12.4.09

Imagine laying cozy in bed, minus the minor earthquake going on in the cabin, and then being woken up at 0545 by some Hawaiian music playing over the ship intercom. I understand that they were trying to wake us gently, but still not the best wake up call ever. Rita then came over the intercom and said “Welcome to Hawaii” and that we needed to be ready to go through immigration at any time because the immigration officers were coming onboard at 0600.

I crawled to the end of the bed and grabbed my phone off the charger and low and behold I had normal cell service!! Woo hoo!! I laid in bed and called Mom, Dad, Sarah, Ebonee, Brian, Jenny and pretty much everyone else. It was pretty fantastic to be able to lay in bed and talk on a cell phone.

Once I emerged from my cabin with breakfast in mind, it was funny to see EVERYONE on their cell phone. I grabbed breakfast with Dr. Aimme and then headed up to immigration. It was weird being able to talk to them and my customs officer asked me if I wanted a stamp and I said yes and I was sent on my way. I met up with Kelsey and waved to her parents who were waiting at the bottom of the gangway. Once the ship was cleared, Katie and I met up with Kelsey and her parents. WE exchanged hugs and then were on our way to Pearl Harbor.

We walked around Honolulu for a while and got a little confused as to where we actually catch the bus to get to Pearl Harbor. We did stumble upon a little produce stand and they bought bananas and some other fresh produce. After asking directions a couple of times, we made it to the bus stop. We got our tickets and chatted on the way.

It is pretty weird being here. People speak English and they drive on the correct side of the road and we have spotted every chain restaurant you can imagine. The extremely weird part was getting US currency back as change. Pennies and dimes all look really foreign.

When we got to Pearl Harbor, we checked our bags because they have a strict no bag policy for security reasons. It was really interesting to see. There is also the USS Missouri and the Bowfin Memorial. It is beautiful there and it is hard to believe that such a terrible attack happened in such a pristine place. We got our tickets, which had the time when we were allowed to go in. We had about 30 minutes to kill so we looked around. We saw the types of torpedoes they used and the anti-aircraft guns. Once our time came about, we went and got in line. We were ushered into a theater and watched a 20 minute movie about what led up to the attack, what happened during the attack and afterward. It was really informative and really well done. I didn’t realize that they had so much footage from the attack.

After the film, we boarded a ferryboat and were taken out the Arizona Memorial. The memorial is really simple and really beautiful. The memorial is over the hull of the USS Arizona. There are parts of the ship that are still out of the water. The USS Arizona was struck by an armor piercing bomb and it penetrated into the heart of the ship. When it exploded, it also exploded the ship’s ammo locker. The ship really exploded from the inside out. It sunk in 9 minutes, entombing 900 men within her. This is a memorial to them. The ship is also still leaking oil and you can see the sheen of the oil on top of the water. I really don’t know how to explain it. It was also really interesting to be there especially because we have just sailed from Japan. There were a lot of Japanese tourists there and I really just wonder if they feel the same way when they visit Pearl Harbor as Americans do when they visit Hiroshima. I didn’t make it to Hiroshima, and after today I really wish I had.

When we got back from the memorial, we went to the museum and I got to meet two Pearl Harbor survivors. They were probably the cutest old men ever. My favorite was Al. He was hysterical. He had made up a fact sheet about himself with a picture and everything. When I asked if I could have one, he said yes, but he wanted to make sure that he had signed it. Then he proceeded to explain how he presigns all of them because he knows how popular he is. So cute.

We took the bus to go to Waikiki and meet Drew and Paulo. Drew’s Dad got him a hotel room at the Sheraton. It took forever to catch the bus and then even longer to get into Waikiki. Once we got off the bus, we just kind of wondered around since we had no idea where the Sheraton was. Turns out that there are 2 or 3 on Oahu. During our wondering, we found a little market and we were able to use our bargaining skills again. Who would have thought? We were starving and we found a restaurant called Da Big Kahuna. It was exactly what we were looking for. I had probably one of the best cheeseburgers and we got to catch up on our sports. Our waitress was also really nice, although she was a little odd. When we told her we were from Semester At Sea, she asked us if we had to go to the bathroom off the side of the boat. I feel like if that were true the program would not nearly be as popular, but it is just a thought.

After lunch, we found a Sheraton, but it was the wrong one and got directions to the right one. We called Drew when we got there. We put our stuff in his room and then changed into our swimsuits and hit the beach. As we were walking around the beach, we ran into Dr. Aimee so that was a nice surprise. Katie and I decided to try out Paddle Boarding. Well actually Katie really wanted to try it and convinced me to do it.

We got our boards and after a VERY brief how to from the guy who ran the rental place, we went out into the water. It was a little weird because rather than the beach having a sandy bottom, it was full of rocks. We kneeled on our boards and paddled out a ways. Katie was brave and stood first. It took me a little while longer get the hang of it. I have no balance. This point was proven when I wasn’t even standing up and I somehow flipped over. Yes, I know that takes talent. I did eventually stand up, even if I did just fall over a couple seconds later. I eventually did get the hang of it. It was a little bit weird when you look down and you see rocks under the water. That really makes you not want to fall. I eventually just sat on the board and paddled around. It was very calming and relaxing. I must say that the best part was Katie paddled up to me while standing and was telling me about what awesome balance she has and then she flipped off the board. Best moment ever.

When our hour was up, we met back up with Drew and Paulo and we headed out to dinner. We were a little sidetracked because we kept running into SAS people on the beach. We also ran into Becky and Ashley on the beach and they joined us for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. I don’t think I have ever eaten so much food, but it was so good! After dinner, we just hung out in the hotel room and watched MTV and ESPN. It is crazy watching the trailers for new movies. I have never heard of half of them and I realize that I have no idea about what is going on in the world, except that Tiger Woods had some sort of affair with his wife and that the US will play England in the first round of the World Cup.

Becky, Ashley, Katie and I ended up getting a taxi back to the ship and crashing for the night.