Where in the world is the French Polynesia?

In January of 2011, two months after meeting my pilot, he deployed out for six months to the desert. Emailing, Skype, and the Post Office were our means of communication. I have never sent so many care packages in my life! The post office staff were getting to know me on a first name basis!

As a treat to us both, my now husband thought it would be nice to go somewhere tropical after being in the sandy desert for six months. I don't blame him! He had already been to Hawaii, so why not Tahiti? I had no idea where Tahiti was even located. It is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Tahiti? I would have never dreamed that I could go visit such a beautiful place! There are a lot of islands in the French Polynesia. We stayed on  the island of Tahiti in a town called Papeete. Papeete is the capitol of Tahiti and it is the largest of the 118 islands. We wanted to get a little culture in before we toured another island. Some places we visited were the Black Pearl Museum, the local Municipal Market (this the oldest surviving institution on the island), and discovered the locally-brewed Hinano beer! We rode a ferry over to Moorea and stayed at a private beach house. This beach is called the Bali Hai Boys Beach house. The Bali Boys invented the over water bungalows. Check out this website to read more about the Bali Hai Boys and to see more pictures of the beach house we stayed in! http://www.balihaiboys.com/

We explored Moorea Island, went snorkeling, and went scuba diving with sharks! Well, I didn't scuba dive, but my husband did. We then ventured back over to Tahiti Island and then stayed in an over water bungalow. That was an amazing experience! It was so beautiful and looked just like the pictures you see on TV.

All in all, the French Polyenisia is really a tropical paradise with beautiful scenery and I would not take back visiting such a beautiful place. However, I would not go back. It was very over priced and most of the food and drinks that we had were not very good. The best food we had was at the little stands that you see on the streets. The service everywhere we went was very slow, but their motto on the islands is "Take it slow, take it steady" so I guess we couldn't expect fast service.

Here a few websites that explain the different islands and some of the culture and interesting facts about the French Polynesia!
http://www.mooreaisland.com/
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/oceania/tahiti.htm#.UegSFFN1vC0
http://www.tahiti-tourisme.com/discover/tahitianpearls.asp
http://www.tahiti-tourisme.com/discover/tahitihistory-culture.asp