Skydiving and Mountains and Beaches, Oh My...

Hello everyone! Well, it's official. Full-on panic at leaving has set in. I can't handle it. It's amazing here! I don't want to ever go home! However, I think it would kill me to miss Mississippi State football season, so I've developed a new life plan for myself. I'm going to live in Tennessee or Mississippi during football season and Hawaii the rest of the year. Completely feasible & reasonable, yeah? (Adding yeah? to the end of sentences now comes naturally to me. I'm well on my way to being a local.) I realize this split-location existence won't exactly be cheap & I'll certainly not be able to have a full-time job going back and forth so much, so if any of you know of any super rich people who'd like to adopt or marry me and support this worthy endeavor, let me know.

So, let's go ahead and get the boring & mundane stuff out of the way:

SCHOOL: I had my two exams yesterday and day before. Awful stuff. Not horrifically difficult or anything, but we all know how I feel about anything law school-related. So, SO glad school's over. Oh yeah, that's right, only for like 2 weeks. Then another soul-crushing YEAR of law school. Ugh. Thank goodness just one more, though. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Barely.

WORK: Been going fine. Been making lots of moolah. Yippee.

HOUSING: I only had my place with the two Melissas through July 31st, so I had to find another place to live for my last little bit here. So I'm now sleeping on my friend Kelly's couch. (Humbling when a couch is an upgrade. I might never sleep on an air mattress ever again.) I realized when I was moving out of my house that I never gave y'all a house tour. So sorry, loves. I only photographed my room, though, because two new roommates were moving in, and there were boxes and stuff everywhere in the main part of the house. Maybe I can get back over there another day and show y'all the rest of the house. But for now, here's where I've been holding it down all summer:

Here's my dear little air mattress on the floor that I've been sleeping on for the past 2 months (kindly disregard the garbage bag full of dirty clothes in the corner):

A view of my wonderful closet with built-in shelving:

The other side of my room (I'm in the middle of moving here, people; don't judge me on the mess):

Luckily, Kyle let me borrow his Jeep for the day, so I got to move my stuff to Kelly's in one fell swoop. Probably would've been slightly difficult to move everything on the moped...

I now live clear across town, and, if you missed it when I posted it on facebook, check out my new front porch view!

Diamond Head is just off to the right.

I am NEVER inside now. Here's a pic of our front porch:

If I'm here at the house, I'm parked outside on the couch. I could sit out there all day looking out at the palm trees and ocean. Plus, since we're higher up elevation-wise, it's cooler up here & there's usually a nice breeze. I could sit out there all day (and nap and eat and read and nap again - which I do).

Alright, let's move on to the fun stuff! I have been having an EPIC week. We'll start with July 30th. July 30th was my 23 1/2 birthday, which NOT A ONE OF YOU remembered. You should be ashamed of yourselves. (Seriously, half birthdays are important.) So, while all of you were thoughtlessly and carelessly forgetting to wish me a happy half birthday, I went & did the most amazing thing ever. I went skydiving. When I say that it was the most amazing thing ever, I mean it. It was like, awesomely, stupendously, terrifically, epically, wonderfully, magnificently, stunningly AMAZING. I'm sure most of you have already seen the pictures on facebook (which I of course uploaded about 3.5 seconds after I got home), but let's consider this the Director's Cut with Commentary.

Here we go. Here's our whole motley crew I went with:

At the top is a friend from summer school, Jake. Next row down is Kyle on the left and Kelly's friend Danny on the right. Bottom row is me (duh), Kelly, and Kelly's friend Katie.

At this point, I'm all like "la-dee-da, 'bout to go skydiving, woohoo, no big deal."

Then we get out to the plane. This is my "oh my gosh, am I really about to get in this plane & jump out of it?" face:

So we all board the plane and start taking off. At this point, I begin to experience a little "oh my GOSH, what the HECK am I doing?!?!?" and start clutching my cross necklace and praying feverishly. A Baptist rosary, if you will. But then we get up in the air, and with views like these:

my fear just melted away and I'm completely mesmerized by the incredible scenery I'm soaring above. See, happy as a lark, just flying along:

My hot tandem partner, Gage, and I are just chatting away; at one point, he asks me if I want to jump out frontwards or backwards. "Which way is better?" I ask. "We'll do more flips if we go backwards," he says. "Definitely backwards, then!" my little contented, fearless, happy as a clam self replies. Then the plane starts to level off. "Are we about to jump?" I ask. "Yep, right about now!" Gage says, as SHOOM! a camera guy flings the door up, and out go two solo jumpers.

