The International Date Line messed me up!

It was 5:30pm on January 18 when my plane from Faa’a International Airport in Tahiti left. Around 5 hours later I landed at 10:30pm on January 19 in Auckland, New Zealand. I never lived through the midnight of January 18 (in real time) and technically I only experienced life for 1.5 hours on January 19.

It is a bit past midnight and now it is January 20! Where did January 19 go?!

All I can say is that good thing that January 18 was an excellent day. Even the lady at check in counter for my flight to Auckland noticed. “You seem very happy,” she said with a huge smile in French. I answered back, “I certainly am!”

Yesterday, I mean the day before yesterday, was full of great conversations and discoveries. In Tahiti my experience would’ve been dull without my lovely host Brigitte. She was very patient as I tried to formulate proper sentences for serious conversation material in French. She lives steps away from the municipal market in Papeete (pronounced Pah-peh-eh-teh) and from the Jardins de Pa’ofa’i (it’s a garden/park area that provides a good excuse to go on a nice walk in front of the port).

In the market I ran into the New York lady that was on my plane on my way to Tahiti from LAX. She saw me and immediately said in not her inner voice, “you were on my plane yesterday. Are you Tahitian?” To what I answered with a polite “yes, I was on your flight, but I’m from Puerto Rico.” She kept insisting that I looked Tahitian – I don’t think I do although a man I once loved kept comparing me to the Gaugin’s paintings… Still … at the market I realized that Tahiti is extremely expensive! They wanted to charge close to $5 for one breadfruit (panapén or pana).

In the gardens I noticed the French flag flying next to the French Polynesian Flag – It reminded me of Puerto Rico, where the United States’ flag flies next to the Puerto Rican flag. Then I noticed the proof of an autonomous colony, I mean, overseas collective. Just like Puerto Rico’s autonomous colony, I mean, commonwealth status.

Being who I am, I could not stop comparing this new island to my own island. I was looking for the similarities and the differences between the two and of course I was immediately curious about the status of the island. From my host, I found out that French Polynesia has its own president but also a French commissioner who represents the president of France. Sounds like their political system is as complicated as the one in Puerto Rico; unfortunately in one day I did not have enough time to study it and ask more questions about politics. Trust me I asked tons of questions about almost everything I saw.

My awesome host also gave me a tour of a small section of the island and as we drove around the coast I started noticing a few white flags with two light blue lines (one at the top and one at the bottom of the rectangle) with five yellow stars in the middle. Before I even asked Brigitte she told me those are the flags that those who believe in independence use. NERD ALERT! **Immediately my brain thought that some anthropology group should research all the former Spanish, Portuguese, British, and French colonial islands that are still colonies, I mean territories of other countries, in order to do a comparative study about how the people of those islands cope with their current status. Eventually the project would also include the colonial islands that acquired independence or full association (Hawai’i comes to mind). That would be an interesting project that would provide great insight into how the colonial mindset affects the ever-changing cultures of those islands and the future political outcomes of former colonies. ** Ok done with the nerdiness!

After finishing the tour, my host arranged for me to meet Tavita, the owner of Bijouterie Tavita, an artisan pearl jewelry store that has been in business since 1983! His store has amazing pearls! I was bursting with excitement with the beautiful hues of the A class pearls at his store. He had yellow, green, and blue pearls; I had never seen anything like them in my life. He even had beautifully engraved pearls for sale.

The owner, Tavita, is an interesting man with great stories to tell. I mean he shared with us his entire ancestry -- which by the way, according to what I understood from his soft-spoken Tahitian French, can be traced to a Tahitian queen and even to Samuel Ellis, yes, the guy Ellis Island was named after. While we were there he introduced us to another one of his friends/family, another Tahitian man who spoke English with an all-American accent and even welcomed me to Papeete in Spanish as soon as he found out I was Puerto Rican. I then found out that his friend/family happens to be a singer in Vegas, of all places.

I loved Papeete, not because of its beautiful beaches…because for that you take the ferry to Mo’orea, but because of the experience I had.

If you ever find yourself in Papeete for whatever reason you MUST visit the Shopping Center “Le Vaima” and stop by Bijouterie Tavita and Elegancia Boutique! Trust me you need to meet Tavita and Brigitte!

Until next internet connection…

Para que Tahiti se parezca más a Puerto Rico, el flamboyán florecido para finales de verano. Sí, estoy en el hemisferio sur y aquí estamos a finales de verano.

#internationaldateline #faaa #tahiti #auckland #travel