I MADE IT

I MADE IT!! Oh my god… I made it. I flew for 30 hours exactly to the other side of the earth, got paralyzing arthritis from my cramped seat and missed two flights… but I finally made it.

IT would be your best dream multiplied by the biggest number EVER (a gabillion zillion?). IT is paradise. On earth. But better. IT is the best thing in the world. IT is… ok, enough. I’m talking about Bora Bora.

You might be thinking, Bora what? And I might smack you. So don’t go there. Just to remind you where bora bora is, however, I have drawn this very helpful diagram pinpointing its exact location.


0 <= Bora bora Rest of the world => O



There, now that that’s all cleared up I can start telling you how great it is all over again. But first… I’ve gotta vent my tortures of my flight and the such. So it all starts in Sri Lanka, where at 3:30 am I board my flight, get into the crappy aisle seat (Ooh.. never knew it was spelled like that), which is what I asked for, but it doesn’t mean I can’t complain about it. That flight was pretty good actually… only 10 hrs to Zurich, 5 hours in that airport and 1 more to Geneva. I rested there for 2 days chez Gabi… who gave me a great tour of Geneva while I was getting frostbite cuz stupid thin sweaters suck. Thank you and thanks to your family, it really was lots of fun, and remember to email me the Mont blanc photos! I also met Adrian and Val there… who shared horror stories from their internships… oh joy.

And Theeen… I left Geneva on Sunday morning… took the TGV to Paris without much GV. Maybe the special rocket boosters were broken or something. In Paris the very helpful bus drivers pointed me in 7 different directions for the airport shuttles, and of course, the last one I checked was right… I talked to a cool Moroccan baggage handler while waiting for the bus about very important things like the weather and cheekbones. THEN, when I got to the plane the hell started.

I hate window seats. I hate aisle seats. I hate everything in-between. Lets do some geometry… this is me lengthwise: ______________________ this is the amount of legroom I get: _ IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FIT MOI INTO: _ . So for most of the flight, I sat like this: &

I had no idea how long the flight was gonna be. Could be 6 hours, could be 42… no idea. So I just sat in my now-patented ‘pretzel’ position and waited. Whats worse is that I couldn’t ask my seat neighbor cuz I couldn’t speak French. That’s right, She wanted me to switch seats with her husband so he could sit near her… he had a middle seat. I hate middle seats. Youre stuck but you don’t get a view or extra leg space of the aisle. So, instead of telling her in French that I would rather stay by the window so that I could rest my head against the side, I looked at her blankly and started speaking English. She got freaked out and left me alone. Don’t really know why I did that… but as its commonly known (Pooja…) guys do stupid things.

So I pretzeld for 12 hours and then we got off in Los Angeles… hmm… didn’t know it was stopping there, but whatever. Now the Americans, ingenious bunch that we are, decided that any plane which even touches the air of the states (translation: has a stopover) must have everyone get out, go through customs, and get back on the plane. Ok. So we get off… walk to customs in the rain (ok, so it was 2 meters) and sit. We sit in line for an hour… the computers are broken. In the whole airport. Well that’s just peachy. We finally clear customs, and then they tell us to retrace our steps and get back on the plane. We’re an hour late, 8 hrs later we get to Tahiti… I get my bag. This is the only place in the world where you have to stand in line in the ‘nothing to declare’ side. So I stand… time passes (it does that sometimes) my flight’s at 8:30. Its 8:20… too late.

Now THIS was the absolute worst bit… all the other flights on that day were full… I was tired, sore, and badly needed a shower. So I was waitlisted for the 9am flight… but everybody showed up… so then I was put on standby for the 11:15 flight… after that I’d have to spend the night in Tahiti… I tried calling the hotel to tell them… outgoing calls were blocked. So I sat there… nerve racked and badly having to pee for 2 hours… then FINALLY the lady called my name and told me theres a space on the flight…

…and then I arrive. Tired, sweaty, cramped… I didn’t care. I finally figured out what bora bora looked like – its an exact replica of those volcanic islands that all the bad guys in movies live in! I’ll post a pic soon… But its about as real as those cartoons… its too perfect. I still don’t believe it… I can’t believe that I’m here… Can’t believe that something so impressively beautiful actually exists… The water’s a million different shades of the color blue. Not just one. You look up and there’s these two jagged peaks surrounded by mystical clouds stare at you.

The hotel’s great… its got big grounds, a great pool and nice beach. Check it out on www.pearlresorts.com/bora/main.asp But the best part is my accommodation… I’m an intern… so I figure I get the crappiest quarters. Say a small dark room, a mattress with springs coming out of it, cockroaches and rats that eat bits of me while I sleep… that sort of stuff. But man, was I surprised. I get a house. A house. 3 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, TV, stereo, desk, porch and garden. It’s the friggin Taj. I’ve even got aircon… Its supposedly the best staff housing in Polynesia, and I believe it. I’m in paradise.