aloha cousins!

i am in hawaii, cruising like a millionaire (except that i'm staying in one of the practically underwater cabins, but whatever) and having a blast. :) today is our first full day on the ship and we are docked at hilo on "the big island".

we arrived in hawaii on thursday evening after a long LONG day of traveling (i had two stopovers, the rest of my family only had one). it was all we could do to stay awake through dinner (hawaii is 6 hours behind the east coast). but i did make one great discovery at the ubiquitous "abc" stores (there's one about every block in honolulu) - they carry onigiri, which are these fabulous japanese snacks, basically rice and some sort of filling (salmon, tuna...) wrapped in seaweed and absolutely delicious.


waikiki at sunrise
friday morning was probably the earliest i've ever woken up on vacation... i was awake from about 3 or 4 am - dozing when i could. but we all got up and decided to head down to the beach for sunrise. unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the island to actually see the sun rising up over the ocean, but we still had a nice view of waikiki and diamond head.

we hit the beach pretty early and started the tanning (burning) process. i'm happy to say that i'm NOT sunburned (yet) and am well on my way to a deep, dark hawaiian tan (hopefully). by noon time we were pretty much done on the beach (we were there by like 8am) so we had some lunch and did some relaxing.


germaine's luau
friday night we went to germaines luau. basically a huge buffet of traditional hawaiian foods - such as the roast pig and poi and lomi-lomi. then there was a fabulous show of many different kinds of island dances. we saw some from hawaii, tahiti, new zealand (who knew?), and samoa. oh, and did i mention the drink tickets? ;P tropical (and your average run of the mill drinks as well) drinks and both meg and i purchased the souvenir germaine's glass (which only cost one ticket to refill - the same as the little cups). good times had by all.

saturday we hit the honolulu zoo which was nice. and then it was down to the port to board the ship. our rooms are actually really cute and the beds are super comfy. this morning i even woke up at a somewhat normal time (not normal for me, but there are people who wake up at 5:30am, right?). so before i know it i'll be on hawaii time... and looking tan like a native... maybe...

my first day of unemployment

and AWWWW YEEEAAAH it feels good to be unemployed. :) well, more truthfully, it feels good to not be going back to that particular job... i do realize i will have to work again at some point. but still. for now, i'm pretty happy.

two months from now i'll be starting my teacher training course in costa rica. it's meant to be pretty intensive, so in the meantime i plan to get myself organized as much as possible. relax as much as possible. study up on some english grammer. and possibly take on some temp work after i get back from hawaii.

for now i'm reading through my let's go costa rica (which is 3 years out of date, since, irritatingly enough, the new version will come out just after i leave for CR - grrr), flipping through my costa rican spanish phrase book, and thinking about starting to listen to my spanish cd's. i'm also thinking about taking a spanish language course down in CR after i finish my training course. it makes sense, since i'm intending on staying for a while...

anyway. i'm sure these two months will just fly by, so if i don't call you, you should definitely call me. :) more later.

scotland photos

here is but a wee sampling of the photos i took in scotland... i may have gone a little crazy, but i love castles and stone buildings.


edinburgh castle - this is just one of about FORTY photos i took of the castle. most of them nearly identical to this one. i just love how it's perched on the cliffs. and the sun is shining in this one. not that it rained every day... just most of them (at least a little).

william wallace cow - there was some sort of art cow exhibition going on all throughout edinburgh. everywhere you went there were cows, painted with maps on them, painted to look like a feild of flowers, etc. they were everywhere. some of them were cool, but this guy was by far my favorite: perched high upon mercat cross in front of st. giles cathedral. william wallace. cow.

edinburgh palace - i didn't actually get to go in to the palace. the day we went down there it was closed off for some kind of award ceremony. i couldn't even really get a good photo. this one is the view of the palace from the top of calton hill.

greyfriars bobby - at first i thought this was such a cute little statue. and the fact that he had his own bar (pictured behind the statue) was kind of cool. but the (abbreviated) story is that after his master died he stayed by his grave until he also died (which was a long time after). such a cute story. and a cute statue... i was mildly obsessed.

me and jill at uruqhart castle on loch ness - since we were at loch ness with jill's parents, i have lots of pictures of the two of us there. it turned out to be a beautiful day after we waited out the rainstorm that began on our way to loch ness.

