could we start again please?

(subject headings: "animal encounters," "food we have eaten," "Peru," "the Bolshevik")

as you may have noticed, i have not blogged in some time.  i had all these delusions that i would write a whole bunch of posts about malaysia, and that i would be able to catch up before the next adventure began.  this of course did not happen.

then my computer crashed and refused to open iPhoto ever again.  but it is unfair to blame my old computer.

so here is an extremely brief recap to get you up to speed ...

1.  malaysia was awesome.  the food is delicious, and if for no other reason i highly recommend going there just so you can eat.  we also saw a whole load of asian temples, and i fulfilled my dream of being attacked by monkeys.  it looked something like this:
















2.  while in malaysia, sampling the most incredible food imaginable, the bolshevik finally proposed to me.  after carrying around an engagement ring for over two months, spanning several continents, on the 3rd to last day of our trip he asked me to marry him.  it looked something like this:

(dramatization)

3.  then in the following seven months i worked as an ESL teacher, went to an international job fair, secured a librarian job in Peru, finished my school media certification, finished my novel, captained a competitive jump rope team (we placed 3rd in the Punk Rope Games!), helped start a union, and planned what i am told was a pretty awesome wedding.  the wedding looked something like this:

















and that's what has happened since i stopped blogging back in november.  so we can just start from there, right?  cool.

so now the bolshevik and i are in a hotel room in Lima ... we just arrived last night and very soon someone will be picking us up and taking us to our apartment.  (the school found us what appears to be an incredible apartment).  then tonight the bolshevik is whisking me away to a secret honeymoon location.  you know how bolsheviks like to whisk people away.

i'm going to see how long i can go before i figure out where we're going.  i am wondering if it's possible to actually board the plane and still not know our destination.  we'll see.

to be continued ... (in a reasonably punctual fashion, i swear)

tahiti ... where the french go to speak french and act fancy

i know that i like to get my kvetch on now and again, and i hope that usually it is lovable and charming in a woody allen meets larry david meets phoebe buffet kind of way.  but i know that some of you beloved blog readers will have difficulty with my complaining about being in the island paradise of tahiti.  but i shall do it nonetheless ...

here goes ...

on with the kvetching ...

poolside sunset in tahiti ... do not be seduced by the
beautiful tropic tranquility!

so, we arrived at our free hotel in tahiti and it was just plain gorgeous.  definitely of a fancy caliber beyond our means.  on the grounds was a very chic looking pool overlooking the beach and the mountains and the little floating huts out at sea.  very lovely.

at happy hour we sat on oversized armchairs on the beach and sipped extremely pricey cocktails that were only affordable from 5:30-6:30 pm ... thank goodness for this or we would've spent the entirety of our trip sober!  the shame of it.

in the morning we arrived at the breakfast pavilion and were given warm chocolate croissants and breads, and then we gorged ourselves on a buffet of french cheeses (i must say that the combination of french cuisine and island living is quite nice) ... however we were quite shocked when we found out that said breakfast cost about $30 per person.  to be fair, the bolshevik did eat his weight in brie.

side note:  we were in the rare minority of non-french speakers in tahiti and i have developed the odd problem that when someone speaks to me in a foreign language i cannot help but answer in spanish.  this is not helpful in french polynesia.

it is also interesting to note that the majority of visitors to tahiti had traveled there from france.  if you look on a map and are successfully able to find tahiti, you will see that it is damned far from everything, especially france.  i can only assume that wealthy french people are choosing to fly across the globe in order to have tropical vacations where they can still have the comfort food of home and speak their native language.  odd.

anyway, moving on ...

we tried to save some money by having dinner in town where (i had read in our guidebook) they have a plaza filled with food trucks every night selling "cheap" food.  mmmmm .... food truck food.  when dining in tahiti there are three food truck options ... seafood, chinese, and crepes.

we quickly found that the cheapest dish at the food trucks was about $20 ... seriously?  it's food from a truck, which is then eaten on plastic picnic tables.  this is not to say that i do not love food truck food, however, i think it should come at a discounted rate.

heaps of raw fish deliciousness

anyway, we opted for seafood and i must say that it was deeee-lish ... i got a dish that was pretty much a pound or so of raw tuna in a coconut milk sauce and a side of fries.  it was definitely a good value considering the amount of food i received, however, it would've been nice to get something like a half a pound of raw fish and save myself some cash.

i will not bore you with the rest of my complaints, which all revolve around expensiveness ... but here is a little list, just so you know:
rental car: $150 ish for about 5 hours
polynesian dinner show: $75 per person (we didn't actually go due to pricey-ness)
very short cab rides after the bus stopped running: $35 each
hotel wifi (which was extremely slow, and had the odd habit of continuing to charge us even when we had logged off and left the hotel room) - $6 per hour

anyway ... after a while we kind of felt like we were hemorrhaging money, and all in the period of a three day layover.

okay, enough with the kvetching ... i will now tell you about fun things we did in tahiti:

view from our 4x4 adventure

- we swam in a cave
- we visited a religious site with tiki statues
- we rode in the back of a 4x4 through the mountains and looked at flora, fauna and waterfalls
- we swam in a waterfall
- we drank tropical cocktails (but only from the hours of 5:30-6:30 pm)
 - we ate ridiculous amounts of french cheese

in conclusion ... tahiti is quite beautiful and filled with natural splendor.  however, if you are not independently wealthy i would suggest visiting a different tropical island.  next time we will try fiji.