Back in the US

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I am sitting here at my new favorite local beach in Maui, Hawaii. I have scoped out my dream house, which is probably worth millions, right on the water.The palm trees are swaying back and forth in the wind, the smell of Memorial Day BBQ is in the air and the children are jumping off the rocks into the clear blue water.

I love it here in Hawaii, which obviously isn't hard. I am really happy here so far and I feel really free. I am here doing a Soul Motion dance workshop for a month. I have been staying at an illegal hostel in Paia and it is very amusing. Since the hostel is near the beach, it attracts quite a different crowd. One man, for example, who I have met three times already and have spoken to already today, came up to me this afternoon and enthusiastically reintroduced himself and welcomed me to the hostel for the fourth time as if he had never seen me before. As it turns out, he didn't recognize me because I "looked really different in white" (verses the brown top I was wearing earlier in the day). It didn't really phase me however, becasue he wasn't the only person at the hostel who seemed a little "confused". I'm not really sure what is going on at this hostel, but fortunately I am leaving to go work for my accommodation at a bed and breakfast soon.

Since I've been here, people have been so nice and friendly to me. I went with three people from the hostel all the way around the east part of the island to a place called Hana. We stopped at cool waterfalls, beaches, lookout points, smoothie stands and more. It felt really comforting to be brought in right away by a group of people I didn't even know. I was so scared to come to Hawaii alone and I had no idea what to expect, but this expedition helped me to start out on the right foot.

One of the guys on the Hana trip, Juliano from Brazil, invited me to go snorkelling the next day. It was such pefect timing because I was just about to have a nervous breakdown about leaving Rachel and being so far away from everything when at that moment he came in the room and asked me if I wanted to hang out. We went snorkelling at one of the private beaches at a nice resort and saw bright colorful fish and three giant sea turtles. One of the sea turtles swam right underneath me and scraped my stomach. I was so startled because I had no idea what I had come in contact with. This turtle just glided on past me, went up for a breath of water and kept swimming as if nothing happened. This day with Juliano was really special. Not only was he really cute, but he opened the doors for me and made me feel really comfortable. Too bad he went back to Brazil, because we could have been good friends.

Even though my potentil friend left, I am really lucky to be here. It's really weird to be back in the U.S though and is even weirder hearing Americans talk because it sounds so wrong and abnormal to me. I have been out of the country for five months and I am now in reverse culture shock. I'm sure I'll get over the culture shock after a couple more days of waking up in paradise.

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