As we began to plan our honeymoon, my goals were to go somewhere beautiful and tropical, and to be back in Europe.

On the surface, these are not compatible desires, but then I discovered French Polynesia.

The French Polynesian islands (150ish islands including Bora Bora and Tahiti) are French colonies with a very obvious French influence. The people speak French, the tropical food has a French flair (crispy tuna with foie gras, mahi mahi with vanilla sauce, poisson cru) the wine is French, the lunches are long, and it just seemed like a way to revisit the French culture I loved so much.

The second we were on the plane I was reminded of the awesomeness of French culture. When they serve the in-flight meal, white or wine red is automatically included, cheese comes after the main course, the servers come up and down the aisles with unlimited bread and water, no one thinks anything of you taking another bottle of wine . . .

And this flight was even better, because after the head flight attendant realized we were on our honeymoon, he smuggled me a full bottle of champagne in an airplane blanket. (He said he wanted to congratulate us, but didn’t want the people on the plane to get jealous.)

Of course, once I got to some of the other islands I realized that in some ways French culture is in direct odds with the Tahitian culture, but that’s another story for another day.