Aloha and Aloha

JUST FINISHED MY LAST EXAM! Another semester come and gone, but much quicker than usual, I must say.

I’m sure they weren’t joking around when they named Hilo the “rainiest state in America”, but God seemed to be on our side while we adventured Hawaii. Hilo came into view after a failed attempt at seeing the sunrise (they told us the wrong time!), through a thick, muggy cover of clouds. Everything on the island was green, and from the ship we could see tiny houses up the mountains and the spouts of humpback whales playing in the ship’s wake at the horizon line.

When we got off the ship, we walked about 40 minutes to downtown Hilo. After being so used to so many types of (cheap) public transportation, this was a little reminder of what it’s like in America. There isn’t much. Like all ports, we arrived on a Sunday to the quiet, abandoned streets of the city. This meant plans of renting bikes for the day were scratched, but we made up for it by following a “path” down to the river and jumping out of trees into the water below, watching a small hula dance session, and trucking over millions of lava rocks to a small, chilly lagoon perfect for snorkeling with fish and sea turtles.

If I would have been home, Sunday would have been what I considered a “bad” day. I left my tennis shoes at the small shop where we ate lunch, and didn’t realize it until we were 10 miles away, climbing over rocks. After we left the beach and started our walk back to the ship, I realized I forgot my snorkel and mask in our tiny paradise. With no tennis shoes to run back to get it in, I borrowed Rachel’s, and FINALLY got my country run in. Roads, trails, and then a nice sprint-swim across the lagoon, where my snorkel and mask sat waiting on the sandy edge for me. After another sprint back, Jenn told me she had called the lunch shop, and my shoes would be waiting for me in the morning. Everything always works out.

The town shuts down around 9 pm every night. Most, if not all, of our friends had rented a beach house for the night and were “celebrating” the last day in port with the usual college kid festivities. Jenn, Rachel, Eric and I made our way there, only to sit on the porch, talking and laughing away from the noise. We decided at one point to make our way down to the beach, which was an adventure in the dark, and found out we picked the opportune time when we got a phone call informing us that the cops had come. Nothing bad happened, but I can’t say I’ve ever been at a huge party, let alone one the cops show up to. We slept in the car for 3 hours so we wouldn’t have to pay to stay in the house, and got up at 5 am before the sun rose to see Kilauea Iki volcano and its neighboring lava tube. After a quick breakfast we made out way back into town and rented bikes ($10!) for the day, peddling uphill to Rainbow Waterfall, across town to Walmart, and over to Coconut Island, where we jumped off of a big stone wall into the water below with some fellow SASers and locals.

FOOD DISCLAIMER: I MISS AMERICAN FOOD!  We ate at a place called Ken’s Pancake House twice.

Dinner- I think our waiter was terrified by a) all the places we had been in the last 4 months and b) how we all absolutely inhaled our plates and massive portions in under 5 minutes without speaking to each other. Someone also accidentally asked if we could drink the water. Habit. The food was amazing. Burgers, fries, waffles with passion fruit, guava, and coconut syrup, and my favorite, the pulled pork BBQ sandwich. So good to be back in the states (except for the tip and tax added to the end of our bills!).

Breakfast- A massive, huge, ginormous, delicious omelet with banana pancakes and crispy hash browns. Enough said.

Ice cream and shaved ice- They told us we had to try it, and we did. The ice cream was homemade. It was delicious, of course, but I think I liked the people that worked there better. They were genuinely nice, just like all of the locals around. Ready to give us pointers on where to go and what to do, all of them laid back, on island time. Shaved ice was the bomb. It was huge and tasted like coconut, pineapple, and banana. I’ve decided to by a shaved ice machine when I get home.

As a last hoorah, on the way back to the ship, we stopped at a little place on the side of the road and I ordered another pulled pork sandwich. I guess you don’t realize how much you miss something until you don’t get to have it for 4 months (in this instance, BBQ sauce).

Overall Hawaii was fantastic, but in a different way than our other ports. All of the other countries we have visited I’ve always wanted to see, but never actually knew if I’d ever be able to go there. Hawaii, on the other hand, is just one of those places I’ve known I would visit at one time or another (and hopefully again and again), so it was a different kind of excitement. That, and being on U.S. soil for the first time in 4 months, the MV Explorer flying the American flag as we pulled in. I’m going to miss the complications of foreign travel, but this was a nice break.

Alumni Ball tonight, which is something along the lines of dressy clothes, great food, and an awesome time with your friends. It’ll be a nice break after studying.