Numb3rs

I’m safe on Tahiti. Its dark and I can’t see anything other than how bad I’m getting robbed. I’ll get to that in a second.

The currency in French Polynesia and all French Pacific Territories is the Pacific Franc (XPF). The Euro is sort of on a 1-to-1 ratio with the dollar. By that I just mean that if something is X Euros, you sort of know it’s in the ballpark of X dollars.

The XPF like 92.4 to the dollar. You pay for stuff in thousands. A bag of Cheetoes in the vending machine is 170 XPF. I’m paying 1,000 XPF for ONE HOUR of WiFi in my own god damn room. This place makes Hawaii look like Sam’s Club. (Oh, I can only use HTTP over this connection. I can’t use Skype, IM or anything else)

Not only do you get the whammy of doing currency conversion, but you also get the new language and metric for the “get your head around it” triple crown. I just set my room temp to 18C. I think that cold.

…I think.

The temperature seems the same as Hawaii but waaaay more humid.

I’m only going to be here about 24 hours before I leave for Easter Island. I think on my return, I’m just going to spend a day on the major islands before I move on to Raratonga. It’s just too damn expensive to spend any significant time here. I’d like to spend a day on Bora Bora, but there is no way in hell I’m going to spend any money diving or doing tours here.

Also, they only have two TV channels in my room Both in French. That doesn’t shock me or surprise me (it is FRENCH Polynesia and it is in the middle of nowhere), but unlike watching Telemundo or Univision, its not funny. I am actually going to take the opportunity and try to expand my very limited French vocabulary. I get a feeling most people here speak English.

I think I will spend my limited time here tomorrow just walking around town, hitting an internet cafe and making sure my reservations for next week and the week after are all secure.

Expect my online access to be very limited over the next week.