Air Planes, Deranged Cabbies, Walmart Extravaganza, and, Oh Yah, HAWAII!

So... Flight number one I sat next to a lovely man in his early forties who was an english professor at some small liberal arts college in the Midwest and whose wife was a costume designer. He was delightful and didn't take up any of my leg or butt room. Flight number two I sat next to an unusually attractive guy my age who was pleasant to talk to and laughed at me when I tried to open my cold medicine packet with a knitting needle. Then he fell asleep and didn't wake up for the next three hours so he didn't turn out to be much fun. Then I had a monster layover of 6 hours in the most BORING terminal on the planet, but it was made less deplorable by the company of my friend Jess, who, although she was going to the same place as me and had a layover at the same time in the same airport, was actually taking different flights. The last flight, I sat next to a tiny and very sweet asian woman who told me all about her children and husband who were actually sitting ten rows behind us. It was a great flight. I also made friends with the three people behind me because the two old ladies had accidentally taken my seat. I told them to stay where they were and sat in their seat so we formed an unbreakable bond. The other guy was a freshman at UMass so that was exciting. Enough of this. It really isn't that fun to write about so it can't be that great to read. Moving on.

After waiting an hour with Jess in the Honolulu airport for my bag to arrive (which THANK GOD it did because I have VERY bad bag luck) we embarked on the best cab ride of all time. This cab driver had to have been at least 80. I was a little worried when I said where we wanted to go and he looked blank. Another driver came over and said it louder while waiving his arms and that seemed to do the trick. We also shared the cab with a wonderful and unfortunately unknown man who will remain forever in my heart for his humor and patience. So off we go. Jess was closest so we did her first. The driver went about 15 mph the whole time and practiced a full 3 second stop at every stop sign. He also kept asking us if anything looked familiar and if we were getting close despite our repeated protestations that we did not in fact know anything other than the address. We finally got it all figured out by calling Jess's RA who gave us directions which we were obliged to shout loudly and often to the driver lest he forget which way to turn. Once there, he attempted to remove everyone's bags from the trunk and I had to pry them out of his hands and put them back before he got it that only one of us was leaving. Needless to say, we went through a similar ordeal with my directions to the increasing frustrations and resignation to a sort of humorous pain on the parts  of the nice man and myself. We reached a point where his driving was simply too ridiculous and horrifyingly slow not to laugh at it. In the end we found my dorm (it was then 1 in the morning) and I was happy to discover that yes, my dorm is in stab city directly off the freeway. But really it's not that bad. My view is of the impoverished homes across the tall wall between us and them, and a row of palm trees. 

So far, my impression is that everyone is very nice. There are also a LOT of asians. There seem to be more asian women than men though. Most of the guys I've seen are white and blond haired and extremely buff. This could be because for some ungodly reason I have been put in a dorm in the athletics quad. Also, it is simply massive. I can see another dorm from my window and it is basically a massive sky scraper. The buildings are huge and have a lot of open air areas, but mostly, it's just that there are so many of them. Luckily, due to my extremely narrow academic tastes, I only have 3 buildings between my 5 classes. Two of them are next to each other, but one is clear across campus and wait for it, the name of this building is (drum-role please) Kamakakuokalani. I also have a lovely Korean room mate who sleeps like a log, doesn't care if I through my crap on the floor, and is extremely sweet. I think we will get along well. She's a junior here for a year on exchange from her Korean college. 

Lastly of course is the weather. It is currently 77 degrees, but it feels hotter because, a) it's so humid, and b) the air conditioning in my room is broken. The air smells amazing. It's heavy with flower smells and dirt smells from the fermenting leaves and petals on the ground. There's just the slightest breeze, but we've got a good cross air ventilation thing going when we open the door because our hall way is open air to the sky with a garden on the first floor below the hole in the roof.

Oh, and the foods good, especially the juice. Mom, I really don't think that only 50 meals for a whole semester is going to work. I'll just forge ahead and see what happens.