July 28-30 Saddened by the thought of this being my last few days, I found it difficult to kick my butt into gear today. Strange, I know, because you’d think I’d want to be out, enjoying my last precious moments of paradise; instead I spent much of the day inside the house. At least I had a Hash to look forward to. Around 4:30 I headed down the hill to Safeway to purchase the required swag for a Tuesday night Hash: liquor and a snack for afterwards. Terry, Dave, and Aric picked me up there and we headed just across the [View Full Entry]

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July 25-27 Time has flown by. My summer is quickly, too quickly coming to an end. It is the final countdown to departure. It's Saturday morning, my last Saturday morning...I met Terry at Niketown for my last Saturday morning run. It was hot out and I was exhausted; we ran 4.5 miles around Ala Moana and were both happy when it was over. My short runs are definitely improving, but I am a little worried about my long ones. The 1/2 marathon is only 3 weeks away and my longest run here in Hawaii has only been around 9 miles. I [View Full Entry]

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July 22-24 I am tired. Yesterday was a long, full day of activity and today I slept it off and didn’t leave the house until after three. I didn’t have much in mind to do, just take the bus over to the Blaisdell Farmer’s Market before my Wednesday Niketown run. The farmers market was pretty small, but still there was tons of great stuff like fresh baked breads, organic vegetables, fruits, jams and spreads, and flowers. I bought my first apple bananas (smaller version of a banana that tastes pretty much the same, maybe a little sweeter?) and some fresh hamburger [View Full Entry]

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July 21 Big plans today....must make it to the top of Mt. Olympus. It's the hike that I did way back, maybe my 2nd week here? But I only went about an hour in before turning around and heading back out. Terry mentioned that she'd also be interested in doing the hike, so we decided on today to attempt it. It's a long hike, roughly six hours which is long for only being 5.5-6 miles long. But, it's a ridge trail that follows the ridge line all the way from the top of St. Louis Heights in city limits all the [View Full Entry]

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July 20 *I included a video of my newfound love: turtles, on today's blog..check it out. Caught a 7:50am bus to the North Shore trying to get the most hours as I possibly could out of this day. I'm becoming more bus savvy, and today I was equipped with my book: Harry Potter #1, ipod, and sweater. Time flies with something to read and pretty soon I had come to the first stop on the North Shore: Dole Plantation. I didn't really have this one on my list as something that was important, but what the heck? I'd passed by it [View Full Entry]

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July 17-19 Yes! I've been wanting to go to Hanauma Bay to snorkel since the first week I got here and today was the day. Eagerly, I hopped out of bed at 7am and quickly packed my bags for the day. By 7:30, I still hadn't heard Bill stirring in his room upstairs, so I texted him. Nothing. Knocked on his door...nothing. Called...and apparently, woke him up. Not good since we had to catch an 8:15 bus about a mile away. Bill was hungover. No, he was actually still drunk. And moving quite slowly. We ended up running to catch the [View Full Entry]

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July 14-16 The time had finally come to say goodbye to the last of my Carlson friends. After the late night dinner and a previously long day, I slept in to 10:00. Up with no sun time to waste, I changed into my swim suit and hurried down to the beach to meet Sabina and Alex for our last hurrah. We laid out in the spot that I now claim as my favorite, the beach in front of the Moana Surfrider and we didn't move until after 4pm. Motivated by hunger, Sabina and I set out on a mission to find [View Full Entry]

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July 13 Finally...a full day with a rental car to tour the entire north shore of the island. I'm stoked. Alex, Gloria, and Sabina picked me up around 10am and our first destination was just down the street: Leonard's Bakery. It's just across the street from Safeway, and I've been tempted to stop, but have yet to do it. Apparently, malasadas are quite popular there, and you've got to try them at least once while you're here, so we did. We grabbed 1/2 dozen, 3 chocolate filled, 2 custard, and 1 haupia. They're really just sugar donuts filled with cream, and [View Full Entry]

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July 12 I don't like that word as it carries a negative connotation here, but today I was definitely a haole (pronounced kinda like ha-ow-lee). Somehow it was after midnight when I finally got to sleep which didn't help me to get up at 5am. Exhausted, I hopped out of bed, got dressed, packed all my stuff for the day, then ran out to the busstop. Unfortunately, it never occured to me that it was Sunday and the bus schedule is less frequent. I had only 20 minutes to get down to the meeting place and I began to get concerned [View Full Entry]

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July 10-11 Time for a beach day. As I was packing up for my jaunt down to Waikiki Beach, I got a phone call from Sabina, one of the Carlson crew still here vacationing. A few of them ended up post extending their time here in Hawaii for a little r'n r. Lucky for me, that meant I had people to hang out with down at the beach. So, instead of heading down to my end at Queens Beach, I met them out on the beach at the Hilton Village. The Hilton Hawaiian Village is literally a small village to itself. [View Full Entry]

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