can see that; Monique is a detail-oriented go-getter herself.
G took care of retrieving the one large suitcase and our two rolling carry ons that were being stored for us in the office at the Hotel Tiare Tahiti, and returned them to our room, singing "Reunited, and it feels so good...", a la Peaches and Herb from the late 1970s. In case you didn't already realize it, I am married to a nut (but he keeps life fun and infinitely interesting). :-) Just one more suitcase on the ship and all our worldly goods (for the next month and a half) will exist in one place. Maybe then we'll be able to locate everything, 'cause it's been a struggle since we left the Pacific Princess on September 28.
We needed to leave our room so it could be cleaned (Fresh towels daily! A toilet we can put TP in! Washcloths!), and by 10am or so the rain had stopped, so we left the hotel en route to Le Marché. On the way, however, there were lots of "Bonjours" and those European two-cheek air kisses as we saw people we knew...at the Hotel Tiare Tahiti, at the shop next door, at the travel agency nearby, at the frozen yogurt shop. It had a smidge of a homecoming feel.
Also feeling too familiar...the humidity was thick, and though the temperature was only in the low 80s, the air felt like it could be cut with a knife. Yuck! It brought back memories of last December, and was very unlike the beautiful days we had here last week.
We watched as the framework for two large tents was assembled next to Pier 1. These are the tents that will be used for Pacific Princess check in on Sunday, and where luggage is offloaded from the ship. It's hard to believe that these are assembled and dismantled every ten days, solely for the Pacific Princess turnaround days. Usually they're set up just one day prior, but I suppose the weekend accelerated the schedule.
For two weeks, I had been craving the fresh carrot juice from a cafe on the second floor of the Papeete market. My diet has been seriously veggie-deficient lately. We walked over there, I waited in line...and they were out of fresh carrots. Seriously disheartened, I bought a large water bottle so we could sit there and use the WiFi. We found ourselves surrounded by cruisers boarding the Paul Gauguin tomorrow, as it begins a 13-night one-way cruise from Papeete to Fiji. Now, the Paul Gauguin is not an inexpensive cruise. Curious, I looked it up online; the least expensive cabin, a porthole cabin, is just over $400 per person per day. The most expensive cabin is over $1300 per day. And the people we were talking with? One writes articles for The Economist, another was on a corporate board, a third was an author who lives in Aspen four months a year. Oooookkkkkk then....
But, (not) coincidentally (because it's a great school), two of these highly successful people were University of Michigan grads in the 1960s (who just met each other today). And the three of us U of M alums sat there, at Le Marché in Papeete, just a day before the second biggest game of the season (vs. Michigan State), talking Jim Harbaugh and Michigan football, and, for a few minutes, I was transported back to Ann Arbor on a home game weekend.
It was nice. :-)
We made it back to the frozen yogurt shop just before 1:30pm and took advantage of the two hour half-priced deal ('cause we're not Paul Gauguin cruisers). ;-) I had Greek yogurt and raspberry swirl today (I love the sweet and tart taste together), and we sat at a table on the sidewalk and watched the world go by. We returned to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti and, when we retrieved our room key from the front desk, the clerk there handed us a bag. Inside were two wrapped packages, gifts from Monique. How sweet is that?!? G received a South Pacific t-shirt (highly appropriate) and my gift was a little French Polynesia tote with a change purse inside. Cute, cute, cute. One of the best parts of going places is the friends we meet along the way!!
Gifts from a friend :-)
It was time for a short rest before we went back out to the waterfront and les roulottes for dinner. Papeete was a hopping place today, with the Paul Gauguin cruisers and probably some other Pacific Princess cruisers in town, but a light, misty rain moved in about 6pm and that considerably dampened the spirit of the food trucks. We walked over after dark to get dinner and watched as the Paul Gauguin arrived and spun into its dock (the second one). We sat next to some sailors whose sailing yacht was docked at the new yacht harbor right across the street from the Hotel Tiare Tahiti, and enjoyed hearing their tales of real adventure on the South Pacific Ocean.
No, thank you. Cruise ships are a whole lot easier...and the buffet is so much better, too. ;-)