What Do You Mean It’s Still Thursday?
It was Thursday yesterday and now it’s Thursday again today. We are definitely getting value for money out of this day. In fact, I think we’ll all be slightly disappointed tomorrow when, firstly, it’s not Thursday, and secondly, that we’ll only have just one Friday.
Well, the big day had finally arrived and we were pumped and ready to leave on our big jet plane, destination: Hawaii!
Our plane wasn’t due to take off until 6pm so we had plenty of time for last minute running around and final packing details. At our time of booking we hadn’t realised that Sam would be in the middle of his Year 11 preliminary exams when we had planned to go. It was going to be a bit tricky to rearrange the whole trip so instead we arranged for Sam to stay with his grandparents for 2 days and fly out to meet us on Saturday. So poor Sam had to head off to school on Thursday while we got ourselves organised and became more and more excited as the day wore on.
When we arrived at the Gallaghers’ place for a quick bite to eat before we headed to the airport, we were greeted by Adam and a mysterious dark-skinned beauty. It turns out it was Keryn who was sporting a decidedly darker complexion than usual after falling victim to an over-enthusiastic spray tanner! She looked like she’d already been away in Hawaii for a few weeks! Ross decided he should say “sorry” to Keryn on behalf of Australia, in the interests of reconciliation. It should fade in a few days but in the meantime, we are all going to look like albinos lying next to her on the beach!
Adam’s work at the Collaroy Centre Salvation Army Campsite, very kindly offered to drive us into the airport in their big bus. It was lots of fun all travelling in together and we made good time in the Sydney traffic.
Ross is a member of the QANTAS Club and once at the airport, was able to take a select few in with him to indulge in the gourmet food and icy cold drinks that were on offer and were, as Maisy liked to keep loudly reminding us, “totally free!” Unfortunately this privilege wasn’t open to all so it was a case of stocking up on supplies and distributing them to the peasants that were forced to remain outside of this elite and salubrious environment.
Once the classes were reunited, we had some dinner and then made our way through customs. Molly informed me, just a few minutes before her bag was about to be thrust onto the x-ray machine, that she had a pair of scissors in her pencil case! Oh no! After some brief discussion, we decided, in the interests of national security, that we would conduct our very own security survey and see just how good these machines actually were. You’ll be pleased to know that the machine actually did a stellar job and Molly was beckoned by the customs officer who made her come clean and confess to owning and knowingly concealing a very sharp and dangerous pair of scissors in her luggage. While she was still lamenting the loss of her favourite pair of scissors, I was given the explosives test and was frisked to within an inch of my life!
The crowd heading down the gangway was a very jolly crowd indeed and it seemed we weren’t the only ones excited about our tropical destination. Everyone was relaxed and joking (not making jokes about dangerous things we might have in our bags of course. The signs made it clear there was to be no joking about that!) and even when we held up the flow of traffic at the entrance to the plane for 10 minutes so we could get a lovely old lady to take a group shot of us, no one even batted an eyelid!
When we’d originally booked our Jetstar flights, the idea of flying through the night seemed like a good one. Sleep soundly on the plane all night and arrive, refreshed in sunny Honolulu, ready to start the day at 7:45am. It only dawned on us relatively late in the piece that the 7:45am was actually 3:45am Sydney time and our efforts to sleep were more than slightly hindered when at 2:45am, the way-to-cheerful-for-that-time-of-the-morning voice of the flight attendant announced that it was “breakfast time!” So, as you can see, things didn’t go quite according to plan!
Maisy managed to get the most shut-eye out of us all, sleeping for around 7 hours! The rest of us dozed on and off for most of the trip. Chelsea and Georgia were sitting way over the other side of the plane to us but we were able to chat with them via “seat-to-seat chat”, which was unreal! We had hired some little tv units so we could watch movies and keep ourselves occupied during the long sleepless hours. The only problem was, the touch screens weren’t very responsive and you had to jab quite hard to get any response, causing the person in the chair in front to get mild whiplash. Toby was chastised by the man in front of him when he was accused of keeping him awake (quite unintentionally I might add) playing Blackjack. The man sitting in front of Molly had fallen asleep with his hand draped up and over the top of his head where it was creepily dangling down right in front of Molly’s tv! It looked like Thing. When it was time to prepare for landing, we were asked to gather all our rubbish together and Keryn discovered some chicken rolls she’d been harbouring in her bag. When I held the rubbish bag out for her to deposit them, she pushed them in with such gusto that the bag, which was laden with rubbish, split in two and all our rubbish was strewn up and down the aisle! Nothing like providing free entertainment for our fellow passengers!
I had arranged for us all to get lei’d when we got off the plane in Hawaii (please note the spelling!) so as we left the baggage carousel, we were greeted by a warm “Aloha” from our new Hawaiian friend Bob who decorated us each in turn with our very own fresh Hawaiian orchid lei! Now we really felt like we’d arrived!
It was so hot when we left the terminal that we made our way over to pick up our big, American, Yank-Tank hire cars as quickly as we could. The Gallaghers have hired a Jeep, with the numberplate “RDG” and we have hired a Dodge “caravan” so we’ve christened the cars “Rog” and “Dodge”. Ross and Adam have been doing so well, just jumping in and driving so proficiently on the wrong side of the road! Unfortunately Rog let us all down this afternoon though, when Adam, who had taken Keryn, Molly and Ebony grocery shopping, detected a flat tyre! The jack he was given was completely insufficient and wasn’t even able to get the beast of a car off the ground! Luckily a friendly local came to the rescue with the perfect tools for the job and the crisis was averted. Maisy observed, as we were driving through downtown Honolulu that Hawaii was really just like Australia and America but with “just a few Hawaiian details”. When quizzed on what details she had picked up she said “oh just some fancy floral buses and trucks with pineapples on them”!
We had a brief stroll around the Alomoana Shopping Mall this afternoon while we waited for our accommodation to be available but due to us all being in a sleep-deprived, half-awake, foggy stupor, we just floated through the shops in a bit of a daze!
Adam and Keryn’s work with the Salvation Army has meant we have been able to stay at a Salvation Army Campsite on the North Shore of Oahu this week. While not exactly being palatial, the little cottage at Camp Homelani is comfortable and cosy and is right on a beautiful beach. It has heaps of beds and sleeps us all so that’s the main thing. We went for a little exploratory walk this afternoon down to the beach and we saw lots of cute little sea turtles poking their heads out of the surf! It really is a gorgeous place. On the walk back from the beach though, Maisy stepped on a bee and it stung her! At least we know now that she’s not allergic to bees I guess. Another friendly local, who had heard Maisy crying, popped her head out of her first floor window to see if Maisy was alright. She introduced herself as Christine and came to our aid with an icepack and a friendly smile.
We are so excited to be here and grateful to God for our safe trip so far. We are really looking forward to looking around some more and making the most of what this beautiful part of the world has to offer. Right now though, our overwhelming desire is to get some SLEEP!!
Are you sure it really is still Thursday….?
