Growing up, my family wasn't able to travel. My little brother is severely autistic and he requires round the clock supervision. As he got older and bigger, we became unable to take care of him and he moved into a group home. We visit him every Saturday.
Since that change, for the first time my parents had the ability to travel and decided to take advantage of it. I'm such a princess and have been invited to these trips whenever our schedules allow.
Tahiti has a lot in common with Hawaii. Hawaii is more convenient for Americans and it has high rise hotels so it can fit more tourists. In contrast, Tahiti has these amazing individual bungalows. I firmly believe that French people really know how to design kick-butt vacation places.
We went out on our deck to go swimming and saw a shark right outside our bungalow. Needless to say, we did not adventure in the water at the time. After seeing the shark, I felt compelled to research what to do if one see a shark while swimming. One of my favorite bit of advice that I found read "Do not play dead. This is not a bear. It is a shark."
But after the shark passed, we spent plenty of time jumping right out of our bungalow and swimming in the ocean. I've never wanted an underwater camera more. I can't describe how incredible all the small fish were. We also saw a sea turtle that I tried really hard to touch. He had such a mean face and he glared me at me and swam away grumpily whenever I approached. I followed him for ten minutes before my mom told me to stop harassing the turtle.
We received sashimi in a coconut as a bowl. I knew that coconut is edible and I scraped at the white meat with a knife at the dinner table. I did not achieve much success so I asked a Polynesian waiter how to eat the coconut. He looked at me as if I had asked "how do you drink water?" and responded "with the knife, of course!" He showed me how to do it. I just thought his reaction was hilarious. It was a go-home-and-tell-your-family-about-the-ridiculous-thing-a-tourist-said-to-you-today sort of response.
The world we live in is so incredible. The natural world is incomparable. And the creativity of humans never fails to amaze me.
My favorite thing about travel is getting to spend so much time with my family. We're in different states and all so busy. It's so nice for all of our schedules to be synchronized for a few days and get to really talk.
