One-Nighters

Due to the fact that the domestic airline ran out of fuel, I left a day early to Tongatapu on a charter Air Polynesia flight. I realized I am not immune to boredom, as much as I would like to think the opposite is true. I stayed my last night at the transit lodge again in a village near the airport and had nothing to do but sit around from noon until I wanted to go to bed as it was pouring down rain outside.

Watched Ferris Bueler’s day off and was reminded that my brother Colin is the slightly more grown up embodiment of Ferris Bueler – he gets away with anything, and you gotta love him for it. For lunch I had a McDonalds Hamburger which was as repulsive as I remember. I would never buy one, yet Francis the 20 year old son of the people that live at the homestead offered it too me, and I hate to refuse a gift. I noticed that it was reheated, but that effected the taste little. Upon thanking Francis for the burger he smiled a big smile saying his father brought them from New Zealand the night before. It was only then that it clicked in my head that there are no McDonald’s in Tonga and more importantly I realized the generosity of this young man to give me something that was obviously very special for him. So I still hate McD’s burgers, but I was touched by the underserved generosity.

Read 600 pages of a bad spy novel without moving and crashed only to be kept awake by mosquitoes nearly all night. Slept in to make up for quality with quantity, discovered a New Zealander that had checked in, and enjoyed a conversation in unbroken English for the first time in about 5 days.

Bounced over to the airport and enjoyed the open-air, islander style of the place. No air-conditioning, nearly all of it without walls, and people walked around comfortably without shoes.

Hoped on the plane, a proper 737, and was taken aback at first with the strange quality of the air – then I realized it is just air-conditioned and I really haven’t been in that much over the past 3 months.

I’ll land in Fiji and stay another one-nighter before waking upon my travel’s three month anniversary to head to New Zealand where I feel a whole new adventure cresting the horizon – living in another country instead of just walking through it.