honolulu, hawaii

well, it's been two days since we left hawaii and i still find myself struggling to write this blog entry.

my time in hawaii was not at all what i thought it would be and that is hard for me to understand since i had no idea what it should be.

the first day in hawaii was spent with the witwer-dukes which for those of you who have been keeping up with my blog know this was a BIG mistake :). the witwer-dukes had decided to spend the day at a beach where there were no semester at sea students and then i would meet up with them in the afternoon so we could go to the pearl harbor and uss arizona memorial together. once the ship was cleared, gary and i waited for the thrifty car rental folks to pick us so we could get the rental car and head to the memorial to get tickets for that afternoon. i went with gary in case he was only allowed to get a certain number of tickets.

after picking up tickets for the 3pm tour, we returned to the ship to get kathy, maddy and harry. i would like to again note here that i was not going to the beach with the witwer dukes family and i had planned to spend the morning drinking a venti soy chai from starbucks and window shopping at the aloha tower. when we returned to the ship i was suckered by the begging, pleading and sad faces of the witwer dukes kids so off WE went to the kailua beach.

after several u turns, sudden lane changes and a few choice words we arrived at kailua beach. it was jammed packed with local folks but after driving around for a bit we found a parking spot and made our way to the beach. we had hoped to spend our beach time snorkeling, boogie boarding and kayaking but after having gotten lost we decided to forgo the renting of beach equipment. after a couple of hours on the beach we went in search of lunch which we would eat in the car so we could be on time for our 3pm tour.

we were enjoying ourselves in hawaii when the witwer dukes curse hit us AGAIN! we had fifteen minutes to make it to the memorial as we drove along nimitz highway and then it happened...construction! we attempted to divert the construction zone by exiting at the airport exit but in return all we received was a nice tour of the outside of the airport terminal. we waited in construction traffic for five minutes and by the time we arrived at the memorial we were twenty minutes late. we returned to the ship defeated once again.

it was during the evening of my first day in hawaii that i began to become angry and even agitated about being in hawaii. i shared my feelings with a few folks i was having adult beverages with and through those conversations, i began to realize that i was struggling with being comfortable. i had spent the last four months in uncomfortable situations struggling with language barriers, stereotypes, socio economic structures and the list goes on and on and now i was back in the states- a place where privilege was prevalent the minute i got off the ship.

last night, at the post port reflection program, one of the folks i had had adult beverages with spoke about our conversation and summarized it so well by saying, "we had become comfortable being uncomfortable."