you were watching the whites of your eyes turn red

Tuesday, Tuesday...



First and most importantly, Happy 6th Birthday to my sister, Hannah! She's one out of four of the most amazing girls I'm lucky enough to call my sisters. I wish I could be there to help her celebrate.

Last week a few people at work made plans to go to the beach this afternoon and it turned into a huge work thing. So, now we're all bbqing at Baldwin Beach later. The weather is kind of muggy right now so hopefully that changes.



Yesterday, while I was waiting for my friend Brad to pick me up from work there was a guy in the boarding area with the cutest puppy ever. I obviously took a picture of Krysten playing with the puppy. All you really see is Krysten's ass though (HI KRYSTEN!).

Brad and I went to Little Beach to hang out and catch some sun. Some people from the bungalow were already there so we just set up our stuff with theirs. As we were walking from Big Beach over to Little Beach a paramedic car drove as far onto the beach as possible and a couple dudes got out with a stretcher and started heading towards Little Beach. All we're thinking is how shitty this situation is considering there's a huge wall you have to carefully walk over in order to get to Little Beach. Brad had asked what happened and apparently someone broke their hip. After we set up on the other side we're all just kinda chilling and waiting to see what's gonna happen with the dude who broke his hip. The paramedics have him on the stretcher and it looks like they were going to try carrying him. Nope. All wrong. The coolest thing ever happened.

They helicoptered him off the beach. Seeing the helicopter come over the rocks out of nowhere with some guy dangling in the air, dropping himself to the beach and attaching the guy with the broken hip to the rope and taking back off all within 3 minutes had to have been the coolest thing I've seen in a while.



What a day at the beach! The water was extremely rough. I was being tossed around and body slammed into the sand by waves that were reaching 7-8 feet high. A couple of us walked further down the beachline to see about jumping off a rock, but it was impossible to climb up due to the treacherous water. So, we all made our way back to the beach. We layed around and swam a little bit, and then Brad and I headed to the end of happy hour at a bar called Life's a Beach located in Kihei.





My second night ever on this island was spent at this bar with people I'll probably never see again. Still, we had a great time. Alcohol is always a fun ice-breaker. Especially, when it's served as pictured:

The food here is also really good. After getting trashed off a liter of Mai Tai and talking about how the Phils are better than the Mets -yes, unfortunately, Brad is a Mets fan- and then finding out that the Mets are no longer currently in first place for the east division, we went to dairy cream for some more food.


The following photo is of Brad eating his first of two orders at Dairy Queen. Brad is from Jersey. He's been living out here for quite some time now. I met him when I first came out here in January. [sarcasm]I'm only friends with him because he has a car[/sarcasm].



I'm kidding in case you didn't pick up the "sarcasm" notes. Brad's another awesome person I've had the pleasure of meeting out here. He looks like Matt McConaughey and I feel it should be a rule that everytime he walks into a room Lynrd Skynrd's Sweet Home Alabama should start playing on the speakers.




Kihei has some of the prettiest sunsets I've seen out here. On the drive back to Wailuku I tried to capture the sun at it's brightest.

the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

Maui is burning down. Not really, but it sure smells like it. Somewhere on the island a sugarcane crop is burning.

Here are some quick facts I just googled:

Sugar cane begins with a 12 inch long "slip" cut from a stalk of cane that is machine inserted into the earth. The sugar cane then receives irrigation and fertilization, but not much else in the way of human attention beyond that while it is growing, and is ready for harvest in 24 months. A single cane stalk can produce three crops. Then the field is replanted with new slips. An acre of land can yield over 90 tons of cane or 12.5 tons of raw sugar.


After a cane field burn, especially on calm days, there will be lots of smoke in the air. Tradewinds will clear it out by the following day. Cane field burning is used to clear debris and excess leaves from the cane. It does not "cook" or prepare the cane in any way. The cane burning must be carefully scheduled to take advantage of favorable winds and weather conditions. The sugar companies have teams that coordinate within the company and communicate to the public. Often announcements of planned harvests are made on the radio. Use the information and take another route if at all possible. Avoid breathing the smoke if you can!

