I teleported from one of the coolest cities in the world (Melbourne) back to the Hawaiian islands.

I had a 10 hour flight ahead of me so I decided the night before that I was just stay up all night so that I could sleep on the flight. (I am a terrible sleeper) Well, here’s the fun part. I didn’t sleep one minute of the 10 hour flight. Nice

Regardless, I was time traveling and stuff so I left Australia at 4pm on the 17th, and arrived in Hawai’i at 6am on the 17th. I got off the plane and felt like a zombie.

As I left the terminal Oliver was out front with his bike. Such a nice surprise. (I met Oliver on the big island at the beginning of my trip) I didn’t even know that he knew when I got in. We talked for a little bit before I hopped on a bus into Waikiki. I was headed to meet up with a friend. Who? LINNEA! Yes. She is a flight attendant for an airline company and had a layover in Honolulu for the day.

We met up and walked in the rain to get acai bowls and sub par coffee. (Come on Hawaii, you are terrible at coffee) It was so much fun being able to catch up on everything. She had just returned from a trip to Uganda where she and a group of people were able to love on the community and worship with them. So amazing.

We headed back to her hotel with a nice walk along the beach and sat on the balcony before grabbing some snacks and laying on her bed to watch Grease. Honestly I was so exhausted and she had to sleep before her flight so we took a nap. Judge me.

Later I checked into my hostel and met a girl from Australia. We decided to walk around to find a place to eat. It’s so weird being back in the US. Completely forgot about tipping and that you have to wait to be seated. After dinner we got ice cream and went back to the hostel.

The next morning we were going to do the stairway to heaven. This hike has been illegal for 30 years but we thought it looked way too incredible to follow the rules. We left the hostel pretty early to get a start on the hike. We parked in a residential neighborhood and as soon as we got out of the car a man came out of his house with a camera. He was ‘secretly’ taking photos of us and the car then gave us the whole story of how it’s illegal and that the cops were gonna come and that we could die. We were pretty annoyed but had no choice but to leave. Such a bummer.

Instead we hiked Diamond Head which wasn’t even half as cool but oh well. Still had a nice view of the ocean.

That afternoon I laid by the ocean and swam around for the day. The wind picked up and an umbrella went flying across the beach and hit the woman next to me. It cut up the back of her shoulder pretty bad and soon the owners of the umbrella were in a panic figuring out how to help her. I could be of no assistance and was kind of in the way so I left.

That evening I met up with Oliver and we walked around a bit to some more local areas by the beach.

The next day I found a coffee shop and drank pretty awful coffee again before catching the bus up to the north shore. The first bus I tried to get on wouldn’t let me bring my backpack so I had to go leave it at the hostel and try to catch another one.

It was a three hour bus ride (only like 45 miles. Ridiculous) and then we got stuck behind a fire  so it took forever but eventually I made it.

I would be staying with Kenisha for the night. (She is from Kalispell, Montana) I met her and some friends on the beach.

They were having a dog birthday party which was pretty awesome. They were grilling hot dogs and had candles in them for the party. So cute.

We spent the afternoon on the beach which was so relaxing. She literally lives across the street from the beach which was incredible. We played cards at her house for awhile then went back for sunset.

Tons of people were surfing for sunset.

That night we just stayed at her place with some of her friends chatting and playing cards.

The next day I again went to the beach and watched people surf before heading back to Waikiki. That night I watched some street performers and walked around to all the little shops along the street.

Oliver picked me up in his friends truck the next day and we headed to the airport. He was taking me on another helicopter ride. (He took me on one when I met him on the big island)

It was incredible. It’s so much fun listening to all of the talk over the headset. (Even though I pretty much understood none of it)

We flew along the coast and saw mini humans on surfboards and lots of extra mini turtles.

The water has such an incredible blue hue to it from above and is so clear. We cut through a valley where the tree tops looked like broccli. (I’m pretty good at describing things)

There was some turbulence which was sort of terrifying. Here we are in this tiny helicopter with no doors getting hit with gusts of wind. Scary. But Oliver didn’t even flinch so I figured we must be fine.

We went around the bottom of the island and came back up by Diamond Head, then flew over Pearl Harbour. (Who needs to actually go when you can just fly over it)

It was such an amazing experience. O’ahu is a beautiful island. Afterwards, we walked for quite awhile to Pier 6. His friend drives/steers a cruise ship. (So he’s a captain I guess? Whatever.) So he was letting us come on the cruise.

We arrived and saw a ton of people dressed up, meanwhile we were in our more basic clothes. Oops. Everyone was also like 20 years older than us. As soon as we entered they took photos then directed us to a table. What in the heck did we get ourselves into. We were only part of the fancy stuff for a little bit before his friend rescued us and we got to go up in the captain area of the ship.

 
It was pretty cool checking out all of the controls and watching how things are done.

We actually got to go below deck as well and check out the engine and everything. It was so hot and dark and we had to climb down a bunch of ladders. Pretty cool.

Later some hula girls danced and I made them take a photo with Oliver. So funny.

We got to checkout the sunset which was nice as it fell behind the clouds. What’s even better?

The full moon rising. Oh my gosh it was amazing.

After the cruise I walked back to my hostel and packed up my stuff so I could catch my 4am shuttle.

I had so much fun in O’ahu even though I was just there for a couple of short days. I cannot believe all of the people I got to see, so thankful. What an amazing trip.