Wow, so things I'm not very good at: updating my blog. Sorry about that! Okay, well because I haven't updated in forever, the way I'm going to do this is to do several smaller posts about how things have been here in Hilo instead of doing one ridiculously long post. I guess this post will be a little bit about how our first few weeks in Hawaii went.
In our first five weeks of being on STINT, I was on nine airplanes and lived in six different locations. That is a lot of airplanes and a lot of places. It meant a lot of packing and repacking and living out of a suitcase (or two). I really cannot tell you how happy I was when we were finally able to move in to our house, if only because it meant I didn't have to drag my two huge suitcases around anymore. Anyways, there was a lot of moving. This post might be a little bit rambling as I remember stuff.
When we first landed in Hawaii, I couldn't get over how beautiful it was. I still can't. It's amazing. It was overcast and green and cooler than I expected. Two of the students in Cru at UH Hilo, Matt and Lehua, picked us up from the airport and took us to the Pakalana Inn. Looking back on it now, it's really strange to think about our first night in Hilo. We walked to Subway for dinner and brought it back to our rooms and watched Firefly. It was kind of surreal. That whole first week we walked around downtown, went to the Farmer's Market and experienced the joys of fresh fruit and vegetables for super cheap, and got caught in the rain multiple times. It rained a lot. I'm pretty sure it rained more in the first two weeks than I've ever seen in my life.
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| Pacific Island STINT Team! |
The Pakalana was booked solid about a week after we arrived, so we had to find somewhere else to stay before people who had reserved rooms for Christmas showed up. Luckily, we know some of the greatest people ever: the Matsuis! Kent and Erin are the staff couple at UH Hilo, and they have two adorable kids, Ethan and Savannah. More about the Matsui family later. Back to housing stuff. They were going out of town for the holiday and allowed us to stay in their home while we searched for a place to live. We stayed at the Matsuis for two weeks. The boys stayed in a hostel for some of the time, but eventually all eight of us ended up at the Matsuis (Kimi was still in Japan). It definitely was a team bonding experience. I was amazed at how well we got along and were able to live together. With eight people, you'd think that showers and meal times would be crazy, among other things, but it actually worked out. We didn't have a car yet, so we were basically stuck up there unless we wanted to take a $40 taxi ride into town. We ended up playing a lot of cards, especially nertz. Except by the end of our stay there we all kind of got tired of playing nertz together and played solitaire in the same room with each other instead.
The other exciting thing that happened while we were at the Matsuis was Christmas! For most of us, it was our first Christmas away from our families. We ended up having a Bible study together, doing a Secret Santa gift exchange, and cooked Christmas dinner together. Luckily, the Matsui's house was already decorated for the occasion. I was one of the people in charge of food, so I got to help plan our menu and cook. For future reference, don't call Target and ask them about pre-cooked spiral sliced ham. They will be extremely helpful and spend about 15 minutes trying to find someone who knows if they carry ham, but the truth is this: they don't have any. Anyways. Cooking. We cooked Christmas dinner and it was awesome.
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At some point we did actually get a car. No more $40 taxi rides! It was a big deal. As a team, we purchased a 2000 Chevy Impala. However, we got a little more than we expected. Apparently, it is not uncommon for cars to be infested with bugs here and we have been able to experience that first hand. Somewhere in our car there are hundreds of little tiny roaches living their lives and having more tiny roach babies. It was a horrifying discovery. Screaming was involved. We've bug bombed the car, but they persist. At this point we've sort of come to an understanding, but we are not friends.
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| The Land Yacht |
The other thing about the car is that it is massive. Seriously. I'm pretty sure it's as big as a car can get and still be a car. To give you an idea of how big it is, when four of us went to Wal-Mart and Target to buy house things, we filled five shopping carts and managed to put everything we bought into the trunk or on our laps and still have a little bit of room. It is a Land Yacht.
So, yeah. I'm not really sure how to end this post; I have no transition from car to conclusion. A lot of things happened, and hopefully this gives you a little snapshot of what it was like our first few weeks in Hawaii. There is more to come!
Next up: Midyear Conference in Thailand and our layover in Korea!
