Departure to France

We're leaving today for France.

Our first flight leaves from Auckland at 3:15pm (5:15am French time) and arrives in Bangkok at 10:25pm (5:25pm French time).

Unlike our first journey, we don't have to spend much time in Bangkok (luckily!) ; we just have time to switch planes.

Our next flight is at 12:05am on tuesday (7:05pm monday French time) and arrives in Paris tuesday at 7:05am.

Then we "just" have to catch our plane from Paris to Marseille and we'll be back home ... 3 days after leaving Samoa !!!

Back to New Zealand

Here we are, after four weeks in Samoa, we're back in New Zealand.

Luckily for us we're spending this time with Becca, Kristy and Sunita. They take such good care of us it's like being at home. Their kindness and warmth definitely helped us to feel better after our departure from Samoa. So we spent a lovely day, had a very nice lunch. Even Yéléna and Caitlyne had a very good day. So this stop-over in New Zealand was much better than going straight to France after our flight from Samoa.

Goodbyes and tears

It's always hard to leave a place where you like to be. It's even harder when you leave loved ones behind you.

We arrived at the airport around midnight, checked in and soon after, it was time to say goodbye. And goodbyes can be really painful sometimes. So there were a lot of tears when we left to go through the customs ... Caitlyne couldn't stop crying.

We boarded the plane around 1:30am and we took off at 2am. We just slept through the whole flight, which was good i guess. We landed at 5am sunday morning in Auckland and met aunty Becca, who kindly came to pick us up so early in the morning along with Sunita (Pai's cousin and Becca's nephew).

Unfortunately, Samoa is behind us now.

Last day in Samoa

All good things come to an end and unfotunately it's our last day in Samoa :-(

We've been here fo 4 weeks plus one week in New Zealand but it feels like we just arrived last week. Time really goes too fast !!!

Our plane is at 1:45am saturday morning (2:45pm Franch time), so we have to start packing. We arrive in Auckland at 5am (7pm satuday in France) after a 4 hour flight ... so we also lose a day !!!

We stay in Auckland until monday and then fly back to France.

We'll keep a lot of images and good memories in mind. We hope it will help us feel good !

Amy and Kristian's wedding

On wednesday, we went to Kristian and Amy's wedding. Kristian is a cousin of Pai's who lives in Australia ; his mom is Samoan. It was a very nice day and Caitlyne was very proud to be the flower girl !!!

Back to Lalomanu

We couldn't leave Samoa without going back to Lalomanu!

On the way, we stopped at Papapapaitai falls




then Togitogigta falls




and we arrived at Lalomanu where we spent the day with Jacky and Baby, 2 cousins of Pai's.





We also met Mepa there who used to study with us in Australia.

Rugby

Last saturday it was the final of the National Provincials Championship (NPC) Apia vs Apia West. The NPC, it's the best players of each village playing for their "provinces".

I wanted Apia to win so of course Apia West won ! It was a good game with a few world cup players and of course, some really good tackles.

In the stand, Brian Lima was there (he's gonna play his 5th world cup this year), along with Semo Setiti (Samoa's captain) or Michael Jones (Samoa's coach and former legendary All Black).

Here are a few pictures (Apia in green and Apia West in blue).

Bathroom

Now that we have enjoyed reunions, beach, waterfalls, rest and strolls, it was time to start improving the bathrooom !!!

We decided to put tiles in the shower because before, it looked like this:



Smile first ...



... then concentrated ...



... even Caitlyne gave us a hand !



Here is the final result (before, during and after the work)









And we finished with the sink



It's time to go back to the beach :-)

Waterfalls

Some of the Samoan waterfalls:

Fuipisisa fall ...





... Falefa fall ...



... and Sopoaga fall

Zidane

Zinedine Zidane is on holiday in Samoa. I'm sure about it, i saw him !