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Since writing on the road asks for so much more discipline than I can muster up in between the sunshine and the hours in the car and also because Hawaii was a relative spontaneous idea to get a vacation from the vacation, I am writing several posts now back in Austin. And because Hawaii was for both of us to heal from some emotional strain and just feel with all your senses, we left the camera bag at the hotel and didn’t plan any excursions at all. We thought of it but decided that we will just enjoy the sun and food at Waikiki beach.
Hawaii is something else though. The colours, the people and the way a Hawaiian shirt and flower dresses just seem right here.
Even I was tempted to buy something colourful but just in time my senses told me: “Girl you are not staying forever in this tropical paradise and you will very likely feel very uncomfortable with this dress in Amsterdam – the city with the rainiest days of Europe.”
I agreed and of course, we compared Amsterdam also to London and Edinburgh before writing this. It wins in wet and grey days from these places.
The sushi just tastes better in Hawaii and cocktails seem to be the right thing to drink here.
Public transport is an easy concept and at least here at Waikiki beach, the nights are filled with fire and stars. It is beautiful, exotic and we haven’t noticed how the time just passed by.
But in some moments you get very aware of how American this place is and how European I am.
The first morning I didn’t feel up to anything cooked or yogurt with fruit. So I tried to just order some English muffins – so far no problem. You can get these anywhere in America. – and the standard cold breakfast ham that you can get in either Germany or the Netherlands. I didn’t even give this request a second thought as I asked the waitress ” Is it possible to get just an English muffin with some ham?”
She looked a bit confused at me but I thought that my request was rather humble to the mountains of food offered on the menu and that that sounded a bit odd to her.
As she came back, I nearly got a nervous breakdown. After all, I had nearly two halves of an English muffin in front of me and yet again fried hot baconlike ham on a plate next to it. You just can’t escape food out of a frying pan in this country unless you chump down masses of muesli with yogurt…
After realizing my distress, Hass supported me in trying to explain to the waitress, what it was that I was trying to order. But even Hass as a native English speaker with a wealth of patience and usually quite well spoken, couldn’t manage at first to explain that Europeans do eat cold ham on bread. By now she even looked quite disgusted. “Cold meat?! Barbarians” seemed her creased forehead to scream at us, but in the end, Hass found apparently the right explanation and she found some hamlike cold meat for me.
And now that I had none sweetened, non-heated, non-fat AND chewable food in my belly I even could find this ordering adventure amusing. However, I felt no desire to try that again the other days and so we found other means of feeding ourselves.
Another highlight – besides seeing the waves of Waikiki for the first time in all its hi-definition coloured glory – was our dive trip. I would get to see a wreck and finally some turtles. If I am really lucky, I also get some sharks on top as cherry. For Hass, the midday will hold his first contact with the diving sport and he was looking forward to it but he was also a bit tense. So many things to consider when you go underwater.
