Hawaii, and the last days

Hawaii was the last port. We had been at sea for about 5 days since leaving Japan. Those days consisted of studying for finals and writing papers, while still enjoying every single second on the ship..dinners with friends, zumba class, soaking up the sun, treasured conversations with friends, faculty and crew members, and the soothing rocking of the ship. Leaving Japan we actually had 4 consecutive days of clouds. I think there was only 1 or 2 other cloudy days on the whole voyage. It wasn't too bad though, because we were all busy preparing for finals. The day before we reached Hilo, Hawaii, our last port, we stopped at Honolulu for a refueling. They wouldn't let us off the ship unfortunately, but we got to use our phones for the first time since January, before we arrived in Bahamas. That morning, waking up was quite a sight-everyone was on their phones. It was a very unfamiliar sight. I had mixed feelings about it-I was so happy for everyone (and myself) to be able to talk to loved ones, some for the first time in months. But I was also annoyed at the sight of everyone on phones-the people that are the most in tune to whats right in front of them, completely disconnected from phones. That day was a happy day though-I called a bunch of my family and a few friends-many for the first time. That night I had to finish a long paper, and when that was done I had to take videos of myself answering interview questions for IC After Dark. I didn't finish that until 3:30AM! I still managed to get up for sunrise, but it wasn't much of one..pretty cloudy. By the time I made it to the dining hall for breakfast there was the most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen outside. You could see the entire arc! It was incredible. You could also see every color so very vibrant! And Hawaii is the rainbow state-such a cool way to start the day and to get us even more excited for our last port-Hilo, Hawaii.

Dinner the night before reaching Hilo:

Hawaiian Sunset:

My last day in a port was surely an amazing one, and an incredible adventure to end on. Andrea, Katie, Rosemarie, Kayla and I started the day off by going to the Farmer's market. There were a lot of cool handmade jewelry and other products. I had a lot of fun talking to the vendors. The people in Hawaii are so cool. We then took a taxi to a waterfall I'd read about. I actually had already been to Hilo, Hawaii when I was 15, and did the sightseeing things such as go to the Volcano National Park and saw Rainbow Falls, so I wanted to do something different..go on an adventure..explore..and that is exactly what we did. So we went to these falls, and I wasn't even sure if these were the same ones I read about-(the book said there were hardly any tourists, a trail to hike and lava rock pools to explore). We snapped some pics when we got there and thought we'd just get back into the taxi and find something else to do when Andrea found a trail. The other girls decided to walk back downtown at this point, and so I followed Andrea down the trail. We had no idea where it led to, but decided to keep going and see where it took us. The hike was amazing-it was through the "rainforest." There were so many cool plants, we were trekking through mud, and it started raining as we were hiking. We embraced it and loved it though-added to the fun. Hilo is the rainiest city in the US. It rains 2 out of 3 days of the year. After about 20 min of hiking the trail revealed where it was leading us-to the top of the beautiful falls we were looking at! We got to the top and found more waterfalls. I laid on my stomach and peered over the waterfalls..it was just incredible. This is exactly what I wanted to do..and we just stumbled upon it. There were lava rocks everywhere and little pools of water formed by the lava rocks. There were no one around. There was green rainforest everywhere...it felt like we were in a movie, or a dream. Where were the tourists? It was so amazing, so beautiful, and I naturally had my "on cloud 9" overwhelmingly happy feeling. :) Naturally I screamed I love you God, as that was only appropriate. I felt so blessed, and Andrea felt the same. It was special to share this adventure and joy and happiness with her! On our last day in a port...it was magical.

It was really hard to pull ourselves away from exploring the beautiful waterfalls and lava rock pools, but our cab driver was waiting for us, and was probably worried about us. A couple guys from our ship found our secret spot and told us she was wondering about us. When we got back to her, she was a little worried but not too bad. She brought us to the famous Rainbow falls and we looked at those for a bit. Then she brought us downtown. Andrea and I got shaved ice-a Hawaiian favorite, and then we walked to a restaurant I read about being a Hilo favorite. We had a loco moco at that restaurant-another hawaiian favorite which is hamburger and sunny side up egg over rice with gravy on top. There we got talking to a local family, with a daughter in High school. They were so sweet, and ended up offering to give us a ride to our next destination-Liliuokalani Park. We rode in the back of the pickup truck. As we were riding in the back I remembered that on the first day in the first port, Dominica we rode in a pickup truck to Krazy Koconuts. Pretty cool that on the first day in a port and on the last day in port I was riding in the back of a pick up truck! The pretty park had Japanese gardens, was on the water, and had beautiful plants and trees. We started walking back to the ship and realized we had a long ways to go. There was a lady that was just getting out of her car and was with her kid. We struck up a conversation with them, and her husband ended up giving us a ride to the ship in his truck! Then I boarded the ship for the last time.. :-/

