Arrived in New Zealand

Hey Hey,

What a crazy day or so.  Yesterday I walked around Moorea Island for awhile, found a little private reef area and set up camp for a few hours.  Got a little tan, swam in the ocean, and took some cool pictures.  I took the ferry back and showered up just in time to make it to Shabbat at the Tahiti synagogue.  Yup.  Seriously.  I got there about 20 minutes early, and the 10 or so congregants all asked me a ton of questions about America, my trip, etc.  Then we had services, which I didn't recognize at all because it was all Sephardic (most of them were from Morocco or Algeria originally), and then the fun started.

After services, they more or less kidnapped me and took me to the home of one of the congregants, where we had Shabbat dinner.  It was like nothing I had ever seen before.  Tropical fruit and flower decorations, pan-seared tuna with wasabe sauces, and shot after shot of vodka, ouzo, and tequila.  It was a mess after awhile.  The kids drank too-- even the littlest one at eight years old.  Every time we took a shot, the oldest kid (16) would get up and refill all the glasses.  Then they would start toasting again in French and Hebrew, and the whole thing would start again.  The kids did magic tricks, one showed off the Tahitian songs he was learning in school, and they pumped me for more information about America.  The whole thing took about four hours, and one of them walked me back to my hotel by midnight or so.

I woke up the next morning for my flight to a bit of a headache (I think it was the kosher wine, but it very easily could have been the vodka too...) and the sound of the "riot alarm."  I know... apparently Tahiti isn't the little paradise we all think it is.  Five years ago, rioters burned down the airport, so I was more than a little concerned, but this time they were "just" blockading the port of Papeete.  Lucky me.  I got out just in time, apparently.  God knows what's going on there now.

But anyway, I arrived in New Zealand and hopped a bus to a hostel someone had recommended to me.  On the bus, I heard these two girls in the back speaking Hebrew, and when they got off at the same stop for the same hostel, we got to talking.  Apparently one's a transplanted Israeli who lives in Manhattan now, and the other's actually from Tel Aviv.  We're sharing a dorm tonight, which is cool, and then they're off to Australia tomorrow, so I'm flying solo once again.

So that's the deal.  Not sure what's on tap for tonight, but I could use some good food and some rest.  We'll see.  Hasta.

P.S.  First pics are up.  They're here: http://community.webshots.com/user/MarcsWatson