Flights are always really freaking awesome. We took WJ1882 (I have that number memorized, this was my third time on that exact flight) from YVR to KOA or PHKO depending on whether you’re actually intelligent or not. It was a disgusting day in Vancouver when we left, way too hot for March 15th. 17 degrees was the high. Welcome to spring.
After skipping most of my classes for the day because they would have been pointless, I drove home and got to witness the ultimate display of grouchygrumpnuts. My father seems to be more stressed on Vacation than at work. I don’t get it, I’m the opposite (along with 95% of the world’s sane human population).
We got to the airport after having to listen to my grandpa ramble on about how he had found these amazing devices - E-Readers! He was also musing over the fact that he could plug a USB drive into his car and play music… and then I showed him my iPod and he asked what the point of that was. Enough said. Not white, actually - he also spent the other half of the drive through the Massey Tunnel rambling about this amazing new technology, rechargeable AA batteries (the lithium ion type), that should never have been invented because it’s going to destroy the world or something. Just for comparison to how behind my parents are, my mother was agreeing with him (although quite frankly she doesn’t know what a Lithium ion battery is).
Airport security was dull except for the really grumpy and bored checkpoint staffmember named Lovely, whose name, when read, came out the other side of my brain in the most sarcastic tone of “oh, well that’s lovely.” Partially from her mood, partially because I’m a twisted and judgemental freak.
I spent an hour at the airport doing three things: taking pictures of planes (stay tuned for a crap ton of posts over the next two weeks), figuring out why my camera wasn’t taking pictures of planes, and trying to order a simple sandwich from a Tim Hortons woman who spoke about two and a half words of English. I did not end up with what I ordered, but they gave me the more expensive sandwich instead of the cheap one I chose, so I’m sure not complaining. Finally, we found my mum lollygagging (I just had to use that word, I don’t even know what it means) around the other side of the airport, and we boarded the plane.
The flight was awesome. I watched two episodes of David Attenborough’s epic as shit voice talking about humping hippos (aka, Planet Earth), ate my sandwich and then my mum’s (she was not hungry/sleeping). Then I ate a tube of Pringles. Then I ate half a kilogram of dried fruit. There is about as much potato in the dried fruit as is in the Pringles. I swear they’re made of styrofoam and crack. Then I tried to get some rest while being kicked by the little bastard in the seat in front of me (it’s possible, don’t ask how). Thank god for WestJet and their legroom or I would not be hiking this week.
And then, welcome to Hawaii, land of way to disturbingly friendly airport security and rental car shuttle drivers. Hawaii, I swear, is the only place in the world where the skinny Asian dudes are the cool guys, they drive the pickup trucks, and they run the place (other than Vancouver, possibly). But let’s get to the point:
Hawaii is so freaking laid back. I’m watching people doing their after work shopping at Safeway in Kailua Kona (Google Map it, you stalker), and I mean, in Langley, when people move slowly into a grocery store it’s because they either physically cannot move faster or they are way too freaking lazy to pick up the effin’ pace. Here, it’s the speed of things. Einstein’s theory of relativity applies: everyone moves slower, so time passes slower. Science has paid off, ok?
Apparently we’re having all of the Kona coast and Kohala for breakfast tomorrow, since my parents were supposed to get the fixin’s for breaky and returned with a shopping cart overflowing with chow.
As an aside, I’d like to talk about our rental car, a new enough for me to call new GMC Arcadia (as our paleozoic rental car guy called it). I got to peek inside the cockpit of the 737-800ER that we flew here on, and I know for a fact that this car has more buttons than the entire flight deck. And I know the flight deck of the 737 pretty damned well (I was dictating the landing checklist as we were on approach, my dad was giving me disdainful looks). What happened to dials? The fan control even uses buttons. It even appears that there is a button that activates a giant peanut maker directly above the driver’s head, but I can’t be sure.The only thing I like about this lump o’ junk gas-guzzler is that it has radio and climate controls specifically for the back, in the back, that actually work. Don’t ask how GMC came up with the logic of separate RADIO controls. We were supposed to be driving a Ford Escape.
To close of the laid-backness of Hawaii, it’s just after 11 when I’m writing this in the car on the way to the resort and I have seen a total of four cars. We have driven 1/10th the length of the island.
Anyways, mahalo for reading and aloha!
If you found any part of this post offensive, and I apologize for your sorry oversensitivity. It’s a humorous journal, not a philosophical text.