WHOA WHOA WHOA. I have not had enough time to prepare for this. Hold on, give me a second.

But no, next there goes Kelly getting sucked out of the plane, and no sooner are their butts off the bench, then Gage scoots us all the way up to the door. This is me getting scooted, thinking "oh my gosh, we're really about to jump out of this plane":

Then the camera guy just hops out on a little rail, like it's no big deal to be outside of a plane flying 12,000 feet above the ground, just holding on to a doorway. I don't remember getting off the bench and getting into the doorway, but apparently here we are (I think I'm thinking, well, if I die, at least I'm representing in my Mississippi State shirt and with a hot guy):

Let the epicness begin:

We did lots of flips. It was awesome.

So after we flip a couple (a million? I have no idea) times, we start just regular free-falling. Gage had told me on the plane ride up that when we jumped, keep my arms crossed until he tapped me, then open them, and make sure and look at the camera! I was so excited about flipping, I forgot the "look at the camera" memo at first:

"Oh crap, I'm supposed to be looking at the cameraman! Where is he? There he is!"

I think I kept screaming, "OH MY GOSSSSH!!! WOOOOOOO!!! YEAAHHEAHEAAH!" But I don't really remember. Pure joy:

Time to let the chute out!

Right before getting yanked up by the parachute:

Yay, our chute opened! Peace out, cameraman:

So when you're free-falling towards the ground at terminal velocity, all you can hear is wind rushing by. Then, once your chute opens, you just have a nice little leisurely, quiet, pleasant ride down. We swooped and twirled and drifted along, me just in an absolute maxed-out state of rapturous ecstasy. "Oh my gosh, that was AWESOME! I want go AGAIN! Right now! I want this to be my job!" Probably said those four sentences about 100 times from the time the parachute opened till the time I got into the car to leave. And then probably said them about 100 more times. Here we are landing just as easy peasy as you please:

What a RUSH!

Seriously, I cannot WAIT to go again. I just can't even begin to describe how awesome it was, how ALIVE you feel during it and for days after. If I could start off my day every morning with a little skydive, I'd be a much happier person. Some of the kids in our group were like, "Yeah that was cool and all, but now that it's off my bucket list, I'm not doing it again." I can't even fathom this. I'm an adrenaline JUNKIE. Give me a plane to jump out of, a cliff to jump off, the highest rollercoaster you can find, a dangerously steep mountain to climb - I love it all.

So that was my Saturday. Monday afternoon, Kelly tells me that she and two of her roommates are going to climb Stairway to Heaven that night. I've been wanting to do Stairway to Heaven since I've gotten out here, so although I definitely should've been studying instead of climbing mountains, I couldn't pass up the chance. Why might we be climbing Stairway at night, you're wondering? Oh, 'cause it's illegal! You have to go when the guard's not there, silly!

Right before we left the house - OW!

I got stung by a bee or hornet or something. I pulled the stinger out of my leg, swore to the others I wasn't allergic to insect stings and I wasn't going to go into anaphylactic shock on the hike, and off we set for the stairs.

3,922 steps to the top, y'all. Three THOUSAND nine hundred twenty-two. We're not talking a nice little staircase up to the top, either. Metal steps and rails, which sometimes resemble a staircase, but often resemble - heck, ARE - a ladder. It was an insane hike, both physically and awesomely speaking. I don't have many pictures since it was dark, so I'm going to include some images from a Google Image search of it in the daytime, so you can kind of get a feel of what it was like.

The mountain from a distance:

Link to a good article about Stairway to Heaven, for those interested:

http://www.snaptuneone.com/pp2/stairway_to_heaven/p/stairway_to_heaven.htm

Here's a picture I took from the first landing point:

The strip at the bottom of the picture is the H-3 interstate (isn't it hilarious that Hawaii has INTERstates?), already tiny and we're only 1/3 of the way up!

