12.5.09

Katie and I got up this morning with the intention to go to the Swap Meet at Aloha Stadium. We left the ship, found the bus stop and boarded bus #19, which is the one the security guard at the ship told us to take. There were two other SAS kids on there as well. We kept driving and driving and an hour later, we were barely half way there. Then the next thing we knew we were at Hickam Air Force Base. As we were going in, a police officer came on board and asked us for our military ID. Clearly, we didn’t have a military ID. Katie, the other 2 SAS guys and I were kicked off the public bus and told to wait at the bus stop for it to come back out of the base. 45 minutes later, the bus still had not come back. By this time, we are all frustrated because it has taken almost 2 hours to get somewhere that should have taken 30 minutes. I finally just called a cab. Of course, right after we called the cab, the bus came out. Turns out that bus 19 didn’t even go to where we wanted to go, rather we had to transfer buses and it was going to take another 20ish minutes. The bus driver tried to convince us to take the bus, but we were all over it and decided to wait for the cab. It was probably the most frustrating thing ever.

When the cab finally got there, we told them where we wanted to go. Our cab driver then informed us that the Swap Meet was closed because Hawaii plays Wisconson today. So we had just gone though all of that for nothing. So we got out of the cab with the guys at Pearl Harbor. We decided to just grab yet ANOTHER bus to go back to Waikiki. That was another hour on a bus. We eventually got to the beach and it was great to just lay out and listen to the waves. Katie and I laid out for about an hour and then went to get some lunch.

We went to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was hard to find a table because there were a ton of people were there watching the Florida v. Alabama game. Who would have thought that there would be so many Florida fans in Hawaii. We ate and watched the game. It was fantastic to be able to watch football again. We both celebrated when Alabama won. When they showed Tebow crying on the TV the whole place erupted into a mixture of cheers and laughter. It was pretty much awesome. The thing about Tebow is that I really want to hate him, but he is a good football player and he is an even better person off the field, but I am still happy to see him lose.

After lunch, Katie and I went back to the beach and laid out for a little while longer. When we couldn’t take anymore of the sun, we wondered around the town. We went into a couple little shops and such. We called Mackenzie to see if she wanted to share a cab back to the ship, but she was getting a psychic reading so we just grabbed a cab and headed back to the ship. We still had an hour before on ship time and there were some shops around the port. We killed some time and finally got onboard.

I had completely forgotten that the CSI program’s Etiquette Dinner was that night. I ran and got ready and met everyone up on Deck 5. Barb was our host and gave a short presentation before the meal to get the basics down for the dinner. It was a very informative dinner. There were a lot of small things that I never knew. I sat with Mackenzie, Kareem and 3 other people. We ended up reminiscing about Morocco and the dangers of being on Bus 3 (my bus). It was a great dinner.

After dinner, I went directly to classroom 2 to help Mario set up for CSI graduation. 17 people completed the program, which is guess it is good, since Mario and I kind of created it at the beginning of the voyage. We had lights and pizza and cookies. Like we needed anymore food after the special occasion dinning. Dean Nick and Dean Byron gave a short speech and then Mario presented us with our certificates. We all each got a little SAS pin as well. We all sat and chatted for a bit and then I headed off to the cabin. I played a quick game of pish posh and then hit the hay.