10.20.10 - 10.29.10: O'ahu and Maui

So I started my trip to Hawaii with one more day extra than I had planned: I was unaware that after 36+ hours of travel, I would have crossed the international dateline and arrived in Hawaii on the same day that I had left Bali! Also upon arrival, I discovered that the phone that I had brought with me all around the world with the express purpose of using with my American sim card once I got back to the good old USA, I had forgotten it in Bali. So here I was, a day earlier than my hostel reservation, without a phone. But I was in paradise, so it's ok. It also helped that I knew how to use the payphone and even if I didn't the instructions were in English...ahh good to be back in my home country. I called my hostel and asked if there was availability, and there was so I headed over on the shuttle and made myself at home in Waikiki, and bought a phone. The hostel I was staying at was great, and right away I met some really cool girls from all over the world. My week in O'ahu was long and grueling, consisting of running along the beach road at sunrise, bathing on the white sand watching the surfers, eating as many fresh papaya as possible, hiking up a nearby mountain to see the veiw of Waikiki from above, and having cocktails with new friends in the evenings. From Waikiki I headed to Maui and met up with one of the girls I had met in the first hostel. She had traveled to one of the other islands while I had stayed on in O'ahu, and we agreed to meet up at a hostel in Wailuku. We have had a great time together, but we have also discovered that hostels in Hawaii (and perhaps hostels all over) seem to be a haven for weird people. I hadn't noticed this phenomenon while traveling in Europe, and I haven't really stayed at very many hostels on my trip until I arrived here in Hawaii. In Cairo there was a very strange, silent older man that was at my hostel, who at the end of my stay handed me his buisiness card that read "Philosopher, Adventurer, Lover". Um, thanks, but no thanks. Anyways, so I haven't had much time to reflect on the strangeness of the environments that hostels create until I arrived in Hawaii, and all of a sudden I have been inundated with examples and experiences. I'm assuming part of it has to do with the laid back atmosphere of the islands, but when I arrived at the hostel in Waikiki I was checked in by a tall, blonde young man who seemed to have difficulty counting to six as he marked out my days in the register. I thought perhaps 1:00 pm was just too early for him, but then judging by his bloodshot eyes I thought perhaps he had waked and baked and then gone to work. He was much the same the rest of the week, and I was very surprised to learn from hostel gossip that he was quite the ladies' man, and bedded about a different guest each week. What the attraction is, I could never guess, but whatever. The week only progressed to weirder and weirder guests. Cody (the aforementioned ladies' man) had already had his conquest for the week, and within 5 minutes of meeting her you could tell she was totally f*ing crazy! So why he was surprised that after their one date and rendezvous that she confessed her undying love for him and her desire to marry him, I'm not sure. Upon realizing that she was a nutjob, he stopped talking to her and avoided her alltogether (the first and only prudent move of his that I witnessed in my stay there) and she got upset and moved to a hotel. And if it is not evidence enough of her mental state that I know all of this and I never talked to her for longer than 5 minutes, I don't know what is. After she left, an influx of middle aged travelers rolled in, one of whom smoked like a chimey, listened to her discman, talked to herself and colored all day, and hacked, coughed and snored all night. I had the good fortune of not being in her room, so I was quite grateful for that, but I did get a full report from my friend who happened to not be as lucky as I was. After my 7 allotted days at this hostel, I made my way to Maui to meed up with my friend Silke at a hostel which for their sake will remain nameless. I arrived a day in advance of Silke and set out to discover the town that I was in, only to discover that it took about 15 minutes to walk from one end of it to the other, and that in those 15 minutes I did not witness anything spectacular, or in truth, really very interesting at all. Now perhaps you will think me a bit harsh, but I'm only telling it like I saw it; while Lonely Planet's job is to put the most positive spin on the dumpiest little towns they come across, my job description is nothing of the sort. It was not long before I had met the first crazy person who was staying there. She was an older woman, middle-aged you might say, with a very red face and a very wide bottom, and a mouth that never closed. Literally, the second someone would walk in the room, she would start talking. And talking. And talking. She did not need any encouragement from the listener to continue; in fact, you couldn't get a word in edgewise, and yet on and on and on she would go; she was the energizer bunny of verbosity. Seriously, it was rediculous. And from what I could tell, she had no coherent train of thought, and she had a great many facinations and very possibly delusions related to flowers and the armed forces, around which most of her rhetoric revolved. There were also allusions to frequently written letters to the president about getting the seeds to the right places and not wanting the marines to come after her. I have talked to saner people on my psych rotations in nursing school. As if one of these sort of people weren't enough, there was a male version of her as well! After only 10 minutes of being in the same room as him, I knew that he was married, but only in the eyes of God as for whatever reason I can't remember anymore he wasn't able to legally marry his wife. I knew that he and his wife were stay at home parents, and for income he collected scrap metal. I knew how much he was paying for his phone plan and where he bought it. I knew what a good deal he had found at the Salvation Army before he left for Hawaii. The only thing that remained a mystery to me was what the secret was to making him be quiet. After two nights at this lovely institution, Silke and I decided to get the hell out. We found a room to rent in a beautiful house in La Haina with a courtyard and a pool and it was fabulous. Best of all, there were no crazy people there. We spent the next four day lounging, relaxing, drinking sunset beers and getting up with the sunrise. We snorkeled in the Molokini Crater, and played with the adorable yellow lab puppy that belonged to the lovely lady who owned the house. We watched the Halloween parade down Front St. and ate blackened mahi mahi with papaya salsa that was unforgetable. Basically it was a wonderful week, and one that was made that much more wonderful because I had discovered what a luxury it was to have a bit of privacy amid all the insanity that seems to populate these islands. And true to form, last night when I arrived on the Big Island and had settled in at my hostel with a seemingly normal young lady as my roommate, 11pm rolled around and as I was snuggled into bed and ready for sleep, there came a knock at the door. My normal roommie was already asleep, so I begrudgingly pulled on my pants and went to open the door. There I found myself face to face with my new crazy roommate. She was an older lady, wreaking of smoke (which kind I did not get close enough to find out) with long hair and anklets with jingle bells on them. She jingled around the room in the dark, getting her bed ready, and then promptly fell asleep. Now, you might think this is mild enough, and that I am being overly judgemental in deeming her "crazy" so soon. But to that I will say that there is certain look in the eye and when you see it, you know something is just a bit, well, off. And I saw it in this lady. My deduction was proved correct this morning when at 7am she was up and jingling around the room, having a full on conversation with herself. I rolled over and rubbed my eyes to see who was talking to me, and there she was, nutty as a fruitcake, talking to me about a psychiatrist. I was trying to get my newly woken-up mind around what was happeneing and what she was talking about, but before I could do so, midsentence she walked out of the room, still talking, dropping her lighter as she shut the door behind her. I did not stay at this hostel tonight. I made my way to something a little more centrally located, and am sitting in the common room writing this, and behind me on the couch with a small group of other people is another lady who had monopolized the conversation for the last 20 minutes straight. As I'm sitting here writing and evesdropping, I can't help but wonder if I am one of these crazy people and I don't know it! Haha...if I stay here any longer I might be!