married to a kiwi Discussion 2 it all started in Bora Bora
Discussion 2: It all started in Bora Bora
In fact, it all started in Bora Bora. When we got married ten years ago, his parents and his sister flew over from New Zealand to attend our wedding in Mallorca. His parents had never been to Europe and so it didn’t seem fair to disappear on a honeymoon straight after the wedding, but instead we invited them back to our flat in London. In hindsight, that was a mistake. We were on such a high after the wedding that it would have been nice to disappear, just the two of us, to savour the memories of all the different parties we had during that week, to talk about our friends who had flown in from all over the world, to laugh at all the silly things we did. But then again, our in-laws had flown a hell of a long way and we wanted to show them London. So we came back to the city in the middle of the night after one of those cheap and cheerful flights that sees you arrive at some godforsaken hour when the tube has stopped running and you have to take the awful nightbus. But I am digressing.
Seeing that we never had a honeymoon, I decided that we would have one when we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. It was always very clear in my mind that we would go to Bora Bora, which sounded so exotic and which, because of its unique location in the middle of the South Pacific, was like a magnet to me.
I have always been fascinated by anything that involves many hours of travelling to get to, hence it didn’t really come as a surprise that I ended up marrying a Kiwi. I did want to marry an Australian, as I prefer the weather in Australia and I absolutely love Sydney, but even though I spent some time over there, I found Australian men just had no guts when it came to chatting up a girl. I mean seriously, I came from France where you couldn’t even get a foot in the door of a bar without having at least two or three guys rush towards you. In Australia, when a girl goes into the bar, the guys will clock her and then they will do all this male shoving and slapping on shoulders, whilst drowning one beer after another. They will throw you the odd look and while it’s obvious they like you, do you think they will make a move? Never. They will just order another beer and then go all weird if you actually get up and talk to them.
My Kiwi husband on the other hand did not waste a second once he laid eyes on me in the bar in Africa. In fact, the attention he was paying me was actually really annoying. He kept asking me if I wanted beer and I just don’t like the stuff. I have since found out that Kiwis in general will never trust anyone who doesn’t like beer, but then, all I could think of was how I was going to go on travelling. What my Kiwi husband didn’t know then was that I had just been told that some idiot had stolen my car in London and used it to rob two petrol stations. My flatmate, who had been sleeping fitfully alongside his new girlfriend was less than impressed when our flat was stormed by some heavily armed police demanding where I was. His reply: “She’s in Africa”, did apparently not go down well.
Anyway, that said, my car was gone and I was in a bar in Africa where some Kiwi was desperately trying to pour beer down my throat. Also, when I did tell him about my car trouble, he went into fits of laughter because he thought it absolutely hilarious that my car was stolen in London, which was supposed to be safe, while I was backpacking in Africa, which was considered not safe. Needless to say, he didn’t particularly endear himself to me. But then then next day, he did save me from drowning in the Nile and so I married him. And this is how we ended up ten years later in Bora Bora.
