Hawaii and Home!

I’m on my way towards San Diego as we speak…

Wednesday night we got into Hawaii at about 5:00 pm. Originally we had planned to reach Honolulu on Thursday morning, so even though we had to wait till 7:30 pm to get off the ship, no one was complaining. And so, after three months of being away from the U.S., I stepped onto American soil once again. The group of us headed into the city on a dinner mission and after roaming away from the main port area, so as to avoid SASers, we found a nice Irish pub. There were burgers on the menu and the waiter actually understood what we were saying, it was all very exciting. For dessert, the girls and I walked to a drug store down the street, bought Ben and Jerry’s, and sat on a bench in a city park, enjoying the warmth of the night.
Being back in America was definitely exciting for me, but there were downfalls as well. For the entirety of our stay in Hawaii, everyone was on their cell phones. Finally able to get service, as we entered Hawaii people gathered on the back deck, cell phones in hand, calling anyone and everyone. It was really very sad. I haven’t held a cell phone for the last semester. I haven’t had my conversation cut off by the ringing of one, or sat at a table with a friend as they talked to someone on the other line, it’s one of the many things on Semester at Sea that I’ve taken for granted. But while in Hawaii, they were everywhere. As we lay on the beach people’s conversations overlapped as they chatted away and I had to make a “no phones at dinner” rule for the first night. Carrie offered her phone to me since I left mine at home, but I didn’t want to call anyone. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to anyone…there are so many people I am dieing to have a conversation with, but not yet. Leaving the ship is going to be really sad, and right now I still have that excitement of not having talked to my parents’ or the girls since Cape Town and not having talked to anyone else since August. So getting home is going to be all the more exciting and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I chose not to call any of you from Hawaii.
The other downfall of being back in the United States is that I can no longer drink legally. I barely drank at all during this voyage, but being able to have a beer or wine with dinner was awesome. Now I have to go back to asking others to buy me my alcohol…bummer. So anyway, not being able to enter any bars, after our Ben and Jerry’s we walked around, listening to the live music from an outdoor bar, before going back on the ship for the night. Anna, Kathryn, Janelle, and I ended up meeting on the front deck and playing cards so we could enjoy the night air and continue listening to the muffled music in the distance.


The next day Erin and I were up, had eaten breakfast, and were off the ship by 7:45 am. It took us a good hour to figure out the public transportation system as locals steered us in different directions towards a variety of possible buses we could take. Eventually we were on a bus and headed to Diamondhead Crater. The hike up the side of the crater was touristy and pretty easy, with people of all ages taking the 40-minute hike to the top. A man-made path, complete with handrails and lots of stairs, led us to the lookout point. Erin and I were sweaty beasts by the time we got there and had to resort to pulling our beach towels out of our bookbags to mop ourselves off. From the look-out point the shape of the crater was much more obvious. Standing inside the crater from ground level, it just looks like low mountains are surrounding you, but from above the circular shape was much more obvious. The bright-blue Pacific Ocean lie next to the crater with the city and mountains taking up the other side. It was a pretty amazing view.
We had planned to visit Pearl Harbor, but it’s located quite a ways away from Diamondhead and the Waikiki area. So it was between the crater or the memorial and nature won out. The next two hours were spent waiting for a bus into Waikiki and trying to track down Carrie, Kathryn, and Cynthia. We spent the afternoon laying on the beach and swimming in the ocean. It was so wonderful. Classes are over and to able to relax in a port for once and not feel the pressure of running to see everything was really nice. I had hoped to get a tan from laying out but was paranoid that I was going to burn and reapplied sunscreen so much that you can barely tell I was outside all day.
Janelle and Anna were on the other side of Waikiki and I wanted to do dinner with them. So I took a bus on my own to find them. Earlier in the day they had spent gads of money at this jewelry store on pearls that they had seen “born” out of the oysters they were formed in. We were still in the area of the shop. We went back and someone they got the woman to give them a free oyster, they had gotten several free ones earlier because they had spent so much money. So the girls, wanting me to experience the excitement of tapping on the shell and yelling “Aloha!” loudly before the woman cracked it open for me, came and got me out of a nearby store I had roamed into and let me have the free pearl they had earned. It was really sweet of them.
For dinner the three of us ate at Benihana’s. Apparently they’re all over the U.S. and there’s even one in Oakbrook, but I’ve never heard of the chain before. We sat at a table and watched as a chef made fresh fried rice and grilled our steaks and seafood dishes right in front of us, flipping utensils in the air and doing a plethora of tricks. I was in awe of it all.
We took the bus back to the ship area after dinner. I had an amazing coffee drink: Coconut Kona Mocha, from a coffee shop in the nearby mall. It was so amazing that I feel the need to mention it. Back on the ship I considered working on finals but ended up loading pictures onto my computer and getting absolutely nothing done.


Oh and speaking of finals, I only have to take one! McWilliams, my Modern Japan teacher, is really unorganized and hasn’t even made the final yet. At the review session yesterday he randomly decided that the final was optional. I wasn’t a huge fan of the class, but I’m really going to miss McWilliams. During our last class with him he told us that our Japan class witnessed his “worst teaching in his entire career,” and he wasn’t joking. We all laughed because we knew it was true.
The only final I have to deal is with Brice, my Geohazards professor. He didn’t mention the final until the last class period and told us that it would be cumulative with no study guide or review session. So yay, an upper-level science exam that I am completely unprepared for. I figure I can fail it and still pass the class, that’s what I’m shooting for right now.

Two days of finals, two days of packing, and I’m home.