While these huge sugarcane fires are amazing and sometimes beg to be photographed, bystanders can get in the way. It is NOT safe to stop near a burn and it is foolish to even get close. Fires are carefully watched, but a sudden wind shift can direct smoke or flames in any direction. The smoke can be dense enough to disorient anyone and the dry fields burn quickly.

The coolest part about this is when ashes start to fall from the sky and you're hanging around people who have no idea what's going on. You just look at them with the most serious look on your face and say "VOLCANO!" Some people actually get nervous....it's hilarious!

gory, gory, what a helluva way to die

Thursday night I came home from work to all of my roommates watching Band of Brothers. I was so thrilled! I'm happy I remembered to pack my box set because I simply feel that every single person I encounter should watch this series. If you haven't seen it, please take the time to do so.

Friday night I came home from work to the same thing. What a great way to spend a Friday night. I'll never get over this series. The best part is (and I'm sure this is key for everyone who is into it) that when you want to watch it, it's not like you just pick an episode and watch just that episode. You gotta do it from start to finish. Each episode offering more emotional and comedic entertainment than the last.




On Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early at about 7am. Ate some breakfast, packed some lunch, and went to spend the first half of my day with my landlord, Cathy. She's a fun lady and quite adventurous for her age (you'd never guess her age by how great she looks!). We went to Lahaina to go on a sailboat with her friend Bill and his friend Nancy. Here I am hanging out with people three and four times my age and I had a really great time. Learned a thing or two about sailboats and got plenty of sun.



"Oh, captain, my captain..." This photo above here is of the owner of the boat, Bill. You can't tell from this picture, but he looks just like Hugh Hefner. We took the boat out pretty far and the waves were getting extremely choppy. Apparently, we were sailing in the channel. That probably means absolutely nothing, but to me it sounds intimidating and bad-ass.




If I would have known just how much sun I would have gotten, I would have taken a before and after shot of myself. Instead, your stuck with a before shot of my feet for now.



After the boat ride, Cathy and I went snorkeling in hopes to see some turtles. No turtles were out playing, but lots of fish were zig-zagging back and forth. Before heading to the car, we went to the nearby restrooms to dry off. Outside of the rest area were two of the cutest puppies I have ever seen. These guys were so playful and adorable.

I took a power nap then went and met up with a friend at a pizza shop he works at. The owner is from jersey and has amoroso rolls sent out here to his shop. It's good to have a cheesesteak on an amoroso roll when you're so far from home. At least someone knows what they're doing! When we finished eating we headed to the bungalow. A big group of us all went to a bonfire at Specks Beach. Nice and relaxing, and we had perfect timing in our leave because it started raining as soon as we got into the car.

Today was a lazy day. I baked a blueberry pie and went for a bike ride. The weather was great today, but I was trying to hide from the sun for a little bit.

Tomorrow starts week 4 at work.

there's something happening here

Well, it's only a couple hours later from my previous entry, but I just had to post this picture of another rainbow. I don't think my fascination with rainbows will ever go away. They are just so pretty!

if you don't expect too much from me you might not be let down

This morning I had to come to work early so we could go to a safety training session at the Kahului Fire Department. I basically got certified to perform CPR today. Pretty nifty.

The fire trucks were from another planet. The front of the trucks (photo #1 and photo #2) looked like something out of Transformers. Actually, the whole truck looked as if it would turn into a fighting robot at any given time.



My manager Cassie took a few pictures of us in front of the trucks. I'll load them in this entry after she gets them up and online. After modeling in front of the trucks, we went into this classroom at the fire house. There were mannequins spread out on the floor. Basically, we picked one to be our date for the next 2.5 hours. I had a sweet little blue number that was missing the bottom half of his body (far top of photo #3). We learned how to properly perform CPR, how to operate an AED machine and how to do the Heimlich Maneuver. It was a fun and educational session.


The wind is really blowing hard down at the airport today. I'm tired and I still have about 6 more hours to go here.

the impossible is possible tonight

I've really been enjoying myself out here. This Saturday will be 3 weeks exactly since I've officially left everything and everyone I've ever known and completely moved my life to Hawaii, and it still hasn't sunk in yet.

