USA - Oahu, back to Waikiki Part 2, LA & Home

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Aloha!

Monday 8^th October – Waikiki

I was back on my own again! But I was going to be arriving home on Friday!!! Only a few people knew (sooooooo sorry for lying J) so it’d be a surprise! I enjoyed my free breakfast muffins and packed up my stuff as was moving room; I should have been moving to a different hostel because it was cheaper, but I had a big Uni exam the Monday after I got back and needed to focus. I headed to the beach for the day, it was so hot I had to take the odd break in the shade (hard to believe when I’m writing this at 7.30am in England and it’s – something in November!). I read Bridget Jones, had never read it before, think the film is better than the book, it amused me how many links there were to the film (even though it was written before the film) e.g. mentions of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy in the BBCs Pride and Prejudice.

I stuck around for sunset but decided it was too cloudy and went to look for the pigeon house because I wanted a picture. This house is covered in pigeons, makes me chuckle that there’s a sign saying ‘Mind The Dog’. I was disappointed as there weren’t many there. I stopped off to try Yoghurtland on the way back to the hotel and it was soooooo good, wish I’d tried it before. They had so many delicious 0 fat yoghurt flavours with nice toppings; that was my dinner. I spent the evening in my room watching TV and catching up on study while I was doing my washing, typical glamorous backpacker stuff!

Tuesday 9^th October - Waikiki

I was up and sorting stuff out before having breakfast ($6 special at Cheeseburger In Paradise!) and wondering over some of the random things in the USA… Like why all the restroom cubicles all have a gap in the door? And why whenever you get a cold drink the table gets really wet? And the most confusing of all… why they don’t include the tax in the displayed price?! After breakfast I headed for the beach (had to make the most of it!) and as I’d finished Bridget Jones I started reading my book on Buddism, that’s I’d bought months ago in my favourite shop in Brisbane. I spent the day happily lying in the breeze, it wasn’t as hot as yesterday. I really enjoyed sitting at the end of the day, listening to my music watching the activity in the water. The surfers are so patient, there was hardly any surf so they had to wait for ages before a wave and then wait for their turn. In the evening I headed out to look around the shops and had something to eat in a very reasonably priced Chinese health food restaurant, it was delicious. I loved that you can choose to have brown rice instead of white in the USA. I was back at the hotel early, tried a bit of study but was too tired so watched the TERRIBLE TV that was on that evening.

Wednesday 10^th October – Waikiki to LA

I was up bright and early! I was flying out of Honolulu for LA at 10.35pm that night so had one day left in Hawaii! I finished my packing and checked out and felt a real sense of loss, like it was the end of an era; I’ll miss living out of a backpack. I organised a trip to Hanauma Bay (apparently the best place to snorkel in Hawaii…) because I love the sea and snorkelling and had only been in the sea once in Hawaii (I don’t like the sea at Waikiki, feels dirty). I stocked up on food for the day and got picked up at 11:40, it was just me and another couple of this shuttle. It was a 20 minute drive and throughout the driver briefed us on the Bay, it was the most thorough professional snorkel trip I’d ever been on. He set us up properly with snorkels, gave us a bag to put everything in and talked us through safety information, currents (made it sound like hard work!) etc on the way. We arrived and went to watch our briefing film, that was really interesting (it went back in time to the formation of Oahu, from an underwater volcano) but also a bit freaky, as there was a lot of safety information (I’d just seen a big article in the information centre about the number of drowning’s). It was then a steep walk down to the beach and into the water. It was sandy and then went pretty quickly into coral which was rock like… I think a lot of it was dead. There were lots of fish and some were huge! I headed along the reef for the buoys that marked entry to the outer reef and it was a bit rougher with quite a swell coming in, it wasn’t too hard to push through it though. I didn’t got too was out because I was on my own and had no buddy, it didn’t seem that interesting (on the shuttle home, a guy told us he’d seen turtles and octopus, I’d never seen an octopus! I snorkelled for about an hour (I don’t think it was the best snorkelling, the water was too cloudy and the coral too damaged, the big fish were impressive though) then sat on the beach for an hour… watching the pigeons eating people’s food. We had time for a quick outdoor shower… and then it was to the tram for the ride up the hill to the shuttle.

Back in Waikiki I spent my last hour on the beach before getting ready for my airport transfer at 7pm. I was dropped off at Hawaiian Airlines and they have one of those ridiculous self-check in things that takes ages and never works, so you need help from a person anyway. I had to sit in the middle of the plane too… so I started getting nervous. In the departure lounge there was nothing open… just a Chinese and a Starbucks that only served coffee (not good with my nerves!). I had to go with the Chinese and it was not the best, and pay $5 for a litre of water! And it was soooooooooooo hot in the airport. I got some more water and a book and headed to the gate. As soon as the desk was manned I asked to change my seat… and ended up in Row 13… Thank goodness for ‘Flight Counsellor’ Hannah Schiavon’s helpful hints for getting me through that one! The flight was all right, no personal entertainment but there was a snack which I wasn’t expecting. I had a nice sleep but kept waking up with a light shining in my face, I couldn’t understand why the man next to me couldn’t turn it off when he was sleeping so kept huffing and puffing… only to find it was my light.

