La Orana

Lei'ed

We both were

Well. I can honestly say I got lei'ed on my honeymoon! Success. After arriving at the airport, we were greeted by our nautical shuttle to go to the hotel. A quick ferry ride over the bluest water I've ever seen, and we pull into the hotel's pier, where we were again greeted by now a ukulele playing, towel wearing "Beach Boy" blowing a conch.

We had a bit of a wait to get in to our room, and chose to pass the time sitting in one place - overlooking the mountain peak, covered in the "shade" of fossilized tree (and thatched roof). Don't tell him I called him this, but my boss, Jay, bought Kat and I matching honeymoon sneaks for the wedding. Being a sneaker connoisseur, this was a very fantastic gift, and we spent a while wandering around taking pictures of our shoes.

Thanks Boss

Eventually, waiting for the room was too long to wait for room service anymore, and we decided to check out the pool side bar for lunch. This was where we were introduced to my favorite staff member so far. She taught us how to say "Hello" in the language here (I don't know what it is, maybe something Polynesian?) which is "La Orana". It kind of sounds like 'Ya-Rrron-a", although I'm certain I'm not saying it correctly most of the time. Probably stumbling into the proper pronunciation now and then, when I get it wrong.


Finally, we were found, playing pool by the Concierge desk, when we were finally approached to enter our room. Although it was so hot that I sweated through every inch of clothing, sitting around was definitely worth the wait. Spending the day in the shade, gave us a bit of time acclimate to the sun more. The following day, we met so many people that shared our ferry with us and were red as lobsters from spending the day swimming and stuff after being quickly reunited with their belongings. 

One quick golf cart ride to our cabin, and we were finally welcomed into the cool embrace of air conditioning again. Having finished the multiple days of travel, both Kat and I laid down to nap for days. We set an alarm for dinner, just in case (which Kat had to call about in the first place to make reservations, because my voice still didn't work...), but woke up with time enough to sit out on our patio, collecting photographs of the sun setting.

View from our private beach

Dinner was amazing. I was excited to have the squid ink, seafood linguine, because I have always wanted to try squid ink. As the dish arrived, Kat commented on how this was better than the last time we had it and it now had less of a grainy texture. Right... the last time we had this. I was there, it was at Eno Vino in Madison, I was excited then to also taste squid ink for the first time. I wonder how many first times I have tried squid ink?

Best view of the day

The end of our table over looked the fish-stocked lagoon. I'm sorry to say that I fed some small bites of bread to the swarms of coy that hovered hoping for different morsels. I felt almost at home, throwing popcorn to the fish off the bridge at the Henry Doorly zoo in Omaha (did you know my zoo is the 2nd best in the world, next to somewhere in China? I reminded Kat of this detail... again while we were at dinner.) All the while, the table next to us was loudly debating the way to say "Hello". We were serenaded with a chorus of "No, it's like 'Your Honor'" from the 3 couples of new found friends up the way. Not quite right grown-ups, but I guess I don't get it right either...