Today we docked at Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango), American Samoa. This island is a territory of the US, so it has a zip code and McDonalds. We toured the island in a very uncomfortable bus and were treated to another lush, tropical island with gorgeous flowering trees. It appears fairly clean, but the humidity creates a lot of rust so everything has a run down look. The strangest thing I learned was that there are no cemeteries on the island. The culture believes that the people should be buried on their own land, so every house we passed has graves in the front yard, some quite elaborate. What that means if you want to sell, I have no idea. I subsequently have learned that this practice is similar throughout Polynesia. I have never seen so many churches! This small island is dense with them. Every branch of Christianity is represented, no doubt a result of all those 19th century missionaries who couldnt mind their own business and came here selling their evil wares to unsuspecting people. Tonight we go to sleep on Saturday 02/01/14 and we wake up on Monday 02/03/14. We are about to cross the international dateline, and as the ships captain told us for us, Sunday 02/02/14 does not exist. A peculiar feeling to say the least. To get the lost day back I would have to cross the dateline going the opposite direction, and I know Im not doing that so I guess its gone forever. Football fans will not be disappointed, the Super Bowl will be shown, it will be on Monday instead of Sunday.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 09:57:18 +0000
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