What I did on my trip to Hawaii

I got back from Hawaii late this afternoon. Overall it was a pretty nice trip, although there were a few rough patches here and there, which I'll outline in detail in this entry.

I left last Saturday at 6 AM. If you know me, you know that I'm not a morning person whatsoever. So, the whole being up and coherent enough to board a plane was a bit difficult. But, once I got on (after going through security twice because I left a shaving knife in my travel grooming kit completely unintentionally) the flights themselves went fairly smoothly. I flew to Detroit, which isn't new to me. I've been to that airport several times. From there I went to LAX. I always pictured LAX to be this really big airport with hundreds of gates spanning as far as the eye can see. I was rather disappointed with the reality. The terminal I was in had maybe eight gates, and not a whole lot to choose from foodwise. I did have to eat something, though, because apparently serving meals on a longish flight has become a thing of the past. So, I bought some terribly overpriced Burger King food, and then went to a gift shop to buy some snacky-type foods for the flight to Honolulu. I had plenty of time to do all this because my flight from LAX was delayed. So, even with getting there an hour later than anticipated (due to strong headwinds), I ended up having a longer layover than I was originally intended to have. After that, the flight to Honolulu was pretty smooth as well. I slept for part of it, because I just couldn't stay awake much longer. When I got to Honolulu, I had to wait quite some time for my luggage to make it to the baggage claim, and then I took a shuttle, which apparently stops at just about every hotel in Waikiki. I think I got to the hotel around 10 PM Hawaii time, which would be 3 AM eastern. So, I was pretty damn tired and all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep.

The following day was just a relaxing walk around Waikiki day. I went to the Honolulu zoo (which isn't very impressive compared to the Milwaukee County Zoo or the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) Zoo) and spent some time looking at animals and taking pictures, because I tend to be very touristy when I go places. They were also having an art show along the beach, so I walked around there to see the different things that were available. Following that, Katie and I, since I was sharing the hotel room with her, went to the opening reception for the Ocean Science meeting, which involved free beer. I couldn't pass up anything free. I am a college student after all. Then I tried to get my materials for the meeting, which at first I thought would be a breeze because the "S" line was very short. This was very impressive since last names that begin with S seem to be very, very common. However, when I got there, after spelling my name to the person manning that line at least five times, my registration was nowhere to be found. So, I went to the Information booth and asked about it. The girl at that booth told me that just because I submitted an abstract doesn't mean I've registered. I thought to myself, "No shit, Sherlock." She then proceeded to tell me, in a very condescending, bitchy way, that I needed to bring proof of my registration in order to actually register. So, I was a bit flustered, and pissed off that I couldn't just register nice and neatly and be done with it. After that, Katie and I met up with someone she met on the plane, who was also going to the same conference and we (with some of his friends) went to TGIFridays for dinner. I wasn't all that hungry because I had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, so I just had a drink and watched them all eat. That ended that evening.

Monday morning I was up relatively early and on the phone with Diane from the Meteo Department to get her to fax me the webpage that said I had registered. I did that and went to the convention center and showed it to the people at the information booth. This time the actual organizer of the meeting was there, and it was determined that just because I had that page didn't mean I actually registered. Basically, something happened with the transaction so that the fee didn't get submitted to them. So, they made me fill out a lost registration form and I'll have to email them telling them that they should contact Diane for payment. That took up most of the morning. Because of that, I missed out on going to Pearl Harbor, but I wasn't going to let it completely ruin my day. I decided, on the spur of the moment, that I would take a bus to the North Shore to see what the beaches looked like up there. It's so much nicer there than in Waikiki, mainly because it's less touristy. I went to Sunset Beach that day and took several pictures of the scenery and avoided some rain. Then I went back and caught a bus that had the same number route as the one I rode there on, expecting it to go back the way it came. Little did I know that the bus changed route numbers and went around the island on the other side. So, I unfortunately missed out on the poster session that day (although I did look at the important ones before I left, those being Katie's and Kathy's) but it was worth it. Plus, it's a very cheap way to see much of the island. That took up the rest of my day.

Tuesday was my day in the spotlight to present my poster. Unfortunately, I had to have it put up by 8:30 AM. But, that gave me time to talk with some of the US ECoS people beforehand. I talked extensively with one of the team members and we're collaborating to write a paper together describing the climatologies of oxygen along much of the east coast of North America. So, that was pretty cool. Then in between the oral carbon cycle sessions (which I didn't really gain a lot from) I was chatting with one of the other team members that I just connected with the first time I met her. So, that was pretty fun. Then, all of a sudden, it was time to go to stand by my poster. I had a pretty steady flow of people that wanted to chat about my work, which was nice. I even talked to a prominent NSF guy who basically encouraged me to keep going with my work, which was very nice. The two hours for the poster session seemed to go very fast, though. After that, I went out to eat with some members of the US ECoS team, and we got caught in a significant downpour. I even saw some flashes of lightning. Seriously, the first few days I was there, I felt like I was in a warmer version of State College, because it seemed to be cloudy all the time. Dinner was fun, though. Then we went to Cold Stone Creamery for dessert, and then I caught a bus to get back to the hotel room.