I'm sitting here at work and I look out over the mountains and there's a rainbow mixing in with the sunrise (photo #1). Unreal.

gonna free fall out into nothin

I'm really sorry for not keeping this going every day. During the work week, there's not much to talk about.

Friday night I went to Kihei with my friend Brad. He's a jersey boy who used to work at the bungalow. We went to a party and hung out with some friends. I had to drive the one kid's jeep back to Wailuku. My first time driving on the island and I missed it more than I realized.

Yesterday, I met another roommate. Let's go back to before I was living here though. When I first came to check the place out there was a lady sitting on the couch. Turns out she is my boss' mom. So, I met his mom before meeting him. I thought that was funny.

Anyways, there's Danielle, my boss' mom, then there's Bill. He's an older dude in his forties and he's from Minnesota. Super cool dude. He put my bike back together for me. Yesterday I met Jeremy. He's closer to my age and I swear he played Viper on Full House. So, I'm just telling people I live with Viper.

Yesterday, Viper had to drive to Kihei to see his brother so I went with him and was gonna walk around town for a bit until he was finished, but turns out his brother was sleeping. We met up and walked around for a bit, and saw an artificial wave machine that some kids were playing on. I should have jumped in on it. Once that got boring, we left and went to this Irish Pub that's sort of hidden in the Wailea Golf Couse and had some beers. There was an irish band playing, and well, you all know how I enjoy that. We had a fun little time. After that we drove south to a point where you couldn't drive anymore. It was dark out and the stars looked absolutely amazing. Oh yeah, Viper drives a jeep with the doors off so the ride is completely windy and awesome. I love riding with windows down (or completely off) and the radio and heat on max. After an awesome ride around Maui, he introduced me to Lappert's ice cream. I had the jungle crunch flavor...very yummy.

Today we went for a small hike in the Iao Valley. The water in the valley is so cold it makes your body feel numb. We came home and then went back out towards Hana and did the bamboo hike... no where near as extreme as the commando hike, but still lots of fun.

Above you can see the path I was walking in the Bamboo Forest. It's actually really neat to just stand there and look straight up. When it gets windy all of the trees shake and you just really gotta be there to experience it.



This is Jeremy (Viper) walking ahead and leading the way. The photo is a little blurry, but you get the idea of what it's like being surrounded by bamboo trees.




This cliff here really wasn't that high, but I was nervous to jump in first. I don't trust people when they tell me it's deep. I need to see them jump in first. After finally jumping in, I just had to do it again. What you see here is me trying to figure a way to climb back up. I'm learning quickly that anything is possible out here.

On our way home we saw a pig! You hear all these stories out here about wild hogs and pigs, and if you watch LOST you know that there are pigs on the island, but I've always kind of laughed at the idea of pigs running around here. Nope, saw one today on the side of the road. They're like deer out here. It's great!

We stopped in Paia for some fish tacos and then went and jumped off sand dunes. After finally coming home and laying around for a bit, Jeremy cooked up this awesome dinner for me and the other roomie, Bill. We all ate and then moved the furniture in the living room around to make it more "homey."

I had a wonderful weekend and I couldn't have asked for more.

I scored the morning shift at work tomorrow (that's in like 6 hours actually!) and Tuesday so I'm pretty stoked for that. I'll try hitting the beach afterward and work on my color.

are you gonna waste your time thinking, how you've grown up or how you missed out?

I posted pictures in the previous entry of our beach party. Nothing too exciting, but pictures nonetheless.

I'm all moved in! And I got my bike yesterday!

One of my new roommates, Bill, put most of it together for me this morning, but we need an allen wrench to tighten the nuts on the front tire. I'll figure it out soon.

Tonight I'm going to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight with some friends from the hostel. I'm super excited to see it.

I found some pictures in a friend's facebook album of the commando hike I went on last weekend. Sorry, Erick, but I'm totally stealing your photos to show everyone how wild and amazing the hike is!