So the stairs were first built for the Coast Guard to access an antenna on the top of the mountain in 1942. Thus, there are still some WWII-era buildings towards the top of the hike. The first one is especially creepy. All the windows and the roof is missing, and there's some old, rusty machinery inside. I felt like I was in a Call of Duty map. I zipped through there as fast as I possibly could. When we finally made it to the antenna and building at the top, we were surprised/scared by a group of four youngish boys who had hiked up earlier in the night and were camping out in the building. The building's full of graffiti, which you can kind of see in the background of this pic of me & Kelly:

Can you see the wisps of clouds? And forgive us for looking less than spectacular. We just climbed a mountain through rainshowers and clouds in the dark, for goodness' sake. I must say, the way down was a lot more scary/nervewracking than the way up. Something about clinging to a wet ladder with sheer dropoffs on either side of and below you is a little disconcerting. But of course, I loved every minute of it. It was awesome. It really did feel like you were climbing up to heaven, especially when we started climbing through the clouds.

So those were my two super epic things to do this week. Then, I've done two more not-epic-but-still-cool other things.

Wait, timeout from the epic tales for a second. Yesterday when I finished my final exam, I came home to shower and then meet back up with everyone for a celebratory lunch. While in the shower, I looked at my leg where I had gotten stung the other night before Stairway and thought...hmm, that really doesn't look too good.

I snapped a picture and sent it to Kelly at work and then showed another one of the roommates who was home. Both their opinions were essentially, "Umm, you need to go to the doctor right now." Here's what it had turned into, and the picture doesn't even do it justice:

So instead of a nice celebratory lunch, off I set for University Health Services. When the nurse who took my vitals brought me back, she said, "Oh, what happened to your leg?"

"Well that's actually why I'm here, I got stung night before last and it looks like this now."

"Oh gosh!"

Such a comforting feeling for a nurse to exclaim, "Oh gosh!" with a super concerned look on her face, let me tell you.

Fast forward to the diagnosis: bad infection. Prescription: strong antibiotic. Warning: if it gets any bigger, go to the ER immediately.

Grreeeeatttt. I'm awful about taking medicine & probably haven't finished a round of antibiotics in my life, but I've been taking my pills like clockwork, and I'm going to take every last one of the suckers. No WAY am I going to spend one minute of my last days in paradise in a hospital. Life lesson learned: don't go on four-hour-long-super-wet-and-dirty hike with even the tiniest open wound.

The good news is, my leg is already looking tons better. See?

So, after my impromptu doctor's visit yesterday, when Kelly got off work, she, Kyle and I set off for Cockroach Cove to meet up with some of their friends. It's BEAUTIFUL. They've filmed scenes for Pirates of the Caribbean and 50 First Dates here:

Apparently, it's called Cockroach Cove because there are tons of cockroaches down there, but I didn't see any. A sidenote on cockroaches. They're EVERYWHERE here. And they're HUGE. Disgusting.

So, after we swam and wave-jumped and body surfed to our hearts' content in the cove (so, so fun), we went back to their friend's house and grilled out. Yum. Then, after we're all full & happy, we decide to go camping on the beach spontaneously (Yay! I love, LOVE spontaneous activities).

So after we drive over around Diamond Head & lug all our stuff down to the beach from the road, we turn to walk right, but we run into all these crazy official warning signs. There was an endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal asleep on the beach! Crazy! It was huge and so cool to see. My favorite warning sign was the unofficial one said, "Shh! I'm sleeping!" Apparently, people from NOAA come and put up all the signs when one is spotted. Kelly has lived here for 2 1/2 years and never seen one, so I'm really excited I got to see it.

After oohing & ahhing over the seal for a bit, we all trudge off to left, find a good spot up away from the tide, and set up our tent. I'm completely exhausted from getting hardly any sleep studying for finals, so I head on into the tent while the others stayed up, attempting to build a fire, talking, and strumming on the ukulele.

Unfortunately, we didn't really consult the weather before we spontaneously decided to go camping, and we ended up trying to camp in like, gale-force winds. I can't really even explain to y'all how crazy the wind was. I thought I was going to get suffocated in the tent because the wind kept blowing the tent over on top of me. It was nuts. Sometime around 5 AM we moved to a spot that was kind of protected by trees and got 2 uninterrupted, non-fearful-I'm-going-to-get-smothered-to-death-in-a-tent hours of sleep.