Wednesday was another day I needed to go to the oral session on the carbon cycle. So, I did that for most of the day and then went to the poster session to look at what other people were doing. I found a couple posters on turbulence that I found very interesting, so I chatted with those people for a bit. Then I went to the exhibitioners to see what sorts of free stuff I could collect. It was a little disappointing, though. I only got a couple pens, some pamphlets, and a small fish and dolphin (fake, of course). After that, Katie and I went out for Thai food, which was nice. It was sort of a bonding moment, where we chatted about lots of different things. It was definitely a good time. Then we got back to the hotel room in time to watch a repeat of the pilot of Lost, which happened to be pretty much the only TV we watched, but since Lost is filmed on Oahu, we wanted to see it. Plus, Katie hadn't become addicted to Lost yet, although she's gottened hooked just by the pilot.

Thursday I decided to take the morning off and go back to the North Shore. There wasn't much going on at the conference that I was incredibly interested in. Plus, I saw that there was a high surf advisory for the northern parts of all the islands of Hawaii, so I figured the waves would be pretty impressive. They definitely were. I sat on the beach and got lost in them, not literally, though. I even kind of ignored the book I brought along to read and just watched the water. It's such a calming thing. It made me realize that I really need to live near a body of water after I finish grad school. Some of the waves were so impressive that I climbed up on some of the rocks to get a good picture of a splash hitting them. I hope those turn out well. After the beach, I went to the poster session and had a wonderful discussion with a professor sutdying hypoxia in the Hood Canal in Washington. It was really nice, and I even got her card so we could continue to correspond with each other. Since my research is hopefully going to go in that direction, it was very good to make contact with someone whose doing similar research as I am. After the poster session, they had an aloha reception on the roof of the convention center. I went there because it was free food. They had some wonderful fruit and several roasted pigs. It was very yummy food. After that, since it was a beautiful night, I walked back to the hotel on the main street by the beach. There were some interesting sights there, mainly from various street performers. It was pretty cool.

Friday was a relatively slow day. I only went to the couple afternoon oral sessions, which were very interesting, dealing with hypoxia and how it's model, some data that's been analyzed, and how it affects biology across the food chain. It was very interesting stuff. After that, Katie and I were planning on going to dinner and see a jazz show. We went to dinner at Ciao Mein, and Italian/Chinese restaurant. Very good food, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Then the club we wanted to go to had a dress code (collared shirt and pants for a guy), so we walked along the main drag and went into various stores looking for a cheap collared shirt for me. We were having so much fun window shopping that we lost track of time and never made it to the jazz show.

Saturday was my last day in Hawaii. I had a late afternoon flight out, so I wanted to wear myself out a bit. I decided that I'd go climb Diamond Head, a dormant volcano from the top of which you get a 360 degree few of Oahu. That was quite the hike, proving that I should probably get in better shape. But the view from the top was totally worth it. After that, I went back to the hotel and got ready for my shuttle to take me to the airport.

This is when things started to get a little frustrating. First of all, I looked at my itinerary and saw that I was flying Northwest again on the way home. So, I told the shuttle driver to drop me off at the Northwest check-in gate. So, I ran my checked bag through their agriculture scanner (the Hawaiians are very particular about letting their fruit out of the country). Then I went up and tried to check in for my flight, but the self-serve screen wasn't working for me. So, the lady came up to me and said that I had to go to Delta because that's who was flying to Atlanta instead of Northwest (which is just confusing for me). Delta, of course, was way on the other end of the airport. So, I'm scurrying there and get to the self-check-in kiosks, and they tell me that I have to run my checked luggage through the agriculture scanner for Delta now, because apparently I can get fruit somewhere between those two gates. So, I did that and got all checked in. Then I went through security and got asked if my carry-on could be opened. I had no idea why they'd need to do this, since I left the grooming kit in my checked bag. So, I said fine, and the guy that went through it took out my keys and said that that may be what was confusing the person looking at the x-ray, and he specifically held the bottle opener on my keyring. So, he ran the bag and my keys through separately, and then told me I was fine to go. Why he needed to do that is beyond me. I mean, seriously, what harm am I going to do with a bottle opener?!?! So, then I finally make it to my gate and find out that the flight is full, so I can only have two carry-on bags. So, I ended up having to check my poster in since I didn't want to check anything else. After all that I get on the plane and we take off for Atlanta. This time we got a meal and everything was pretty good. I tried to sleep as much as possible, even with a kid crying in the background and the parents apparently doing nothing to shut the kid up. But, I must have slept some, because I was woken up by the attendants serving a breakfast snack. My layover in Atlanta was a bit long, but not too hectic, except that the staff couldn't decide which gate we were really leaving from. Once I got on the plane, I pretty much passed out because I needed more sleep. Suddenly we were in Detroit. I had a semi-long layover there, and then boarded the plane to State College. This is where things get pretty hairy. Once we got in the air, things were fine, not too turbulent. But, when we were landing in State College, things got really bumpy, and due to probably a combination of factors, including jet lag, not enough sleep, and having just enough food to make me queasy, I got airsick. Pretty badly, I must say. It came on all of a sudden, too. Plus, I don't think there was a bag in the pouch in front of me. Of course, it came on so suddenly (and I was trying very hard not to actually vomit) that I couldn't have been sure. But, yeah, that was a great capper to the whole airline experience. Luckily, the people sitting across the aisle from me (I was alone on one side of the plane, fortunately) were very helpful, and the guy even gave me his jacket because mine was kind of ruined. So, needless to say, I'm not planning any flying adventures anytime in the near future, not only because I got sick, but because I've seen way too many airplanes and airports in the past week.

So, that was my trip to Hawaii. Most of it was fun, but I'm really glad to be home. Now, I need to get enough sleep tonight so that I'm sort of coherent enough to teach tomorrow. With that, I'm off to bed!