Ok, so these are the branches we had to swing through. For the record, all the people in this picture and the following are all amazingly awesome people.



If you look in the back on the right hand side of this photo you will see someone climbing up the wall. I did the same thing. It's really quite an adventure.


This is just one of the many walls we had to climb. Some were mini waterfalls and others were just rocks spaced really far away from each other making it almost impossible to climb up.




Here is April climbing up a small waterfall. April is from Vancouver and she's one of the most energetic and happiest girls I have ever met.


These are the caves we had to walk through.



This is the second cliff we had to jump off. I think we estimated it was between 45-50 feet high. Completely outrageous, but totally worth it!




Erick right before he lands face first into the water. OUCH! He's a manly man so I'm sure he dealt with the pain during his alone time. This is just an idea of what you're looking down at prior to jumping.



And here you have Joe, Erick, and Bernd just sort of chilling on the little beach by the one cliff. If you look in the background of the photo you can see the cliff.


Well, that's all I have for now. I'm off this weekend so I'll be doing more stuff that will lead to more stories and pictures.

Until next time...

lot of people spend their time just floating

Last night was a blast. A bunch of people from the hostel went to Baldwin Beach for a chilled out bonfire with some drinking on the side. I met an irish guy, Tiernan, from Belfast and pretty much spent the night talking it up with him. He's very sarcastic which makes for fun conversations. It was also my last night to hang out with my roomies, Sandra and Louise. They're from Sweden and they're headed to Vegas next. I really enjoyed hanging out with them the past week and I'm gonna miss them, but we'll see each other again hopefully. Also, when Sandra sends me pictures from last night I will upload them. **Just as I had promised:

This is the party van!

These are our pretty faces...



and here are our funny faces!

This morning I moved out of the bungalow and into my own place. I was sort of in and out though so I didn't have much time to take pictures, but I will later tonight and tomorrow morning. All I have for now is the view of the outside of the house (photo #1) and if I were standing outside of my house I'd be looking up at Iao Valley (photo #2).





I literally put my bags in my room, took a quick shower and then walked over to the bus stop to go to work. Let's just say it felt great to shower in a full bath. Along my walk to the bus stop were lots of churches and one library. I went into the library to apply for membership, but I need proof of residency....so, that's my next step. Friday I will officially change my address and get a Hawaii State ID.

I recommend everyone listen to some music by Jack Johnson.

i'm going down to sleep on the bottom of the ocean

Last night I drove around with Dan on his moped. Our short ride really inspired me to consider getting a moped. Dan is awesome. He's from Washington State and has been living/working at the bungalow for about 8 months now. He's my movie/tv/cartoon buddy. When I first met him he made me watch Metalocalypse. I was traveling alone for the first time in my life and watching Metalocalypse somehow put me at ease.



He drove me down the road to drop off some papers for the place I'll be moving into tomorrow. Yes, sadly, I'm leaving the bungalow and I'm gonna be living at my own place. I'm pretty sad about it, but excited at the same time. While the bungalow is an amazing and fun place to be, it'll be great to have my own bedroom and own privacy. The one thing that is awesome about my new setup is I'm still in the same area and I can head over to hang out with everyone whenever I want.


Today I slept in and watched some tv before heading to work. There was a movie on tv earlier that Dwight from The Office was in. I was really confused. I don't like seeing certain characters acting in different films. He's Dwight!


On a closing note, if you'd like to send me tastykake products or wawa goodies you should probably email me for my new address (lisamarienowacky@gmail.com).


ps.
It's been over a week and I'm still not homesick.

there's something sweet about seeing the world

As for today, I regret to say that it was impossible to take pictures today...unless of course I would have had an underwater camera. So, try your best to use your imagination to the fullest as I go into detail about my absolute favorite day in Maui yet.

Today a few of us woke at around 7:30AM and headed out for the Commando Hike. Dan drove again this morning and it was Dan, myself, Fernando and two other guys...Phylis and Oliver. I think they're from Germany. Either way, we drove halfway out to Hana and parked the car on the side of the road in front of a blocked off gate that read Paaea Road. We hopped over the gate and started our voyage.

