Hawaii: Hilo

Subject: Hawaii: Hilo
I have been behind on updating, but I’ll do my best to fill you in on what you have missed.
We arrived in Hilo, Hawaii on Monday, January 25th. We were so excited to get off the ship! And we were in Hawaii! It just doesn’t get better than that! Now, I have to be honest and tell you the first thing I did when I got there was hop on a free shuttle to Wal*Mart. (sorry Aunt Ann! No Target on that island.) The food on the ship is not horrible, but having snack food is a must, so we stalked up in Hilo. I now have Wheat Thins, Cheese-Its, Almonds, chips, and Lucky Charms (Mom didn’t let me have them as a kid.) I also found some Uno cards! You wouldn’t believe how many people get excited about card games around here. Once we unpacked our goodies, we ate lunch on the ship, crazy I know, but it was free. We ate out plenty later on, and that adds up.

After watching whales while eating lunch, we set out to go to the beach. Our friends told us to meet them at Richardson so we took a cab over there. Our cab driver was a hilarious and sweet, older Hawaiian woman. She tried to convince us that Obama had changed the drinking age in Hawaii to 22 and that we could not get any alcohol. I didn’t care to have any myself, but the other girls were throwing a fit! The woman laughed to whole time and almost convinced us that that were true. I took her up on her bluff and walked in a store and bought one can of beer. I gave it away, but I had to win the bet! Darn my competitive nature! I gave the beer away as soon as I got to the beach.

The beach was not what I expected at all. It was all black sand from volcanic ash. There were cliffs and huge rocks that we climbed on that were all volcanic rocks. It was really pretty, but not the beach I would have thought it would be. My friend found a sea turtle that was enclosed close to where we were swimming. I got to try out my underwater feature on my camera and got some really cool pictures of it!

After the beach, we packed in another cab and headed into town to get some food. We split appetizers at a local sports bar and grille. I couldn’t believe what I saw as we were being seated at our table. Right next to our table I looked up and saw a Texas A&M flag!!! I got so excited! I got a picture with it and even sent picture messages to a few friends! It was the most exciting part of the day!

We shopped a little in downtown, and it was really all very cute to me. Hilo is not a big tourist town. It is mainly all local. That had a few touristy things for sale, but you could tell it was like any other small town. The people there were so nice and loved having us in their businesses. They knew all about the trip and look forward to the students each semester.

I don’t have a clue how, but everyone seemed to remember it was my birthday the second day we were in Hawaii, and since we had to sail around to the other island the night of my birthday, they wanted to celebrate my birthday that night, with midnight making it my birthday officially. Not going to lie, I was tired. I really just wanted to go to bed that night, but my friends would not allow it. So I dressed up in a cute top, jeans, and cowboy boots. “Texas” was going to do it big in Hawaii! (Some guys on the ship have taken to calling me Texas.) We bombarded the local hotspot. Poor guys were not expecting 200-300 college students to come flooding in on a Monday night. The bartender was completely overwhelmed. By the time I showed up, people were waiting on me to get there. Great. This meant several people were trying to buy me a drink at the same time. I turned 22, not 21. I did not want all those dang drinks. I was walking around double fisting drinks. There was no way I was drinking them… so I gave them away. It was almost like I had a system going. Someone would go to get me one, and I would take it, thank them, then turn around to where they couldn’t see, and give it away! Haha! It was really nice of everyone, but I just was not down for drinking. The recipients of the drinks I gave away didn’t seem to mind. The bar ended up ordering a DJ to come to the bar. The night ended up being really fun.

Then the bar closed. It was time to catch a cab back to the boat for the night… right? Wrong. Some of my friends, who had a little much, wanted to skinny dip. If any of you know me at all, you know there is NO WAY I would EVER do that in mixed company. I sat on the beach with a few others who refused to take off their clothes and waited on the “children”. I call them children because I ended up playing Mother Goose, making sure everyone was ok and that they all made it back to the ship. By the time that adventure was over, all the cabs had gone. We walked over two miles back to the boat at almost 3am. That is a long walk in cowboy boots that were made for dancing. I could have killed the “children”.
The next day, my birthday, was not too exciting. Everyone was tired or hungover from the night before. A few people made Wal*Mart and internet trips. I took time to relax and spent time on my cell phone talking to friends back home. Thank you everyone that did call or text me on my birthday. Then we sailed that night to Honolulu.