Which leaves us at this morning and today. I have done nothing exciting today. Forget doing nothing exciting, I've really just done nothing at all today, period. I know I should've been out hiking or beaching or something, but I'm worn out. Exams, major hikes, serious infections, and mostly-sleepless nights in tents will do that to you. So today I napped and read out on the porch couch most of the day. It was good. I needed it. Tomorrow, the adventures will begin again. Not sure what I'm going to do, but I'm going to live up my last few days in this incredible place. I'm already scheming as to how I can afford to come back during Christmas break and then move out here after law school for a year or so - consider yourselves forewarned. Hawaii really is infectious - in the "I never want to leave" sense, not in the nastiness in my leg sense.

I miss and love y'all! Write me! Even though I'm extremely, extremely sad about leaving, I can't wait to see some of y'all in a week!

All Work, No Play...

Alooooha! Great news - I'm updating! Bad news - I forgot my camera at home, so this post will only include a couple cell phone pics that, if you follow me on twitter, you've already seen - sorry! Wow, I'm so sorry for the absolute neglect, dear blog readers. I've been so ridiculously busy you wouldn't believe. It's like I went from nothing to do except waste my life away watching LOST, to never having a spare minute. I haven't even gotten to watch an episode of LOST in weeks. And now that I'm so busy, I really regret all the time I spent watching LOST instead of exploring. Ah well. C'est la vie.

So, a lot's been happening! Unfortunately, most of it is mundane, everyday stuff, aka work & school, but I'll try to hit on some highlights.

Let's rewind allll the way back to June 28, my summer law program orientation, the day before classes started. Orientation was fine, welcome to our school, here's a tour, blahbity blahbity blah. There are about 21 of us from the mainland; however, almost all of them are from Hawaii, went to undergrad here, or have some family here. I'm one of the only ones that just busted up over here on a whim. After it was over, some of us decided to grab a bite to eat together, albeit a light bite, since most already had dinner plans. So that was fun, getting to know people, etc. Towards the end, I was all mopey since everyone had fun dinner plans with friends & I had nothing to do, so one of the guys said I could come eat hibachi later with him & his friends. Woohoo! That turned out to be super, super fun. Our chef, Kevin, was one of the coolest hibachi chefs I've had. While we were eating, there was a young Swedish couple at our grill with all of us. They were really cool & nice (and so Swedish - tall, blonde & blue-eyed), and we talked to them for a long time, and invited them out with us later. At the end of the night, my guy friend gave them a ride back to their hotel so they wouldn't have to walk, then dropped me off at my house. That's when I realized that the Swedes had stolen my textbooks. Unintentionally, though, the poor things. They had been out shopping all day before hibachi, and me, coming straight from school & orientation, had just bought my textbooks & had them in the backseat in a shopping bag. Granted that they had tons of bags with them, they just gathered all the shopping bags up when they got out of the car, accidentally swooping my textbook bag up with all theirs! Oh, and let's not forget that this is the night before my first class. This kind of thing could only happen to me: it's 11:30 at night, the night before my first law classes at the University of Hawaii Summer Law Program & I can't read for class because a Swedish couple stole my textbooks. Lord help.

Luckily, my professors didn't call on anyone the first day, so it wasn't too bad that I was textbook-less (like it'd be so unusual if I wasn't prepared for class - HA!). Also luckily, I had added the Swedish girl on facebook when we were out the night before, so I sent her a message explaining what had probably happened. She got back to me (sorry for the international text messaging charges, Mom!) and I ended up getting my books back Tuesday night, woohoo. Unfortunately, that just meant that I had to read for class on Wednesday. Our teachers sure aren't laying off the reading on us this summer, that's for sure. Between my two classes, I've got at least 100 pages of reading before every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

So, on school, generally. Well, it's still law school, and I think most of us know how I feel about law school. UGH. My International Environmental Law class is somewhat interesting, but the Harvard/Cambridge/Yale-educated professor intimidates me. My Media Law class is taught by none other than a professor from TSUN (Ole Miss for those of you who aren't with it in the world of Mississippi higher education & rivalry), so I don't feel so intimidated by that class. If those kids can handle it, I can, too. Here are some pics from the law school courtyard:

