Back home!

Hi everyone! I want to say thank you to everyone who has been reading my blog while I was gone and for leaving such nice comments. This has been a great way to share what I am doing and has also served as a travel journal for our trip!

We had a wonderful time on Tuesday! We found a shady spot on the beach in the morning and spent a little time working on our tans. The bus picked us up at 12pm for the drive to the Polynesian Cultural Center. After lunch, we watched the Rainbows of Paradise Parade of Boats which had floating canoes and everyone in full costume, with boats from New Zealand (Aotearoa in Maori), Hawaii, Fiji, Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa, and Tonga. We then went to the Samoan part of the center and watched this guy climb a coconut tree and display their traditional fire knife dancing.

After watching an IMAX movie, we went to the evening luau. We were at a table of 80 and 90-year-olds, including a 90-year-old couple celebrating their 70TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! We had a feast of food, including traditional Hawaiian food of poi (boiled root dish...yuck!), poke (raw marinated tuna...yum!), and pipi kaula (beef jerky...yum!). I am going to post a picture of my plate that I took because it was so colorful! I found out later that everything is purple due to the taro root floor used in the poi.

The highlight of the evening was the Horizons evening show, which was a show performed by people from each of the cultures represented within the center. It was beautiful!

The most interesting thing about the center was that about 95% of the employees/dancers are students/alumni of BYU Hawaii. All of the proceeds from the center go towards scholarship funds and education of the BYU students. They did not serve any caffeinated beverages unless requested because everyone is Mormon!

Wednesday morning we finished our packing and went to a surfing lesson. Surfing was much more work than I realized. After a brief lesson, we paddled out for about thirty minutes until the instructors dropped a buoy line for us to hold onto while we waited our turn. They took about two of us at a time and helped us catch waves. My first two times I failed miserably (went splat in the water!) but the second two times I actually stayed on my board and surfed until the wave went out. If you guys have never surfed (I had never before this time!), you lay on your board, which is tethered to your ankle, and as the wave first hits you, you get up on your knees, then in a squat, and then stand in a hunched position in the center of the board. I looked down my first two times, which is why I think I ended up wiping out very quickly! It was a lot of fun once I got the hang of it because you move very fast in the wave. Because you have to move up and down on your board, both Paula and I ended up with a pretty nasty "board burn" on the fronts of our legs that felt like a bad sunburn. Luckily, we had a protective top, so we didn't hurt our stomach. The instructors were so good (it was so fun to watch the real surfers!) and were able to tow us back and forth by paddling their board and placing one foot on our board! It was amazing!

After surfing and lunch (we were starving!), we made it to the airport and waited for our flight. Unfortunately, within the US, American Airlines does not provide meals, but we were able to buy something in the airport. Neither one of us slept very well on the plane because it wasn't very late Hawaii time. We connected through Dallas and arrived back in Nashville around 8:30am on Thursday.

I received none of my luggage and Paula got one of her suitcases and we quickly found out that none of the luggage made the connecting flight for the 7 passengers who had flown from Honolulu to Nashvillle. Once I arrived home, I had a shower and gave my family their gifts. I couldn't quite go to sleep until about 1am and then slept until about 11am Friday morning. My luggage arrived while I was still sleeping on Friday morning and I began the ardous job of about 6 loads of laundry. Unfortunately, we somehow both broke out with poison ivy and a bunch of mosquito bites while in Hawaii, so I washed most of my clothes twice so I wouldn't reinfect myself!

Now back in Oak Ridge, I have finally adjusted back to EST, only to go back to Memphis on Monday to CST. We graduate this Friday from pharmacy school! I think it will take us both awhile to recover from jet lag, after going from 14 hours ahead, to 6 hours behind, to EST, then to CST!

Tomorrow, I will post my final set of pictures from Hawaii!