2 Crazy Sheilas

SO I cannot believe that I was seriously just in Fiji and now I get to go to Hawaii and enjoy MORE sun!

After my not-so-bad flight from Fiji (I got sat in an aisle, in between two pretty good-looking Spanish guys, all the while watching a movie I was waiting to see for ages J) I hopped off of the plane and breathed in the Hawaiian air. I then took the shuttle bus to my home for the week, Waikiki Beachside Hostel, just one block from famous (and beautiful) Waikiki Beach! I immediately dropped off my bags and headed to the beach for a day in the sun, as if I hadn’t had enough sun yet J! After a long and warm day in the strong Hawaiian sun I headed back to the hostel where I met my new friends for the next few days, a Hawaiian, a Swedish girl, and a Puerto Rican. I found out from my new friends that the Hostel hosted a bar night every night at a bar of choice somewhere in Waikiki or Honolulu. (And just to let you all know this newfound knowledge will have a lot to do with my nightly activities from that night on out!)

After having a few drinks with my new friends at my apartment-like hostel room, we met up with a group of other travelers from all around the world and headed out to the bars. The bars in Waikiki, although expensive to get into because they all ask for a cover charge, were a pretty fun time. My new Swedish friend, Melinda who had just studied in Australia as well, but in Newcastle, and I had too much fun so we decided to head home and catch some shuteye.

The next day, in order to milk our headaches, Melinda and I headed to the beach, after a quick stop at the surf shop of course J, we headed to Waikiki beach to lie in the sun and catch some surf. I was super pumped to try surfing since I have never surfed before so I couldn’t wait to get into the water with my 10-foot long-board! I strapped the leash around my ankle, put on a borrowed rash guard (sort of like a t-shirt) and drug my huge surfboard into the water. It was a little hard to balance on the board but I had plenty of time to get used to it as I paddled out into the open water to join the other surfers. When Melinda, who has surfed a few times before and came to show me the ropes, and I finally reached the group of other surfers, we decided to hang out on the side of the group to avoid getting hit or hitting other surfers while trying to catch the waves. My heart was pumping as the relatively small waves came rolling in and one after another I watched other surfers paddle hard, catch the wave, stand up, and ride it in. It seemed easy when you watched it, but once I got up the courage to try and catch my first wave I realized how hard it actually was. Not only was it hard to paddle fast enough to catch a stinking wave, but once you caught it standing up without falling was in itself a chore! Lets just say the first few waves, as I got my feel for them, were a disaster. After a few missed waves, a few falls and a little of both, I finally stood up and rode my first wave! I wish I could tell you how cool it was to catch a wave, I felt on top of the world! Surfing is really tiring and seeing as its been awhile since I have worked out I was huffing and puffing just in time for our surfboard rental time to be up, thankfully! Melinda and I paddled in, returned our surfboards, and walked back to the hostel just in time to grab dinner, hop in the shower and get ready to go out for the night.

Tonight a group of us from the hostel went out for a few drinks at a local bar. Melinda, a few British guys, two Scottish Girls, and two Irish Guys, along with some others had a ton of fun dancing, taking shots, and just being young. I had to go to the bathroom and while I was gone my friend Melinda decided to tell some random guys on the dance floor that I was a three hit wonder in Ireland and that she was my manager! When I came back to meet her I was in total confusion at what was going on, but I caught on and decided to play along too. The two of us ended up making up this huge story about how I had two pop hits, and even though I was not religious at all (I did it for the money apparently) I had a really huge Christian hit there as well! It ended up being really hilarious as they drilled me with questions about how I was discovered, and what my last name was so that they could download my songs, which I ended up telling them it was O’hara! In the end, we could no longer take it and through our hysterical laughs we told the very gullible (as if we had Irish accents!) boys the truth, along with telling eberyone we were with the hilarious story! (The Irish boys that were in our group thought it was really funny J)! It was getting late, I was tired (especially from laughing) so I decided it was time to go home, I needed to be rested for by big trip to Pearl Harbor the next day!

It was Melinda’s last day in Hawaii today so the two of us decided to wake up very early and go surfing, before she headed back to Sweden, and myself to Pearl Harbor. The waves were looking good as the sun rose and Melinda and I headed out into the chilly water to catch some more waves. After catching a few waves and riding them magnificently disaster struck! This is how the story went, I was catching this wave, and as I learned quickly if someone is clearly catching a wave you back off and let them be, especially if you’re new (as many, including me, were). Well this young girl must not have got the memo about wave etiquette, and completely ran into me with her ten foot surf board right into the side of my face! Not only did I not see it coming, my ear got hit really hard (instructors were yelling and asking me if I was okay, I guess it was pretty loud!) but I lost my one earring that my parents had gotten for me for my 21st birthday! I was boiling with anger, especially when the young girl just decided to paddle away without any acknowledgement that she had hit me whatsoever!!! I was literally livid! I sat out in the ocean and cooled down a bit before I tried and caught some more waves.

