The Aloha State - Day 1
Well, today I can add three names to the list of airports I've visited within the last year. Oakland, Kahului (Maui), and Honolulu can now share the spotlight with such exotic locales as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago (Midway), Columbus, Manchester (New Hampshire), Seattle, and Kansas City. And, using my experiences in those airports to stereotype entire cities, I can say that Oakland is big and kind of gritty, Kahului is tiny with stale air, and Honolulu is still under construction.
Our day began at 2:30 am California time with a mad rush to finish preparing the house for the realtor and a hazy road trip to Oakland (so we could get to know the terminal for two hours before our 7:00 am departure time). Tip for travellers flying out of Oakland: Don't, because the economy parking lot costs $19 per day!
The first leg of our aerial adventure went smoothly. Being accustomed to Southwest Airlines and their, uh, "meal packages," I was surprised by the three course meal that Aloha Airlines handed out. Eggs, sausage, potatoes, fruit cocktail, and chocolate pudding fills a person up much more than the peanuts, Wheat Thins, and Oreos that my usual airline casually tosses my way. Aloha also shows movies, and today we saw a heavily-edited version of Forrest Gump. Unfortunately, I only got about twenty minutes of sleep on the entire five-hour flight, adding to my general delirium.
Again, Kahului is tiny and has stale air, but the views were spectacular (well, the views of the runway and parking lots that were visible from the terminal were beautiful, at least).
The second leg of our aerial adventure was over before it really got started. It takes less time to cross to another island than it does for me to get to work each morning. Of course, I also get to work late every morning, so it might not be a fair comparison.
Honolulu is warm and humid. Us Californians are used to warm, but not humid. I know, we need to get used to it since Columbus is all about humidity during the summer (July is the wettest month there, after all), but we'll still gripe about it. By the time we landed and found the rental car we were both ready to eat our luggage, but luckily we found Ala Moana, the state's biggest shopping center, which is indeed monstrous. After wolfing down a Philly cheesesteak, we wandered around the state's biggest shopping center and found some incredibly cool stuff that I won't describe because we may end up buying some of it for Christmas presents.
By this time, it was noon, Hawaii time. We had been up for over twelve hours and had about two hours' sleep last night. I, for one, was ready to die, so we set out on our cross-island trip to the house we're staying at. Oahu is another beautiful island (I thought that'd surprise you), but the driving experience bites. The speed limit is 45 miles per hour on the "interstate" (yes, insert old joke here) and 25-35 everywhere else. I'm guessing they established these limits in order to keep the tourists from speeding and gawking at the sights, but it means that now I have to gawk at the damned car in front of me that hits his brakes every ten seconds so he doesn't break the 25 mile-per-hour sound barrier.
We're staying in someone's guest suite that we found online, which is kind of interesting. We have our own entrance, bedroom, and bathroom, and we're about a five minute walk from what I've heard is a beautiful beach. We haven't seen it yet because we promptly passed out. Now it's four hours later and I have to go find the owner to find out why the air conditioner isn't working.
And that's our trip so far.