Gump

(Julie here...) Today is our last full day in Mo'orea and we head back to the island of Tahiti tomorrow...and fly out to Auckland early the following day. Next time we write we will be in New Zealand! Life has been good here. Yesterday Jay contacted someone he had been introduced to over email who works at the Gump Research Station on Moorea (a UC Berkeley field station). So, David came over and picked us up from the campground and off we went - we got lunch and a tour of the facilities - and then headed up to Jus de Fruits de Mo'orea and sampled all their tasty juices and booze. =) (Jay now!) We learned from David about the terrestrial ecosystems in Polynesia and how many centuries of plant and animal introductions have completely changed the orginal pre-human environment. He must go to the highest altitudes to collect the specimens he uses for his research on plant-insect co-evolution. Neat stuff. We wonder if the marine ecosystem has gone unchanged or has been subject to similar introductions???? Sure looks nice!
Life is good. We plan on walking to a beach today and snorkeling. Isn't that what we do everyday?

Lazy days

The days here in Mo'orea are quiet, lazy and wonderful. We go to bed super early because we are camping - so, we get up early too. We wander down to the local magasin (general store) and buy fresh baguettes and pineapples for breakfast. Then we sit around with other travellers and blab about our plans for the day before heading off to do something. Sometimes we hitch into town (parents fear not! the locals who pick us up buy us ice cream and water and treat us very well) and lounge on the beach before snorkeling for an hour or so. Then we wander around some more before hitching back to our campground and making dinner (more conversations with travellers about politics, birds, you name it). Usually a beer is involved. Tonight we have some French wine for din-din. Everything is very French here. I enjoy the nutella crepes the most, even though we have only been able to afford two. =)
We may rent a kayak tomorrow and watch some of the surfers ride the big boys.
We miss all our friends and family... hope you saw the pictures that we updated last time.

Moorea

Bonjour! Well - the keyboard here is way different, so this may have more typos than normal julie writing. whew.
we are at a cqmpground in Moorea (the island next to Tahiti) and it is unreal here. HUGE, steep mountains and tropical blue water. we went diving today - the visibility was ummmm... better than massachusetts. =)
keyboard!
whew.
we went hiking yesterday - up up up to get this amazing view of the entire island.
ok - here are some pics from the trip so far. there are a lot more if you click on the link at the top right of our blog pqge (mostly underwater shots in jays, others in julies).
au revoir!

Tahiti

Yes, we're here in lovely French Polynesia now. To our shock, we landed and realized that a French phrase book would have been a wise investment (especially given all the friggin planning that went into this)....nevertheless, we have scraped together our pathetic high school French and, with a touch of luck, have been having a great couple of hours here...snorkeling and beach lazing included. We don't have anything to do (hence the blog entry)!! It's so weird!!! Anything goes I guess...
The island of Tahiti is gorgeous, and her sister island Mo'orea looks even better from a distance...we will go there in a day or two. The mountains are pretty darn big, certainly steep, and the clouds hang around them threatening to drop rain at any moment. Didn't take the camera snorkeling yet, just wanted to take it all in. Coral heads in the lagoon are massive and healthy, and there are too many kinds of fish to count.
well, that is all for now, time is money here in French Polynesia...fortunately we have plenty of time but money will be the limiting factor here.
ta ta for now...

We are off!

We leave the Barber household in about 30 minutes for JFK! It wasn't too bad packing, we even squeezed in time for a nice dinner with my mom and dad in Hudson. We have about 12 hours of flying ahead of us - so we got a good chunk of exercise in this morning to try and make our legs less restless. I hope that works.
I hope that we can update this quickly upon our arrival to Tahiti - but who knows what we will encounter when we get there. We love you all and we will miss you - Happy trails!

Play time

We have FINALLY finished packing up our apartment! Actually, we are officially nomads now! All of our stuff has been stowed in the basements of our parent's houses (thanks!) and we have spent the last few days hanging out with friends and family. My parents (the Barbers) threw a bon voyage party for us....it was wonderful to see all our friends here in NY. Plus, we were treated with visits from our sisters! Lee & Kira, and Sara & Christina both drove quite the distance to come to the party and it was really special to have that time with them. Of course, my nephews - Henry and Jackson - stole the show. We love those little men. Henry is blurting out sweet little words like "cat" and "apple" and Jackson took a few steps on his own! WOW!

We fly out on Friday for Tahiti! But, we still have some things to take care of here. Jay has to challenge his mom, Allison (who is staying with us in NY for a few days) to more ping-pong games. And my mom and I have to beat my dad at pool. Serious stuff.

packin'

Boo! Hiss! We hate packing. Why does the kitchen never end? Wahhhh.

play before work

Well, we haven't done much in terms of packing - but we've had a hell of a time playing with friends and family! We had to say a short farewell (a year isn't THAT long) to many friends and their pooches this weekend. But, it was wonderful to see everyone and have a few brews.
Cheers!
Pics below: Dog versus human wiffleball, Toast!, Jay and Allison (Mom), Good friends at Offshore Brewing Company, Martha's Vineyard.

Yeehaw!

Welcome to our little ol' journal! This is the start of a long relationship with one webpage, so we hope you like how it looks.

Well - the countdown is on - we leave on October 19th for Tahiti! Most folks are interested in where we are going, so we threw it up on a map for you. If you are not so interested in that map - here's the general idea. We chill in Tahiti and the surrounding islands and atolls for two weeks, then it's off to New Zealand for 5 months. After working and trekking around there, we switch to full travel mode and head to the following places for the remaining 7 months: Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, maybeeeee Burma and China, Nepal, and southern Africa.

Everyone in the world wants to know what we are going to do when we get back. Our answer to this is - we do too! Let's leave it at that eh? As long as biology is involved we're happy.

Anyway, we hope to update this often....as this will be our best venue for communication. So, feel free to check often! For closing remarks, we stuck a couple pics of the two of us checking out some great spots in the world. We can't wait to add to those experiences.

Preparation!

Ireland and Yucatan, Mexico