At first glance, it's hard to believe what lied ahead of me. While walking you're basically out in an open field- to your left is lots of land and trees, and to your right you're overlooking the ocean. Keep walking ahead and more trees come into view and begin to shade out the sun as you come across a very small body of water (creek/stream) with lots of large stones to walk along. Back home we call this step-n-stones. We "step-n-stoned" for a little while until we came upon a small waterfall. We had to climb up the slippery rocks as water was falling down and, surprisingly, I did pretty well. After achieving that goal, the path ahead seemed a bit tricky because there was no path at all. Nature was testing our physical strength to an intense limit for there were lots of branches and trees hovering over the stones creating something very similar to what you see in the top of this picture I found on google images:

We had to sort of "monkey bar" our way through those types of branches, but keep in mind there was a small stream of water and large stones underneath us. We were swinging branch to branch, climbing under them and over them, it was super awesome. Upon exiting what I refered to as the jungle, we found ourselves standing at the entrance of a cave. We had to dip into the water and swim through different "pools" of water and then climb up more rocks in the pitch black cave. We were in there for the longest time just swimming in the dark and making our way towards the light, which is not something you see for quite some time. The cave was absolutely amazing, but it's definitely not a place you want to be caught in when it starts raining!

Finally, sunlight once again! The sky seemed so much brighter than it was when we first ventured out, but that's only because our eyes had adjusted to the pitch black darkness. We gave ourselves a few moments to look around at our view then continued along the rocky, dirt path surrounded by trees to our next stop- a 10, maybe closer to 15 foot cliff. No big deal, right? Right. We all jumped in and it felt great. We swam to land and made our way to the next cliff. Now, mostly everyone who knows me knows that I'm terrified of heights. So, this next cliff was an extreme challenge for myself. I want to say it was almost 45-50 feet high. Fernando and Phylis jumped first and Oliver and myself were a bit afraid at first so Dan stayed behind to make sure we wouldn't chicken out. It's a good thing he did so, otherwise, I'd still be standing up there right about now. After about 15 minutes of breathing hard and telling myself I won't die, I jumped. Only problem is that I didn't jump properly. Yes, there's a certain way to jump off cliffs when you're that high up and I wasn't really thinking about that. Instead, I was thinking about how outrageously crazy I am to to have let myself get to that point. Needless to say, my body hit the water the wrong way and I had the wind knocked out of me and I messed my back up pretty bad. It still hurts right now. I swam to shore and tried to crack my back and do different things to it. It started to feel better than it did, but it's still sore. Regardless, I had no choice but to continue. There's really no looking back.

We had one more cliff to jump off of before ending our extravaganza. This cliff wasn't as high, maybe 30 feet, but I was more nervous this time because of my back. It took me almost 30 minutes to finally say "screw it" and just jump. I did it the right way this time, too!

We step-n-stoned our way back to the first and original path we were on, and I've got to be honest, as we were making our way out from the trees and out onto the open fields again, this time with cows grazing, and the ocean spread out underneath the sky on our left, I had a feeling of success. I felt like I was lost in the world for years, and I just found my way out. I felt like a survivor.

The whole time I was wishing I could capture each view and moment so that I could share it with everyone. You'll just need to visit so I can take you on the hike.


There really is something sweet about seeing the world.

clocks lie- we have no time at all

Let's go back to Friday night.

I finished work at 4:30 and came home showered and went on a date to a thai restaurant. The dinner was very nice. After we ate we got some of the best ice cream I've ever had in my life. I'm not even lying. I think it's a hawaiian brand. If I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure it was called Roselani and it was a coconut pudding flavor. After eating ice cream I kind of just chilled and hung out with other friends all night. A few people at the hostel decided to go get some food at Jack in the Box. I really wasn't that hungry, but I've never been there before so I HAD to try something. I wasn't impressed. For those who don't know, Jack in the Box is just another fast food place- not bad, but not great.

Saturday and today were my days off.

