Hawaii

Hi fun people (and the un-fun ones, too, I guess...),

So, t-3 days and counting until I leave beautiful Kauai for beautiful New Zealand! Sorry contact has been sparse; I only have internet when I am here at my uncle's.

A few comments about Kauai.

I am in this sort of visitor limbo in that I am not a tourist, but I'm not a local either. You can tell I'm not a local girl because I'm too pale :)

All the dirt here is red because of high iron content and a lot of precipitation. On the west side, where my grandparents live, it's dryer, but Kauai hosts the wettest place in the world over on the other side. Everything is stained red from the dirt. Houses, cars, horses, sidewalks, everything. It sort of makes it look like a third world country.

Since people here never have to drive in snow, they drive right up your tail pipe, especially if you're going the speed limit. There are a few select places to pass, but for the most part, it's one lane in each direction on the highway. So if you're going slow, you slowly collect a long line of cars behind you, all riding up each other's tail pipes.

The road system is essentially one long highway with towns spaced along it, right off the highway, so every few miles, the speed limit drops to 35 and 25 miles per hour. This makes driving especially fun.

During Hurricane Iniki, a bunch of chickens got loose, and now there are chickens all over Kauai. They are out in the streets running around. Also, especially near Salt Pond, there are a bunch of stray cats.

The stores here carry things to remind you that you're in Hawaii :) The Costco sells Hawaiian shirts, the grocery store has ika (squid) and tako (octopus) in the meats section, and the drug stores have "Sanrio" aisles (I tried to find something Pom Pom Purin for Ben, but to no avail. Sanrio cycles through their characters relatively quickly, keeping only a handful long term (the more common and well-known being Hello Kitty, of course). Right now, the big players are a panda whose name I forget, Choco Cat, and a devil Hello Kitty. Oh, and in some stores, Hello Kitty is Hawaiian, tan like the color of cafe au lait).

Well, on Monday, I take off for New Zealand, leaving my grandparents and uncle to meet Shalom's friends and SEE KATE!!! Unless something remarkable happens in the next three days, my next post should be from New Zealand!

Oh, and people were saying that they couldn't post here, which puzzled me, but I found the setting that controls posting, and it should now be open to comments. Sorry about that!