More Maui

July 23 2006

We -- Dad, Claudia, Jack, Michael and I -- got up early this morning for the helicopter ride. (Yes, that's right, we took a tour of the entire island in a helicopter. Totally cool.) It was awesome. I'd never been in a helicopter before, so just that by itself was pretty incredible, but the thrill of the ride was outweighed by the amazing views of Maui. I was lucky enough to get a window seat -- they seat you by weight, so poor Michael got stuck in the middle in the back. He could still see, but not quite as well as I could. I took loads of pictures, but we also got a DVD of it -- they have cameras in the nose, the tail, and on the sides of the helicopter and they record what's said on the headset so you have a recording of your specific trip. Pretty cool... I mean, clearly it's a tourist trap, because they charge you $25 per DVD, so they're making quite a profit. But $25 isn't all that expensive, so we bought it. We had so much fun and it was so beautiful that we figured it was worth it. We went at 8:30 in the morning, so the skies were still clear and visibility was good. Our pilot was Austrian, but he's lived on Maui for eleven years. What a hard job -- flying around in a helicopter a couple times a day and showing off his home. I can't think of anything better. I asked him how one gets that kind of job, and he said "you have to kiss a lot of asses." :-) Yeah, he was hilarious.

The flight took about an hour and afterwards we had talked about going hiking, possibly up on Haleakala (huge volcano I talked about last time), but it turns out that Jack and Michael apparently don't want to hike at all while we're here, so we compromised. Instead of going hiking, we went to this little trail that led to a view of the Iao Needle, named because it is a part of Maui's mountain ridge that looks like a needle from the right perspective. I don't know, I didn't really see it -- it's more of a tall, skinnyish point. The ancient Hawaiians saw it as the phallic symbol of the god of water. I can see that a little more than I can see a needle, honestly. The path to the viewpoint wasn't a hike at all -- it was paved and went through a little botanical garden. Beautiful garden, right by a river, and actually a very historic site for the natives. It was the site of a huge inter-island battle in the twelfth or thirteenth century (I forget which). The fight was so ferocious and savage that it left women and children as well as men and soldiers slaughtered in such abundance that they clogged the river. Isn't that ridiculous? It made me really sad to think about it... and the name of the river was actually changed to commemorate the dead; it's something morbid like River of Blood or Stream of Guts or something like that. I don't remember exactly. I just remember thinking it was a really gross way to memorialize it. Ugh. But the whole area is really pretty now, so... yeah. We actually ran into Uncle Dave and Duke at the park -- totally random; they were entertaining themselves while they waited to hear from Aunt Mary, who was at the HOSPITAL with Libby. She'd gone swimming out to the reef by our condos and had had some kind of crazy allergic reaction to something in the water. On our first full day. Poor Libby.

After our faux hike, we went to lunch at Buzz's Wharf. We had a sweet waitress. Her name was Iwaloni, pronounced Eevahlohnee. She told us to just call her Eva because it's easier, but I really love her Hawaiian name. The language is beautiful. It only has 12 letters -- the five vowels and seven consonants: W, M, N, H, L, K, and P. And the w's are generally pronounced like v's. It's very musical, really. Smooth and lilting. Lovely.

We came back to the condos to just relax and hang out after lunch. Jack told me he wanted to go horseback riding and parasailing while we're here, so I looked through some guidebooks and found some places to go... called around... it's all so ridiculously expensive. We finally decided to stick with just horseback riding, because the parasailing was something insane like $70 per person for a ten minute ride in the air... yikes. Once we'd gotten that worked out, we all packed up and went over to Kaanipali Beach for a few hours. I went snorkeling with some of the kids and it was amazing. The fish got really close, and there was a huge sea turtle! He was swimming around a relatively shallow area and I swam over to get a closer look, and he all of a sudden swam up to the top and brushed up against me. It was totally cool. Actually it was pretty slimey, but you know. Exciting nonetheless.

To end the day, we came back together at the condos to grill out for dinner. Libby was back and feeling a little better -- tired, but at least she wasn't dying. Sheesh. We had a great time watching the sun go down again. It was a good day.


To be continued....

News, and some Hawaiian fun

Brief update: still living with Zaruba (still good times), and now I've been trained at Ruby Tuesday, so I'll start getting actual tables tomorrow. Pretty cool, huh? I really like the people there that I've met -- everyone seems really nice. And fun. I've had a good time just training, and I think it's going to be a good atmosphere in which to work.

With all that said, without further ado, here is the first installment of my trip to Hawaii. :-)

July 22nd 2006

Looong day. Jack and I had to get up freakishly early to catch our 6:00 flight out of Greensboro and into Dallas. Our flight attendant was a trip -- there was something about her voice that was odd, and Jack actually asked me if I thought she sounded like a vampire, so that's what we decided. Not sure what exactly a vampire sounds like, but that's what she reminded us of. :-P At least we were kept entertained so early in the morning. And that was the short flight... the one from Dallas into Honolulu was nearly eight hours. Gah. They showed movies, but I didn't really watch them. I just read my book and tried to nap -- I wasn't tired yet, except the kind of tired you are when you wake up really early, but because of the time difference we were getting into Hawaii with a whole afternoon and evening ahead of us. So I wanted to be able to last. When we finally got into Honolulu we had to get new boarding passes for Hawaiian airlines... that was an adventure. The flight number we had was different from the one they had, so it took longer than it should have to get it all figured out -- Jack finally found what we needed and I could have kissed him, I was so glad to be done talking to the stupid airline lady. We were both pretty hungry -- the food on the plane was NOT free, and it was super expensive, which neither of us were really okay with considering it was, um, airplane food. That's only worth it if it doesn't cost anything. So I got some Starbucks. Quality meal, let me tell you. ;-)