Yesterday, I went to Kihei with Fernando and Roberto. Roberto and a few of the other guys out here are into windsurfing. Apparently, Kihei isn't the best place for it, but there was no wind elsewhere. Anyways, the following picture is of Fernando. He is originally from Mexico but has been living in Arizona. I'm gonna miss him when he's gone. The place we're at is more of a park than a beach, but it was very relaxing. The sun kept coming and going from behind the clouds, but I fell asleep for a while and ended up getting a nice amount of color.



The next few pictures are of Roberto (Rome, Italy) setting up his board, getting ready to head out and show us what he's made of, and then finally getting on the board and sailing off. I recorded an awesome video as well, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to upload it right now.









After our long and relaxing afternoon, we headed back to the hostel to freshen up then headed out to Paia for some dinner. Dan (Ireland) joined us for this trip. He actually drove. We went to a pizza place called Flat Bread...the pizza was amazing!

That will conclude this entry.

if everything could ever feel this real forever

I had the closing shift at work today. It's not too bad at all... I'd just much rather be working the opening shift.

Earlier, I met an older couple who were supposedly flying out go GO! Airlines, but apparently GO! had no flights scheduled. They seemed a bit upset, understandably, so they came over to my counter and asked if there was anything I could do for them. I said we couldn't get them out until tomorrow morning and gave them our number in case they wanted to call later and book a flight. The lady looked at her husband and said "Well, hun, this isn't as bad as US Airways losing our luggage when we went to Africa." I couldn't help but giggle, and then I explained how I just left US Airways to come live and work out here. She started laughing and said "We're from Philadelphia, and I..." I totally cut her off and said "I'M FROM PHILLY!!" Then she praised me on being so happy after not just for working for US AIRWAYS, but also working at PHL. It really is such a small world.

Tomorrow I'm in 8:30-4:30 (training schedule) and then I'm off Saturday. We get our schedules for the week every Saturday night.

I want a cheesesteak so bad right now.

talking to the songbird yesterday

So, I'm a day late on this. "I'm sorry." (Michelle & Jamie are probably the only two who will get that!)

Wednesday proved to be the most productive, yet laziest day I've had thus far. I woke up at 4:30AM and got to work at about twenty after five. I enjoyed that shift a lot. Mostly because I have the rest of the day to do as I please. Oh, and before I forget, I got my pacific wings badge today (see photo #1). Yeah, it's official now.

I clocked out at 1:30PM and had exactly ten minutes to change and make it to the bus stop for the 1:40PM pick up.





Mission accomplished.


The bus took me to a town called Pa'ia. It was my first time out that way and I had a nice little afternoon. I found a small beach down the road that I later learned is called Blue Towell Beach (see photo #2, 3 & 4).I layed my towell out and fell asleep for an hour, then went swimming for a bit. There was a group of people hanging out further down the beach and one dude stopped to talk to me for a bit. I immediately pictured my grandmom and Aunt Pat yelling at me saying "He's a strange weirdo. Get away from him!" but I talked with him anyways. His name was Jed, which is short for Jedidiah. He is a 36 year old bartender at a local bar in Paia and seems like an awesome dude. He gave me a lift back to town so I could walk around and kill time waiting for the next bus. I was tempted to try hitchhiking, but once again, my grandmom and Aunt Pat popped into my head. My aunt always says "make sure you pack your common sense!" Well, I guess I remembered to bring it!


Anyways, there are lots of stores and restaurants in the main section of Paia. It was a nice little hippy town. On my walk back to the bus I saw a really cool looking cemetary (see photo #5) and directly across the street was a neat protestant church (see photo#6) that was kind of set on a hill. While waiting for the bus I met a 14 year old skateboarder kid who I'm still not sure whether it was a girl or boy. We'll call him lil dude. Little dude was extremely informative on a lot of topics...one of them being hitchhiking. He/She explained to me the common courtesies of hitching and was blown away when I told how it's illegal in philly and most places on the mainland. Next to the bus stop was a really neat looking tree with orange flowers (see photo #7) and across the way was my view of the ocean and sky (see photo #8).












I'm really enjoying this new found independence I feel out here. I can venture off to different places without being afraid to do it alone. It's honestly a great feeling.

I have nothing holding me back.