Hawaii in a Coconut Shell

I finally made a trip to Oahu, Hawaii, a life-long dream come true. As I marched down the tarmac, I wondered what the temperature aboard the plane would be, since it was 25 degrees in Chicago and 75 degrees in Honolulu. It turns out, the destination rules the thermostat. The air conditioning blasted the entire trip there, with the heat roaring the whole flight home.

The anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, overlapped the vacation, so there were many vets on board, headed to a memorial at, well, Pearl Harbor. (Side note, I worried that the water I was drinking in Hawaii was contaminated with rocket fuel and other radioactive indigestible ingredients from all the military testing sites.) Apparently, history is not a strong suit for flight attendants. On the flight to the island, one woman over the mic thanked our veterans for their brave fight in World War I. On the returning flight, a different woman actually referred to the "Vietnamese" War.

Another interesting observation I made after a few days at breakfast, where birds outnumbered people: there was no bird crap anywhere. Thousands of birds, no waste. Where does it go--or more accurately: where do they go?

On my birthday, December 5th, I spent the day on a scooter, driving to the North Shore and down the entire east side of Oahu. The scenery was the most unbelievably beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. From the greenery, to the mountains, to the beaches and blue, blue ocean water that was so clean you could see straight to the bottom. Everything was just gorgeous--except for me. It turns out, I had a pretty severe case of "scooter face". That is when all the dirt in the air collects in the creases of your face and is glued there by your sunscreen. I had a full-on unibrow, deep smile lines and black under eyes like a linebacker. I'm afraid to know what my lungs look like, since it took about five cotton balls to clean the soot off my face.

The whole trip was amazing, from sunning on the beaches of Waikiki, to swimming with the dolphins (in the wild, on the west coast of the island), to hiking to see a waterfall that most tourists don't know about, to all the delicious fish dishes. New goal: get back to Oahu.