Thursday 11^th October – LA to London

We arrived in LA at 6am and it was raining, so much for my last day of sunshine. I hopped on the bus to the Travelodge LAX where I was booked into a day room to have a sleep. I had to wait till 9.30am so got some breakfast and tried to stay awake, as soon as I got in the room got straight into bed and slept… and slept… until I woke up at 1.30pm. I got all organised and showered and headed back to the airport at 3pm where I had more flight problems! At check in they told me I didn’t have a seat… they said not to worry because they’d find me one at the gate… It was nice being in the Virgin Atlantic queue and going through departures because there were so many British accents, I wasn’t used to them! I saw a celebrity, the guy who played Duncan in Monarch of the Glen. I changed my remaining US dollars, to receive £5! I felt a bit emotion handling GBPs!l! I headed to the gate and queued up to ask about my seat… we were 20 minutes away from boarding and they said I still didn’t have one… they seemed quite calm about it so I tried not to panic! In 10 minutes my name was called out and they told me that not only did I not have a seat… I didn’t have a ticket!!! The guy was told to take my Boarding Pass until they found it! I wasn’t too happy as I wanted to get home but I stayed calm and they eventually sorted it. The flight was completely full but I was sat next to a nice couple who lived in Dorset and we had a good chat and giggle at the announcements made by the flight attendants who were telling us about the ‘Gorgeous Cabin Girls’ and ‘Dashing Pilots’ who again sounded terribly British (do we all sound like that?!) and had a casual friendly approach, even giggling at one point and saying over the tannoy ‘sorry, my friends was making me laugh’. I watched Snow White and the Huntsmen and then slept and slept (I’m getting good at sleeping on planes) before starting Rock of Ages. I was looking out of the window and there was clear sky as we spotted the west coast of Ireland in the distance, it was so nice to see the green fields! And for once the UK didn’t cloud over as soon as I started flying over it, it was beautiful!

Friday 12th October - Home

We were soon ready to start out descent (they turned off Rock of Ages before I got to the end!) and we had to circle for a while… watching the other planes in the queue. As we approached the view got better and better and for the first time ever I got a great view of central London because we followed the Thames as we flew in. I had a bird’s eye (literally!) view of the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the Millennium Bridge… all there, it was brilliant! As we landed I burst into tears, I felt really emotional, I’d been away 11 ½ months – too long. I was keen to get straight off the plane as my bestest friend Gemma and her Jamie were coming to pick me up. There wasn’t a queue at Immigration (for once!) but baggage claim was busy and I was impatient! And eventually I made it through and into Arrivals to see Gemma and her baby bump!!! I can’t express how happy I was to see her J and there were a few tears. I gave Jamie a massive hug and we got out of the airport and on our way home, chatting non stop. It was like I’d never been away! We were surprising my Mum and Dad who didn’t know I was coming home, they weren’t expecting me for another month or so and were probably wondering why I hadn’t told them I’d arrived safely in Bolivia by now (I had a lovely fake trip around South America planned)!!! We pulled up outside and my Dad was asleep in the window, then my Mum came out to help Gemma carry in the dresses she was supposedly bringing home for me… and then she saw me and got a bit upset, bless her. It was a lovely reunion and (hopefully!) nice surprise for them.

I had to keep my home coming quiet for a little bit longer because Gemma and I wanted to surprise our friends and Gemma had organised a dinner for the Saturday night… I had to tell the lovely Caryl over the phone because she wasn’t coming home for the weekend and then I went to Georgina’s house because she couldn’t make dinner (she was literally in shock!) but I surprised Katie, Joanne and Vicky at the pub! It was funny to see their faces! I was back to studying on the Sunday because I had my end of module Uni exam on the Monday, not great planning!

And that was it, I was home!!! I’ve had such an amazing time on this trip; visited the USA 3 times including Hawaii, Canada, Fiji twice, Australia 2 times, Uganda, Rwanda, New Zealand and Samoa. I’m a lucky girl! I’ve worked hard, met and visited some incredible friends and had a life changing experience in Uganda or Rwanda (although the term life changing doesn’t do it justice). I’m so grateful to the people I’ve been lucky enough to stay and live with; Hannah and Anthony in Brisbane and Anthony’s family; Heather, Mike, Fergus and Flora in New Zealand; my Canadian family, my lovely friend Kristen and of course Jenny, Terry and the Davis family in New Zealand – my home from home J Thank you all 😊 And thank you to all of my friends and family back home…who’ve always supported me and been there for me no matter where I am in the world. I love you all.

But now I’m home home and I’m really happy. I’ve spent the weeks catching up with people, trying to get my head round my Uni work and looking for a job… although I must admit I’ve not put enough effort into that yet! I think I’ve suffered a bit of reverse culture shock… the lack of vitamin D takes a while to adjust to! But home is where the heart is and although I’ll always have a passion for travel… I’m not going anywhere again long term, I get too homesick!

Lots of love. Thank you for reading.

Xx

NOTE: I use these updates to capture my memories and share what I'm doing on my travels with friends, family and anyone who’s interested enough to read. The views are my own and I try my best to ensure any information I share is fair and accurate but I do sometimes get things wrong. I welcome any feedback so I can make improvements and corrections for future readers. Thank you.

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