The law school, while looking pretty big from the outside, is actually just a rectangular doughnut, with the courtyard taking up most of the interior space. As much as I enjoy doing my reading in the courtyard, the mosquitoes enjoy my legs even more, so I usually have to hole up in the FRIGID law library next door. Here's the thing about Hawaii. Almost everything is open air; they don't really believe in a lot of air conditioning use here. However, if they do have central air, they blast it. So you're usually either too hot or too cold. Right now, I'm writing from the semi-open air campus center, and it's pretty comfortable:

Something like this would, of course, NEVER fly in the South. While it's "hot" here, given that you're doing 'most everything outside, it's nowhere near the heat level back home. The lack of sweltering Southern humidity also makes it much more bearable.

Maybe if I had my camera with me today, I would walk around and take some pictures around campus for y'all, but sorry, not gonna happen. My general observation about both the campus & Hawaii in general is that a lot of stuff is very dated, either '50s or '70s. The Campus Center is currently undergoing renovation which, while I'm sure is great for the UH community, sucks for me, because the Taco Bell is closed. It was open for one tantalizing week, then it closed for construction. Actually, it's probably better that it's closed. My waistline surely appreciates it, though my absurd Taco Bell addiction is jonesing for such a nearby fix.

What other notable things have happened? Um, let's see, there was 4th of July, which was my worst one ever. Understandably enough, but also unfortunately, there's not a lot of fierce American patriotism here. While there were tons of fireworks and whatnot (none of which I saw), it just was not like a good ole redneck 4th of July in the South. I was actually eating at a cheeseburger restaurant in Waikiki with a friend while the fireworks were going off, while our other friend was getting a tattoo. So random. Speaking of tattoos, evvvvveryone has them here, both guys & girls. And they have lots of them. It's fitting here, though. Everything's so chill & laid back.

A little bit after the 4th of July, my friend from work invited me to go bowling with some of the other girls at work. She brought along her 4 year old son, who is adorable and we were all having a good ole time, until the poor little thing fell & busted his chin open. Why am I not in the medical field? It's like every time somebody's face got busted open when I was cheering at MSU, all of a sudden I would find myself with their head in my lap, all cool, calm, and collected, just mopping up blood, examining the wound, seeing if it needed stitches, etc. I could tell he needed stitches, so I drove them to the hospital, and 3 stitches later he was good as new. Remember how I said my hibachi chef Kevin was awesome? Well, he turned out to be my friend's kid's dad. This island is SO small, you have no idea. I looked up the population on Wikipedia the other night - it's smaller than Memphis. When I Wikipedia'd Memphis to compare its population to Honolulu's, as soon as I saw this picture

I instantly started crying! It was the craziest thing. That was during my super homesick period, which happened around my end of the 4th - beginning of the 5th week here. Now I can look at the picture and I'm fine, but back then I was soooo ready to come home. Now, I never want to leave! I love it here! If I wouldn't miss my family and friends, and - most importantly - Mississippi State football so much, I wouldn't come home for about 2 years. It's not like I'd want to live here forever - I love the South entirely too much, but it would definitely be awesome to get to live here for a good little bit while I'm still young.

Gah, youth. That's another thing. I am so having a quarter-life crisis at 23. I am SO stressed about having to enter the real world next year, I can't even stand it. I'm not ready to grow up! Plus, I'm also feeling exceptionally old & that my youth has already passed me by these days. Here is a downfall of attending a law school that is on an undergrad campus. The other day I was walking to & from the Campus Center & I noticed that several guys were like unbelievably beautiful. Then I realized that they were probably about 19 & here I am, an old woman cougar on campus at 23. I'm too old for college kids anymore! AGH! Where did my youth go?? So stressful.

Sorry this is the most disjointed & unfunny blog ever. It's been so long since I've posted, I'm just trying to remember any cool stuff I've done, while at the same time, now that I have class Monday, Wednesday, Friday and work Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, I never really get to do anything cool or fun anymore. And for the record, when you have no free time, living & working in Hawaii is just like living & working anywhere else. You can still have a bad day & your day can still suck even though "you're in paradise!" It's when you get free time that Hawaii is amazing & has tons to offer. Thankfully, I have this Thursday off, so I'm going to try to persuade somebody with a car to go to the North Shore for the day. I'm dying to see it.