After surfing, and losing an earring, I was off to the hostel to eat some breakfast, shower, say good-bye to Melinda, and hop on the local bus for the hour ride to Pearl Harbor. I didn’t really know what to expect when I went to Pearl Harbor. I arrived and checked my bag, got my number for the trip out to the memorial, and waited a few hours while looking around the museum. I couldn’t believe how packed the museum was, I couldn’t even tell you how many people go through there in one day, and waiting hours I got to glimpse only a fraction of the people that visit daily. I didn’t know that you actually rode out to the memorial in a boat where you could look below and see the U.S.S. Arizona under the water, which was the grave of so many WWII soldiers. I learned that there is still oil leaking from the boat, that I saw, which is incredible to me because it happened so long ago! After taking many pictures of the memorial, I looked around the free museum and learned a little more about the attack on Pearl Harbor and WWII as a whole. I got to read letters of fallen soldiers to their parents and family before the attacks, and about the life of them, including daily tasks and activities, like sports they take part in. I then decided to skip out on the rest of the museum, which cost around $30 to get into and head back to Honolulu and do a little bit of shopping at the mall before heading back to Waikiki. Tonight, being that I woke up at literally dawn, and took the trip to Pearl Harbor, I was pretty tired and decided to stay at the hostel and hang out with a few new roommates and friends in my room.

Today I took a trip to the beautiful North Shore of Ohau, which in the winter is the home of Pipeline, one of the most epic places of surf in the world. Almost every famous surfer has surfed pipeline and has lived there for some time throughout their careers. It was really cool to stand on the Pipeline beach (although there were no waves due to the summer months) and know that so many crazy surfers have risked their lives on that beach and so many famous people have called that beach home. I took some pictures of the Volcom houses and envied the pro surfers that call the houses home because they get to look out their windows and see the beautiful coastline of Hawaii daily. After Pipeline, we stopped just up the road and my British friend and I jumped decided to join the many young people and jump off of the 30 foot rock and into the water just off of the shore. I was a little worried about jumping off a cliff into water literally feet from the beach, but my fears were relieved when I got into the water and realized the drop off! It was really exhilarating and I had to do it again and again! After taking many pictures and jumping at least five times we decided to go a little farther up the coast and take a few pictures because the view was spectacular. With the Hawaiian mountains green as can be, the blue water and thriving palm trees, it was a picture perfect spot and although I took my fair share of pictures, I couldn’t do it justice.

After the trip to the beautiful North Shore a huge group of us headed out on the town to a bar named Scruples, where we had a lot of fun, too many drinks, and danced out butts off.

The next day, tired and not feeling too hot from the night before, I headed to the beach with my roommates and lounged all day in the sun, and cooled off in the water after a few fun games of sand volleyball. Tonight was my last night, as I thought, in Hawaii so I HAD to go out right??? That I did! A group of us headed to Scruples, the same bar from the night before, and had a few drinks. There was a bikini contest going on that night at the bar, which to my surprise was less of a bikini contest if you ask me! I swear that eight out of the ten girls were wearing floss for bikinis, not my taste in swimwear that’s for sure! In any case, I decided to skip out of the bikini contest early and head home to rest before my flight out of Hawaii and back to the main land.

Lets just say that for some odd reason my brain took a vacation in Hawaii! I woke up on my (what I thought) was my last day in Hawaii and packed up my bags and went to go check out. Upon checking out the people at the front desk said that I was booked for another day and when I went to look at my flight itinerary I realized that they were right, I wasn’t supposed to leave until the next night and wouldn’t get into LA until late the next day! This is where my problems began. I called my friend Kory who I was staying with in LA and he told me, to my surprise, that he had booked all this stuff for my next night there. He got us a car, reservations at a really nice restaurant STK in Hollywood, and even was planning to take me to a few really fun clubs! He spent quite a lot of money and I felt too sorry to disappoint him and cause him to lose all of the money. So in the end I decided to fly out a day early and into San Diego and end my time in Hawaii.

Hawaii turned out to be a really fun stop on my travels. I surfed for the first time, saw soo many beautiful places and met some really unforgettable friends, who I will be sure to keep in touch with for years to come! I hope to get back to Hawaii and see more of what the vast islands have to offer! Although I left a day early the next and last stop on my trip was to Los Angeles to visit a friend from Boscobel, Kory, who now lives there. This last leg of my tables is going to be a good time…I can just tell!

Will tell all about LA shortly…

~Claire