Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Going to Hawai'i for my UH grad school visit

Thoughts from my day spent traveling to Hawaii for my visit to UH as a prospective oceanography grad student

I'm at the airport for my flight to Hawaii. I have one layover, and it's weird because the first leg of my journey is only a 40 minute flight, and the second leg is 11 hours. It's going to be difficult adjusting to the 6-hour time difference, especially since I woke up early this morning to drive to the airport. I probably won't get to bed in Hawaii until 24 hours after I woke up. Napping on the plane will be a must.

I just bought a $4 candy bar. You know how they put those candy bars right next to the cash register so they can sucker you into just grabbing one at the last minute. Well, I usually resist, but this time it was a Godiva chocolate bar with caramel. I was buying a bottle of water (it must have been quite a boon for the airport terminal stores when they outlawed bringing your own bottle of water into the airport), and right next to the cash register was this luscious-looking candy bar--like a luxury Caramello. I was feeling sorry for myself about the long flight ahead of me, so I thought, I deserve a little treat. And then my water + chocolate came up to $6.02. Ouch. It's not a big candy bar. I figure that's 50 cents a bite. It had better be good (but now it's too early in the morning to eat candy).

My flight's delayed. We aren't going to get off the ground now until half an hour after we were supposed to land. I could have driven there by then. Blah.

Luckily my first flight's delay wasn't a problem for catching my second flight, since it too was delayed. First due to weather, then they found a technical problem. Fun stuff.

My flight had Twilight as one of the entertainment options. Not a great movie, kind of silly, but it's entertaining, and the story is kind of intriguing. I can see the appeal. Though I hope some things are better explained in the book. Like why do vampires sparkle in the sunlight? Does that have any cause or purpose? I don't really get it. My favorite scene was the one where Edward's family makes food for Bella. It was so sweet of them. I never thought a family of vampires could be so adorable.

My flight landed around 8:15 pm. One of the professors greeted me at baggage claim with an orchid lei. It's my eighth time in Hawaii, and the first time I've ever been greeted with a lei. Got to my hotel at 9:00 or so. Tried to find Lost on TV, but apparently their shows air an hour earlier, so it's already Life on Mars. Oh well. Watched it instead. Now it's past 10 (= 4:00 am East Coast time). I'm pretty tired. Jet lag. Good night.

3 comments:

Sebastian Anthony said...

You know, you're probably old enough now to eat chocolate at any time of day!

SparklingBlue said...

I'm a little jealous--Hawaii sounds good after this spate of cold weather my area's getting

Eleni said...

Really, you'll let me eat candy in the morning? You're the best!

Still seems wrong, somehow. I guess my mom trained me well.