OK, so I am back from Hawaii.  Had to have a little extra sleep to get back on Seattle time, but I’m ok now.  This is going to be honest and it will disappoint a lot of you.  Sorry.

The flight was ok.  Being 7 months pregnant and having to sit in a coach seat for 6 hours kinda hurts, but I survived.  Our pilot was a fucking psychopath.  The landing in Honolulu scared the living shit out of myself and almost every other passenger on the plane.  Here’s my skewed view on how it went, and you should keep in mind, that it was nothing like this, lol.

Pilot:  “Ok, time to land, let’s do a great big death drop!”  *HUGE DROP*

Passengers:  *gasping and grunts*

Pilot:  “Ha Ha!  How many of you out there peed your pants?  Not enough, huh?  Ok, let’s do another death drop.” *HUGE DROP*

Passengers:  *little old lady screams and children cry*

This goes on until we finally touch down.  It wasn’t a smooth descent, it was a series of these enormous drops in altitude.  In all seriousness, the other passengers grunted and giggled and said the pilot was a nut.  I flapped my arms and squealed.  I’m not sure why.

We get off the plane hoping to see the hula dancers and get leied.  Nothing.  The most obvious thing is that the Honolulu International Airport hasn’t been updated since the last time Elvis visited!  Also, it is the worst aiport layout I have ever seen!  I’ve been to Dallas and Chicago, the biggest airports in the country and they were very easily navigable.  Honolulu?  We got lost! Not just Jessie and I, a lot of people from our flight were all wandering around and trying to find where to get our luggage.  We finally accomplish this and get a taxi to take us to our hotel.  Now comes the bad part.  As far as natural beauty goes, I have never seen Hawaii’s equal.  It was so gorgeoous.  Clear blue waters, palm trees and tropical flowers bending in the warm breeze, green mountains cloaked by a constant curtain of mist.  It was gorgeous, but that’s only the natural part which only holds your attention for the first five minutes.  Everything else was horrifying.  If it wasn’t an overly commercial monstrosity, it was a ghetto.  I’m serious, the entire drive to our hotel was through ghettos with gang graffiti and run down impoverished housing projects.  About a block before Waikiki Beach, things started to look a little cleaner, less scary.  But on Waikiki Beach, there was nothing that made you think you were specifically in Hawaii, you could have been at Virginia Beach.  I’ll leave the horrors of our hotel out of it.

The next day we went to the beach and had a great time.  The water was warm, the waves were gentle, and it was fucking hot outside.  There were tons of severely over-tanned people who thought they looked hot.  After that, we went to a zoo that was next to our hotel.  Not bad, a nice distraction.  We had Italian for dinner that night, not wonderful luau food.  The next day we went to the beach, then to a magic/dinner show.  It was called “The Magic of Polynesia” which would lead one to think we were gonna have a wonderful ethnic experience.  WRONG!  It was WAY overpriced, the food was whitebread cracker junk, and the magic show was only so-so.  The next night we took a sunset dinner cruise and sailed past the islands.  The food was OK, again, no cultural food, just steak and lobster.  The views were great and we got to see dolphins swimming by the ship.  We didn’t get leied ONCE the entire time we were there.  The music that EVERY place played was HORRIBLE, and if I have someone try to make me say ALOHA one more time for the rest of my life, I will murder them.

Overall, it was a huge disappointment.  To really get the experience most people expect out of Hawaii, you need tons of money.  Seriously, not tons of money by MY standards, just plain ol’ TONS OF MONEY.  The plane ride home last night was great.  I missed my house and my cat.  I missed my nice clean house, and my nice clean bed.  When we hit Seattle and I saw Mt. Rainier in the background, I was surprised at how happy I was.  I never knew how much I considered this place my home until I left it.  I always felt like a volunteer prisoner until last night, when I saw the lights of the Emerald City shining beneath the plane.  Hawaii made me miss Seattle.  Leaves a bad taste in my mouth to say it, but it’s the truth.