Hawaii!!!

September 30, 2008

So, you know the statement “Oh, a paper cut that’s the worst”?  Ash and I have recently recognized something worse than a paper cut.  This morning when I woke up I realize my eyes were really sore.  Well apparently when you don’t put sunscreen on your eyelids they get burned.  Today has been interesting trying to put aloe on my eyelids without actually getting aloe in my eyeball… a ton of fun actually. Ashley is having trouble with wearing her backpack because she failed to apply sunscreen on the fold of her arm and chest.  I blame the “no sun” Alaskan summer…  Well that and the fact that we are two of the whitest people ever (Sandra and Erika not included).  And by we I mean me. 

Think of a night in Vegas with really great entertainers, costumes, sound, and effects.  Well princess is about 150 times worse than that.  One of the guests was bragging about the entertainers and stated, “They even do their own hair and makeup”.   Our response was “Have you seen their hair and makeup?” of course they do their own hair and makeup.  Well last night was the best entertainment we have ever experienced on Princess.   Ash and I seemed to be the only two people dancing and singing along to the Motown entertainment.  We even admitted to being native Jamaicans.  I mean obviously have you seen my skin.  This could be due to the fact we had each consumed three Beverly Hills Iced Teas.   At the end of the show we had a picture opportunity with the guys, and they stated they saw us from the stage, oops.  Three Iced Teas sounded like a good idea until this morning when we both woke up at 3:30am completely parched and completely unable to go back to sleep, (I NEED WATER!!!)

Finally we had had enough of tossing and turning and decided to try our luck on land. Today was our first port day, Honolulu.  Well you probably know us well enough to know we really don’t plan too far in advance, so this morning we left the ship without much of an idea of how the port works. We wandered outside and were corralled into a line for a “free shuttle” to downtown.  Well it turns out this shuttle is only free when we have been held hostage and forced to go through a jewelry factory and museum.  Don’t worry we did not give in to buying anything.  Despite my best efforts I learned how jewelry casting works and that black coral is the official Hawaiian gem. 

After we had spent the morning running errands we decided we would just walk and a hike.  From our ship we could see Oahu’s most famous hike, Diamond Head.  Well like good Alaskans we headed out with no idea of a direction on how to get to the trailhead.  I think we just thought, “Well there’s the mountain we have to go up”.   After going the wrong way for about an hour we finally got to where needed to be, and found out that the trail had been closed for the night five minutes prior.  SHIT!  We figured that the ship was about 7 miles away from where we were on this mountain, and we now had to turn around and head back. 

Just as we were weighing our options for transport a woman in a trolley drove up and asked, “Do you need a ride?”  Our first thought was, “Of course we need a ride, we’re on top of a mountain.”  Keeping in mind that we are the cheapest people in history, we asked, “How much does it cost?” She was amazing and didn’t charge us for the ride back to the ship. The free trolley ride was greatly appreciated considering a cab ride would have been thirty bucks.  So here we are riding on a trolley through Honolulu, Ash looks over here shoulder and all of the sudden spot giraffes in Waikiki.   Yes, I had that thought too, “Aren’t giraffes indigenous to Africa?”  Well apparently they also live  in Waikiki Beach.

Sandra told me this evening, “Mel I don’t understand how your life works!”  I say this “Seriously, that’s why we have entitled this blog ‘Our Ridiculous Life’”.