 

When we got back on the ship we had about 5 days until we reached San Diego. Unfortunately they were mostly cloudy days, but they were great days nonetheless. On the last day of finals we had the Alumni Ball. We all dressed up, went to the Union where we met for Global Studies every other day, preport, and many other events. In the Union we watched a slideshow of our trip and a really good movie that one of my friend's made. I even made an appearance in it :) After that we headed to the dining hall for dinner, where we got 1 glass of champagne, and much better quality food than we usually get :) I had dinner with some of my closest friends on the ship. We had such a great time at dinner..reminiscing on all our amazing times together. There was a huge dessert bar, and then a dance party on the 7th Deck. It was such a wonderful night to celebrate the amazing voyage we had together. We had a couple days left after that..those days were filled with map signing. We bought a world map and had friends sign it like a yearbook.

On May1, the day before we arrived to San Diego, it suddenly hit me that we were about leave the ship, but we weren't coming back. It didn't really hit me until then, but when it did, it hit me hard. I've never experienced leaving something (a home, and close friends, a community) and knowing that you'll never be able to come back to that. I may get to see the ship again, but there will be none of the same familiar friendly faces. And I will get to see friends again, but never all together again. Being part of that Shipboard community is something so unique, so special. Something that I definitely haven't experienced before. 800 of us are confined to a small space, with only a few places to hang out. I've never felt like I had so many friends before...you're guaranteed to see the same people, every single day-so rare, especially in College. We even have the same lunch and dinner hours..only 1 pool deck. When you're at sea you can't go anywhere..for sometimes a week at a time you're all on that ship together. And when you travel with people, you spend every second with them. You just get so close to one another. And the fact that the only way to communicate with people from home is through email made all of us grow so close to each other, and so quickly. Also everyone one the ship is so open minded and accepting of everyone that there weren't many cliques. It felt like "in general" everybody loved everybody. It was just amazing.

Anyways I start thinking about all of this the day before we reach San Diego. I've never completely left something before..I've left High school, but I come home for breaks and still get to see all my friends, even all together. And I'm still in college, so I haven't completely left that yet...so it was a freaky, weird feeling I got when I realized what was coming. The last day I had Mizraim, the amazing waiter who had such an influence on me, say some wise words while I recorded him. What he said was amazing as always, and its so special to me that I have that video. He's one of the greatest, Godliest men I've ever met, and I feel so blessed and honored to have met him, received his wisdom, and consider him a friend. We had our last Zumba class..which was just filled with complete joy as usual. I recorded the class and still do zumba on my own from time to time..definitely not the same without everyone there dancing along with me. That day there were sessions you could attend that were about coping with coming back to America, and adjusting back to "real life."We had our last pre-port..which was hilarious-students dressed up and imitated the professors and staff who would get up during pre-port and inform us on what we should know before reaching each country. They did a really good job imitating, and it was funny hearing what they had to warn us about San Diego and America in general.

With Mizraim:

 Zumba!:

 Last Zumba class:

That night most people didn't go to bed until really late. I stayed up until 4AM. We just didn't want it to end..so we soaked up every last second we could. We walked around, stopped to talk to friends we saw along the way, and did some last minute picture sharing. I started to get pretty sad realizing it was our very last night..

The next morning I managed to get up around sunrise, although it was cloudy. When I woke up I could see San Diego in the distance. When we arrived, a bunch of parents were waiting at the dock waving at us, with welcoming signs. My Dad was supposed to be there, with my uncle, so I was looking hard, but didn't see them. I got a call once we arrived, and turns out they were at the wrong port-ha, so they didn't get to see us come in. The arrived a little later, and I was the only one out there on the deck by that time. Everyone else was finishing packing and saying goodbye. The rest of the day I was a MESS. Tears, tears, and more tears. Many hugs, sad goodbyes, happy tears to see my Dad. That morning went too fast..everyone seemed to leave about the same time, so it was just chaos...and a whole bunch of tears.

So when I was finally ready to pull myself away from the MV Explorer for the last time, I hopped into the rental car, (first car I'd been in that wasn't a taxi since January)..and rode away. What a weird feeling that was.

I got to see a few Semester at Sea friends in the next week, while they were still in San Diego, so that was so nice, and made it not such a shocking adjustment. I miss it like crazy. I think about it every single day, and I've dreamt about it a lot. SAS was my life..and now its just a beautiful, vivid, magical memory, and a big part of my heart.

In a half hour I'm leaving my home in Andes and heading back to Ithaca! I'm so excited-I haven't seen my friends in so long and I've missed them for so long!! I can't believe its my Senior year..everything seems to be going way too fast. I'm ready to go back to Ithaca, and I'm VERY ready to be reunited with my wonderful Ithaca friends.

I have one more post to write...a conclusion of my epic voyage of a lifetime.