uruqhart castle - so amazing. of course i love castles. and even though this one is pretty skeletal (though not compared to elgin castle), it is probably my favorite that i saw on this trip. plus there are lots of stories about saints and picts and crazy highland folk. such a cool place, and all on the edge of the famed loch.

elgin cathedral - i'm told this cathedral was the reason that elgin was granted city status, though it's not so big a place. it's quite old and it was destroyed not by some large enemy, but by some feuding scotsmen. watch out - they're a wild bunch. i just wish they had restored some of the stained glass...

rosslyn chapel - of da vinci code fame. i was fascinated to see this place, which the book describes as being filled with intricate carvings and varied pre-christian, christian, and masonic symbols. it really was quite cool, and though filled with tourists (some of the annoying and irritating variety) i had a good time. took many pictures, none of which really do the place justice.

como se dice "rich coast" en espanol?

ooh! wait! i know this one!! costa rica!

that's right. i'm off to costa rica this fall. many of you may have heard me talking about this for a while now... at first it was just an idea, then i was seriously planning on it, then i applied for a job in portsmouth which i thought i would get, but i didn't, and so now, i'm going to costa rica again. (and if you didn't know before, i think you may have noticed that i have decision making problems)

it's been a bit of a struggle to get everything settled... but i've signed up for a TEFL certificate course (that's Teaching English as a Foreign Language) - so in theory i should actually know what i'm doing this time. there was a lot of confusion with trying to make my payment online, and for some reason one card didn't go through, but the other did... anyhow, i've been putting off this post until everything was settled. and now it is. :)

so needless to say, i'm very excited about all of this. but of course there are lots of loose ends to tie up before i go... so i'll write more later.

bits and bobs part 2

loch ness and nessie
i was very excited at the prospect of spotting nessie gliding through the famed loch ness waters... and after the rain cleared i had many opportunities to gaze out at the water from the ruins of uruqhart castle. but in the end i was surprised by where i managed to spot nessie:


and

i also spotted nessie outside of a large gift shop and strapped to a raft near a loch cruise dock. apparently he gets around. otherwise i would be selling these photos to the tabloids.

men in skirts
i don't know what it is... there's just something about men in kilts that i find very attractive. (not really a fan of the hats these boys are wearing in my photo... but still) and lucky for me there was some sort of award ceremony going on at the edinburgh palace. so while jill and i strolled the royal mile we passed many good looking young boys (and some older guys as well) sporting their kilts. :) makes a girl smile.



the perfect close to my trip since i started out my trip with hassle on my amsterdam to edinburgh flight, it's only fitting that i end my trip with more flight hassles. i arrived in london for my 2 hour layover without issue. i bought myself a magazine (that came with a free bathing suit - yes, seriously) and i sat down to read a bit while waiting for my gate number to be posted on the departures screens. when the gate was posted i gathered my belongings and made my way to the gate. it was a bit of a hike, but i didn't mind since i knew i would be sitting for the next 6-7 hours. as i neared where the gate was i saw a large mob standing off to one side. i breezed past them and to my horror - they were waiting to get in to the same gate i was looking for. *sigh* i took myself to the back of the queue and waited patiently. after standing in line for nearly 30 minutes (and our departure time fast approaching) i was finally through to the waiting room (after having my matches taken away from me, which i packed only because lighters are not allowed). it was exactly 30 minutes before our departure time that we were allowed to walk down the hall... at the end of which there was, not a plane, but a bus. we piled on to buses and rode for nearly 20 minutes (no exaggeration here) to our plane. it was one of those gigantic double-decker planes capable of carrying 5,000 passengers (probably a little exaggeration here...) - and it took well over an hour to get the rest of them from the terminal to the plane. not only that, but i was seated next to this surly american girl who was just angry about all aspects of the flight (okay, so i was annoyed as well, but it was a resigned annoyance, i wasn't trying to get anyone to comiserate with me). luckily i got to eat lovely food (chicken and penne with creamy broccoli and mushroom sauce) and watch good movies (failure to launch and lucky number slevin).

i'll probably post some pictures in a few days - i took like a million.