Oh yeah, so for work I had to go get a card from the Liquor Commission. It was a random Tuesday at 7:45 in the morning and this girl with a U. of Memphis sweatshirt walks in. Instantly, I was like, "I know that girl!" Then I was like no, surely not, whatever. She ended up sitting next to me, and come to find out, of all places she graduated from UT-Martin the year before me. What a crazy small world. I knew she looked familiar!

Back to having no free time. I do study after class on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes I combine that with free time & study here:

Even international environmental treaties get a little bit more enjoyable to read when that's your study area.

Here's some more random pictures. Here's my view as soon as I walk out of the law school (Diamond Head in the background):

Here was my view from a hotel where I ate lunch on the 4th of July (I loooove this picture):

Hawaiian rainbow:

Maybe the greatest thing ever, an açaí bowl from the Hawaii Athletic Club:

I went and saw Harry Potter at midnight the night it came out with my roommates. It was so bittersweet. I'm really struggling with the last 13 years of my life coming to an end. It's like a break-up or a death.

Well, I'm about to have to end this terrible, terrible blog post. I know, don't be so sad that this awfulness is over. I'm going to eat dinner with friends & have to go home & shower. My phone's condition is worsening rapidly. This morning I randomly woke up at 7:30 (the time I leave for school), and my phone aka my alarm clock, which had been charging all night, was DOA. Great. I was just not going to go, but uncharacteristically, I decided to be a good student & rush off to school looking like death. If you're in school with me, you know that I should NEVER do such a thing. I am NEVER rewarded for doing the right thing & going to class. I ALWAYS get called on, or the teacher ends up not taking attendance, etc. etc. I am always punished for actually going to class. Always, always, always. This morning was no different. The A/C was broken in our classroom, so we had the first half of class outside in the courtyard. The summer law director thought it was all cute & stuff, and whips out his camera to take all kinds of pictures. So, there I am, unshowered, un-makeup'ed, hair in a ratty ponytail, repping in my awful giant front graphic Memphis Grizzlies Law School Night t-shirt. Please, dear goodness, do not let any of those pictures become promotional materials for next year's summer law program. My luck, I'm sure they will.

I will try my best to do some interesting things & update more frequently. And to not write so dully & drearily next time. I miss all of you very, very much! Please write me! Love y'all!

Walking in Honolulu...

...just doesn't have the same ring as walking in Memphis. Aloha! Can't believe it's already been almost another week since I've written. Time is flying here. I'm already starting to get panicky about leaving. So, the past week. Yeah...I didn't quite make it up to the North Shore or anything cool like that...blame it on LOST. It's seriously taking over my life. Most of the past week I have stayed up til 4 AM watching it, then slept til noon, then woke up and started watching it again. Pathetic, I know. The good news is that I'm almost done with Season 2 already. I did go with the Melissas to the beach in Waikiki one day. Here was that view:

So beautiful. Minus the half topless girl with a towel over her head looking like a corpse in the foreground.

On a random side note, I have discovered a new talent of mine. Well, not so much a talent as a gift. Or maybe a blessing? I am a rainbringer. Seriously. They should hire me in places like Arizona or the Gobi or the Sahara or something. Or maybe my gift only works in Honolulu, I don't know. But seriously, no matter where I go, no matter what time, if I'm going somewhere, it's going to rain. It doesn't matter if it's been beautiful & sunshiny all day; the minute I step out the door - rain. And remember I ride a moped. Soooo fun, riding along getting wet all the time, let me tell you. But anyway, if you need me to do a little rainbringing, I'm for hire.

So, I started feeling guilty on Wednesday that I was wasting all this time in Paradise, so I decided to go walking around & exploring in the Capitol District downtown. Do you know what I hate? (Yes, I know, I hate a lot of things - how could you ever guess the answer to that question.) But I really hate one-way streets. And that is all downtown Honolulu is. SO annoying. I intended on parking at this one church I was wanting to see (which you'll see about a million pictures of in just a minute), but about 4 wrong turns caused by a mess of one-way streets later, I ended up at a FedEx Office and decided it was close enough. So off I set wandering around, taking lots of pictures, and looking like a total tourist.

Here's a cool mural on a building behind FedEx Office. These are everywhere in Honolulu. There's a face in the cliffs, can you see it?

