Falling Down a Rabbit Hole

I honestly feel like Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole! But instead of landing in Wonderland…I landed in Paradise. Everything's strange…different...new. I feel completely and utterly lost…and I think I like it. We catch a bus to find our rental car and I start to think that I have tons of stuff with me. Hopefully when I come home I'll be lucky enough to be like Tess from 27 Dresses and meet "the nicest people on planes". We get our car and load up. It's a cute, blue, Mazda CX-9 and I think I want to keep it. It becomes apparent very quickly, that Mom and Dad hate this car. Good thing it's just a rental. We ask some guy for directions and he lies to us and we have to figure out where to go ourselves. We drive around and while it's only 2 in Hawaii I feel like it's 6. I missed my nap and I'm hungry. That pretty much equals cranky in my book. We drive around and get caught in traffic that would make New Yorkers envious. There's one solitary highway and it seems like every car on the island is on it at this point in time. I stare out the window and see a thriving metropolis which isn't exactly what I was expecting, but we're not really on the right part of the island. We inch along like snails in traffic and I decide to read some more. I get a few more pages in before I accidentally fall asleep. By the time I wake up I feel like my stomach is eating itself and I feel like I'm about to die unless I get food right away. We continued to drive and I finally get a good look at the scenery. Everything is so very green except the grass…which is weird to me. The mountains are humongous and the ocean is even bigger. It's the perfect color of aqua closest to the beaches which are the perfect color of tan. The further I look the ocean turns to a light blue, and then, what I assume is the drop off, the ocean goes a dark blue. It's breathtaking. We drive around a corner and it's like a perfect scene from a movie or something. There's a stretch of beach leading up to another strip of lava rocks that leads to the ocean which is sparkling because of the sunlight. The waves come in and crash on the rocks and you can smell the salt in the air. There are all different types of trees and greenery around the area to top it all off. I want to take a picture but I kind of want food more. While it's not right away, I get food eventually. We stop at this place called Cholo's. It's a Hawaiian/Mexican restaurant that my uncle recommended. Inside is very exciting. There's a football game going on the TV right above the bar which is surrounded by people cheering and taking shots of whatever like crazy. I can't decide if they're cheering for the game or because of how many drinks they've all had. There's a guy with dreadlocks behind the bar making drinks like he's been doing it since he was born. There's a lot of pretty waitresses running around and one guy who looks like a less attractive version of Christian Bale. The walls are filled with creepy decorations each with a little white paper on it. I come to find out the papers are price tags. Haha. Tourist towns. They'll sell you anything. I take forever ordering because I don't know what I want because I secretly want the whole menu. Dad and I decide to split some stuff and I continue to scarf down chips…no salsa though, it's too spicy. The food comes and I eat until I feel like I'm going to explode. We continue driving to our condo and hopefully to find Foodland so we can buy something for breakfast. As we're driving we come around a curve and I look out at the ocean. It's blue as far as the eye can see, and I begin to realize that I don't know where the ocean ends, and the sky begins. It's all one big mass of blue and it's absolutely the most beautiful thing I've seen so far. We're driving close to the beaches so there are cars, people, and surfers everywhere. We see yet another absolutely breathtaking scene at Shark's Cove and another while driving along sunset beach. The only problem, we can't find Foodland anywhere. We drive and drive until we come to the Foodland by the BYU-Hawaii campus. So we just decide to stop there. We drive by the temple which is all lit up and glowing. It's the prettiest thing around by far. We check into the condo and I finally get to sleep. With some fussing over bed situations I end up the floor on a mattress like pad which is surprisingly more comfortable than my alternative on the couch. With the fan on to control the heat, I go to sleep because I know tomorrow's going to be a very long and exciting day. Tomorrow is really the first day of the rest of my life.

"A Whole New World" -Aladdin

I'm at home, not doing much of anything even though I know I should be. I start to pack up the rest of my things and take one long last look at home. Mom and Dad and I anxiously wait for Robyn to come and to take us to the airport. There are like 7 suitcases in the front room and like 4 of them are mine. Robyn shows up and brought Emily with her which was a nice surprise. We load things in her Escalade and start to drive to the airport. Robyn and Emily drop us off on the curb and as we're saying our goodbyes Dad says "Where's your violin?" I think my heart just skipped a couple beats. I thought it was in the car. We all double check everything and realize...it's not there. Yep, I'm about to die of a heart attack. Robyn doesn't even hesitate and quick as a whip drives back to the house to pick it up. While Mom waits for my violin, Dad and I go through security pretty fast with no problems. We stop at a bookshop so Dad can buy a soduku book and if I just happen to grab The Help then that's ok too. I bet Dad that I can finish it before the plane lands. Our plane is supposed to be packed and that's very apparent by the hoards of people by our gate. I sit at another gate facing ours with all the luggage while Dad goes to get some food because I'm starving as usual. I'm so excited to read my book I can't even stand it but instead I decide to text people about how excited I am instead of just reading it. Mom shows up with the violin, Dad shows up with the food, and I'm one happy camper. We shove food down just in time for them to call attention that our plane is loading. They load the babies and the old people first, then the first class people, and then the people sitting at the back of the plane. We don't quite understand what the lady is saying so we almost miss our boarding. We jump in line and I stub my toe. It hurts but I just keep walking. I shove my carry-on and my backpack into the only cubby that will fit both. They just happen to be huge. I sit and actually get a look at my stubbed toe just in time to see that it's bleeding. I get like three band-aids from the nice flight attendant and try and relax a little. Everyone's finally on the plane and they start the engines and start giving us the security and safety precautions. Images of the TV show Lost flash through my mind and I become antsy. The plane gains more and more speed and I feel the plane tip up and fly into the sky. We don't level out for a while and I kind of feel like I'm going to be sick. To take my mind off of it I turn to my book. I can't really see because the windows are closed so I attempt to turn my reading light on. It won't work. I try like six or seven times because two or three just isn't enough. I am determined to get it to work…but it doesn't. I am very put out about this fact. So I turn to watching movies for 6 hours. I watch X-Men First Class with Mom even though we've already seen it once. It's just as good the second time. I attempt to play Zuma and even an on flight Trivia game! I come to the conclusion that I'm the best guesser I know thanks to Mrs. Riley and my letter of the day! (Or letter of the round in this case.) I do really well until I do really bad and then I quit. I decide to maybe watch a TV episode but I've seen them all. Partly due to the fact that I watch way too much TV. I turn on Rio and try to take a nap. My sleeping position isn't exactly the greatest because my chin is resting on my left hand which is resting on an arm rest. Every time I'm practically asleep, my arm slips off the rest, which causes my hand to slip out from under my chin, which causes my head to bob and jerk me awake. Regardless of this process I still attempt to sleep. The pilot says we're landing soon and we can open the windows to see the island below. I can't really see except occasionally from side to side but I don't care because now there's enough light to read! Hooray! I get through the first couple chapters then the captain announces that we're going to begin our decent. I feel the plane shift slightly downwards and I don't know how much fun this is going to be. I try to focus on reading but at one point we do a pretty big drop. I feel my stomach travel up my spine and I remember why I hated the Tower of Terror so much at Disneyland. After six hours we finally land. As we're getting off the plane it doesn't feel much different. Until we actually get into the airport, then it's like a whole new world.