Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Revival of the Aloha Blog

The Aloha blog wasn’t dead if that’s what you thought… It just went into hibernation for an extended period of time. For many good reasons! Since you heard from me last time, lots of things have happened, and I’m not sure where to start… Let’s try to go with it in chronological sequence.
I think the first thing that happened was Maria visiting from Canada. She was here for five days, and it was great to see her and have the chance to show her around in Hawaii. We rented a car one day and did a circle island tour. We were lucky enough to see a big sea turtle on Laniakea Beach on the North Shore, we got to swim in a waterfall, we ate garlic and chili shrimps at the shrimp wagons, relaxed at Waimea Bay, and went for a walk on the beach where Lost is filmed. We also did some scuba diving and got to see 20 dolphins swimming in front of the boat. On her last days here we went to Hanauma Bay for snorkeling.

Maria left a few days prior to Halloween. Hege and I had decided to invite people over for a Halloween Party, one thing we forgot to discuss, however, was how many people to invite to the party… By accident we invited around 60 people, and by accident… everybody showed up at some point during the evening! In addition our neighbors across the hall had a party going on, so we decided to open the two doors and make two big parties one humongous party. It was good fun, and everybody had dressed up in crazy costumes. At one point it kinda got out of control, and I though I would make people leave. I also thought people were not gonna leave voluntarily, so I started yelling: Get the F*** out of here… NOW! It actually worked… Although the next day I started wondering why I hadn’t just asked people to leave in a friendlier way… Well – it seems as if nobody really took insult… I still have some friends left; what's more, the apartment is still in pretty good shape.

A week following Halloween Christer came all the way to Hawaii from Norway. He was here for two weeks, and I think we got to see and experience a lot of what Hawaii has to offer. We pretty much did all the stuff you’re supposed to do while in Hawaii. Here on Oahu we went to North Shore to see turtles and surfers, Kayaking in Kailua and Lanikai, snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, hiking the Onomana ridge, Pearl Harbor, Waikiki Beach, Muse on a Tuesday for $1 drinks, Chessecake Factory, we watched hula in the sunset, watched baseball, went to down town and china town, Aloha Tower, Ala Moana Shopping Center, etc. But I think the best part was the trip to Kauai – the oldest and northernmost of the Hawaiian Island. I’ve been there three years ago with Sisse. It is called the Garden Island for good reasons. The Island is extremely green… Also for very good reasons! It rains a lot over there, something we also got to experience. We had rented a convertible Mustang (niiiiiice!!) and more than once we had to stop and put the cover back on, so we wouldn’t get soaked… (However, we discovered that if we drove really fast we didn’t actually feel the rain. That theory, however, only applied until it was raining a certain amount of rain, and we couldn’t go any faster than we all ready did…) While on Kauai we went on a boat trip where we were lucky enough to see humpback whales, dolphins jumping in front of the boat and we got to snorkel with turtles. We also did a trip to Waimea Canyon (Grand Canyon of the Pacific – check out the pictures) and hiked the beautiful Na Pali coast.

Christer left two weeks ago, and because I practically did not do any school work while he was here, I’ve pretty much spent the last two weeks catching up on papers and exams, and in three days this semester is officially over! I’ve got my last two finals on Thursday, so I’ve spent the last few day writing papers, doing presentations and studying… If you wanna know anything about The Implementation of Fiscal and Monetary Policies in the US or The Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 – just let me know… I’m the one to ask!!
I’ve started the countdown… In only 9 days I’ll be on my way home to Denmark to celebrate a traditional, rainy Danish Christmas, and I’m so exited… I cannot wait to see family and friends; I’ve been feeling a little homesick lately. I’ll be home for an entire month, and I’ll make sure to spend time both in Copenhagen and Oslo besides my parents place, so I’ll get to see everybody. I just can’t wait!