Pretty flowers outside the Mission Houses Museum:

I don't really know anything about the Mission Houses Museum, and I didn't go inside either, so I'm linking a Wikipedia article about it here in case you want to read up on it. Mission Houses Museum I just took pictures as I walked by. And here they are:

Next up was the Kawaiaha'o Church, which is like Hawaii's Westminster Abbey. I came in through the back by the cemetary.

Back entrance gate:

Info sign about the cemetary:

Walking along the side of the church:

Kawaiaha'o was built on the grounds where there was supposedly a sacred spring. This is a fountain commemorating the spring:

Info sign about the spring and fountain:

Close up of the fountain:

And now the church itself:

The tomb of King Lunalilo, right outside the church. Unfortunately, I seem to have caught it on a maintenance or repair day or something:

Info sign about Lunalilo's tomb:

More of the church:

Looking out the church front doors:

Marble placard in the church entryway:

Looking into the church from the entryway:

Portraits in the back of the church (I don't know who they are, probably some members of the Hawaiian royal family):

Walking up the stairs to the balcony (I love this picture!):

The view from that window:

Looking out another window in the stairwell:

Left-side balcony:

Organ pipes in the back of the balcony:

View of the church from the back of the balcony:

Portrait of Queen Emma (I think she's pretty):

Another picture of the window in the stairwell (Sorry, it was just so pretty, I couldn't help myself):

View of the church & tomb from across the street:

Ok, I finally left the church. Here's a shot of the Honolulu Hale (government seat of the City & County of Honolulu):

The Hawaii State Library:

Next up, Iolani Palace. They tout is as the only royal palace in the United States. I'm kind of like...well, yeah, duh, are you familiar with U.S. History? But whatever, it's still really pretty. I was trying to keep this photo expedition free (for the record, I succeeded), so I didn't do the tour inside. I'm going to eventually, though.

Pretty tree on the palace grounds with the Coronation Pavilion in the background:

Coronation Pavilion:

Iolani Barracks:

This is what the University of Hawaii School of Law would look like if they followed in Memphis's footsteps and moved into the U.S. Post Office, Custom House, and Court House:

Next up, the Judiciary History Center, with a statue of King Kamehameha out front:

Close up of the statue:

Looking from the Judiciary History Center across the street to Iolani Palace:

More Judiciary History Center:

And that completes my photo tour of the Capitol District of Honolulu. Hopefully, you enjoyed the deluge of pictures. (I just love pictures. I actually took tons more than this, but I didn't want to inundate y'all.) Oh wait, I do have one more of a really pretty statue or tomb, not sure, that I saw in the corner of the Kawaiaha'o Church Cemetery on my way back to FedEx Office:

On a more mundane front, I ran out of Clif Bars on Thursday, and that is just not acceptable since I'm hopelessly addicted to them. Off I set for Sam's Club, thus leading me to a great illustration of what Honolulu is like. There are tons of people and not tons of space. So everything is crammed together and stacked on top of each other. The entrance to the Honolulu Sam's Club is on the third level of Walmart's parking garage:

So strange. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of going down the cookbook aisle in Sam's Club, and I left with this beauty:

Isn't it SO exciting?! Doesn't the sight of a shiny new cookbook with over 600 recipes just whip you into an ecstatic, euphoric frenzy? No? Just me? Whatever. I love cooking & I love cookbooks. I've already read through it twice! Call me a dork or nerd if you want, I don't care! It's the little things in life.

So, bad news. I start school in 4 days. FOUR. Kill me now. I am dreading school. Probably more than y'all know. My time would just be much better spent climbing up mountains & going to the beach all the time, don't you think? Yeah, I think so, too.

Work is going well. I got to food run last night, which is infinitely better than hostessing (which suuuucks). When you food run, you just stand at the kitchen window, wait for orders to come up, make sure everything on the ticket is there, look what table it goes to, and take it over to them. Easy and also fun, because you get to stand there and talk and joke with the kitchen staff a lot of the time. I get to food run tonight, too, so work shouldn't be too bad. I start training for waitressing tomorrow. Exciting/scary.

Well, I've talked your ears off (wait - worn your eyes out? Whatever, you get what I'm saying) enough at this point, and I've got to go get ready for work! Write me. Love and miss y'all!