The plane ride (jump) from Honolulu to Kahului, Maui was really our first introduction to the islands. The plane flew below the clouds almost the whole time and we could see EVERYTHING. It's gorgeous. The water is this unbelievable color blue, and the islands all have rainforest on at least part of them, so the greens are incredible too. The pilot talked about the islands we were flying over as we went, too, so that was neat. Maui county has four islands in it -- you don't think of the Hawaiian islands as having counties, but they do. Go figure. Maui itself is really a cool island -- on one side is the 10,023 foot volcano, Haleakala, which means "House of the Sun," and on the other side are great jagged forested mountains. Connecting those areas in the middle of the island is a long stretch of flat valley that is so close to sea level, some Hawaiians are worried that global warming will cause the entire valley (all the farmland -- bad) to be flooded. But anyway, the view from the air is very impressive.

We arrived in Kahului around the same time as Mimi and Papa, Michael, and the Greenes (Aunt Mary, and cousins Duke, Libby, and Ben). Dad and Claudia were there to meet us at the airport, and Dad had leis for all the girls. It used to be a Hawaiian tradition to meet every boat that arrived with leis for everyone on board, and I think they did it for planes too for awhile, but honestly -- there are almost more tourists than natives now, so there's no real way to continue the tradition. Except if you're my dad. :-) We got in around 3:15, but it took quite a while to reach our condos. We were staying at the Makani Sands in Lahaina, which is across the valley from the airport on the coast around the moutainous region. It should have been an easy drive but traffic on a Saturday afternoon was insane. We moved at a crawl nearly the whole time. Thankfully, the views from the road were fantastic, and after hours and hours on a plane, Jack and Michael and I had a great time talking and joking and laughing, so the car trip seemed like a piece of cake. :-) It's nice when my brothers and I can have a good time.

When we got there, we did a little exploring and discovered that our family pretty much got the best condo. First of all, it's the only one with AC. (!!!) Sucks to be everyone else, I guess. I think we have the prettiest one, too -- they're all decorated, but I really loved the paintings and sculptures in ours. I took pictures of everything. :-) The view from my room was unquestionably the best seat in the house, too. I weaseled my way into the master bedroom! So I had a huge bed, the best shower, and my own balcony facing the ocean. Amazing. The sunset this first night was perfect. We ordered pizza for the whole family and some of the cousins got in the water. There used to be a beach right by the condos, but a storm last January apparently completely wiped it out. So you basically walk down these stone steps straight into the ocean -- no stretch of sand or rock or anything, just ankle deep water. I got my feet wet, but it was kind of cold and I wasn't as brave as some of the younger ones. :-) It was okay, I was perfectly content eating pizza and watching the sun set. Then we had this big family welcome meeting where Dad passed out matching t-shirts to everyone... he'd ordered Carolina blue shirts with "50" printed on the back (for Mimi and Papa's 50th wedding anniversary, the whole reason for the trip) and Maui 2006 on the front. Very cute. Slightly tacky. Ah well.

So yeah, the first day (well, half a day) in Maui was a really good start. Everyone was happy, everything was beautiful, the weather for the week was supposed to be perfect.... yeah. :-) Good times.

More to come soon.....

Ummm... yeah.

I've been cheating on my blog. With, erm, life. :-) Surprising how busy it can get, and how little one can feel like writing in a blog about it...

In a nutshell.

July: Matt comes to visit for the fourth of July weekend. Lots of cousins abound. Michael comes up for a week and a half before Hawaii. Matt comes to visit again and good times are had by all. WE GO TO HAWAII. (Meanwhile Matt is in Italy for two weeks and we can't talk to each other, which, admittedly, sucks. But this is over now, so it is okay.) We come back from Hawaii. I go back to New York.

August: Karen comes to the lake. Matt comes home! I bump heads one too many times with Trish at work and am forced to quit. Long story. End of story -- I move to Greenville and crash with Zaruba, getting a job at the Ruby Tuesday where Matt's sister works. This is a mixed blessing. Zaruba and I have a GREAT time together -- I wish I could just stay in her apartment! I will be sad when I have to move into school. Although, living with Suzanne will be fun too. :-) But the sad thing is that I'm no longer only 4 and a half hours from Matt. It doesn't really make a huge difference but it feels like it does. It's hard. But it's life, now, so I'm trying to just be happy where I am and adjust. I am not always capable of this... but I'm not expecting myself to be, so it's okay.

I plan on transferring my journal of sorts that I kept in Hawaii to this blog... just because I want to share it with my friends, and I also want it in a place that I can always get to easily. And, well, online is pretty much accessible.

Hehe, I planned to get on here and write out a big update on how I'm doing, but I'm watching tv, and I'm kind of a little bit in a funk, and I'm tired, and it's not really working out. :-P So I give up for tonight. I'll start copying some of Maui into this thing soon.

Night night...