Now I have to go cause I’m heading over to Susanne and Hallvard to watch julekalender… We’re watching a Norwegian julekalender called Nisserne på Låven (I think…!!) It’s kinda hard to get in the right kind of Christmas mood while there’s 25 degrees Celsius outside (I’m not complaining..!) however, Susanne is making an excellent effort by baking rolls with chocolate inside and serving hot chocolate every time we come over. Gotta go!!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A day in Hawaii

Here’s my day:

Got out of bed this morning at 7.15am. Or rather…. The alarm clock went off for the first time at 7.15 and after hitting the snooze button three-four times; I might have been out of my bed by 7.30. Jumped in the shower, defrosted a sesame bagel for breakfast, and walked the ten minutes down to the dive shop. I got my gear together. (I’ve been diving so many times now, that they have started letting me have all kinds of fancy gear I can’t control… Last time it took my a while to figure out how to get air in and out of the BCD, and on the first dive today down at 35 meters, I had absolutely no idea how much air was left in my tank, cause I’m too blond or whatever to work the dive computer they insisted on giving me. Even the dive instructor couldn’t figure out how to reset the dive computer, so he just told me to stay close to him, and for the rest of the dive I was just kind of… hoping that I wouldn’t have to use the out of air signal…) (And I didn’t – by the way!!)

The trip to Hawaii Kai where we usually dive is about 35 minutes, and the ride to the dive site from the harbor is another 20 minutes. Today we did the Corsair again which I think is always a success, and one the second and shallower dive I got to see tons of sea turtles and a huge moray eel… probably the biggest one I’ve ever seen, kind of scary… But no sharks… I wonder if I’ll ever get to see sharks!! When Christer gets here, I think we’ll do the shark encounter up at the North Shore. They put you in a huge cage, sink the cage into the water and throw out meet for the sharks to feed on. I’ve heard from many who’s done it that’ll you see many and big sharks! Can’t wait… Enough about sharks and diving, this blog has almost turned into dive blog… I never intended for that to happen!!

I was home in Waikiki around 2 pm and joined Hege, Per and Christina at the beach. I did bring my econ book, although I spend too much time chatting and floating around on Christina’s tube to understand any of the GDP and econ terminology I was supposed to be reading about. Well well… I’m not in Hawaii to study econ…. Or am I? Sometimes I tend to get all confused…

We left the beach around 5pm. Hege and I wanted to go running. Today I introduced Hege for the Diamond Head circle run, it’s 8,5 kilometers up and downhill, and we actually ran all the way and finished in less than one hour. We’re really proud of ourselves. And tired… hehe!

Tonight I’ve been so exhausted from all the wannabe holidaying, that I’ve been sitting in front of the computer on the lanai writing a few e-mail and now blogging. I never do homework after 7pm or in the weekends. That’s my time off. This semester is the easiest most relaxing ever… I only have classes on Thursday (occasionally on Fridays, and whenever I feel like it on Mondays. Buy I don’t really feel like it on Mondays, which means I only have to go the university once a week most weeks…. Niiiice!! I’m really enjoying it, cause I’m sure next semester will be a lot worse… It just gotta be!) It’s perfect timing, cause I got visitors coming up really soon. Maria is flying over from Vancouver the day after tomorrow – I can’t wait to see her! (I know I’ve been writing the same thing in every blog entry I’ve done since she told me she would come over, but I’m so exited!)

On Sunday we went to the Halloween store to get our Halloween costumes. I’m not sure why, but about a month ago Christina and I decided, totally out of the blue, that we were gonna dress up like insects. I have no idea why we came up with that idea. (We might have been exposed to a kaka roach or two??) Well, yesterday I was desperately running around the Halloween store to find my anticipated lady bird costume, and I found it! I can’t wait to Halloween to show off my costume… I almost told the lady in the store yesterday that I didn’t need a bag cause I would just leave it on. I came to my senses and didn’t. I brought it home in a bag, but now it hangs in my closet and every time I look at it I wanna put it on and wander around the apartment as a ladybird. I’d better not. There are probably around 200 hotel rooms that have a nice view into our apartment… I really should do my best not to walk around naked or dressed up as a lady bird!

Enough for tonight. Check out the nice (dive) pictures!