The trip gets off to a rocky start and I blame it all on “dustin luck.” “Dustin luck” is a term a friend invented because of Dustin’s notoriously constant bad luck. (Doesn’t really explain how he dates me but oh well!) Anyways, flight leaves at 6am so we ask for a cab to come at 4:30am. We are 7 miles from airport and since there is no traffic we should be there around 4:40-4:45. It is 4:33 and standing in the kitchen waiting, so I tell Dustin to call. The person says he got lost and will be there in 5 minutes. Ok, not a huge deal….so we wait. Now it is like 4:42, so I tell Dustin to call again because it is almost 10 minutes later. Calls and they say he took another wrong turn, but he is 2 minutes away. Flash forward to 4:50 and now I am seriously freaking out if this guy is ever going to make it. At this point I’m trying to think of what plan B should be and when do we give up on this cab. So finally he shows up about 4:52 and has this ancient paper map book on his seat and mumbles something about how my street wasn’t on the map. I DON’T CARE!!!!! Get a GPS or print directions from the internet!!!! Technology has advanced since 1985 so maybe ditch the stupid map book!!!!! Anyways, I told dustin to let me handle paying the guy because I have no issue giving him NO TIP—you don’t deserve a tip picking up someone that late. Anyways, we get to the airport and the driver didn’t charge us at all—so that was sweet and there were no lines inside so we had plenty of time to spare! The flight was long, but not too bad. Dustin did a really good job and didn’t seem too sick or nervous. I told him since he had to overcome his flying fear that I will have to try snorkeling—haha, we’ll see if I can hold up on that deal! Here is a pic from my airplane seat—you can see the diamond head crater and then to the lower right corner, that is Waikiki beach—I LOVE the blue waters!!!
We checked into the hotel which was pretty nice and an awesome location and then just walked around. We stopped and ate at an outdoor restaurant (LuLu’s) that overlooked Waikiki Beach. I had my first real Hawaiian mai tai here which was awesome! Dustin tried the local brews by Kona Brewing Company and absolutely loved all of them. We had some good sandwiches and knew this would be the start to a great week (and gaining 10 pounds). I ordered garlic fries there—they were absolutely insane with seriously a whole BULB of garlic chopped down over them—way too strong even for me! They were even playing the IL/Penn St game there, so that was cool except that the illini lost. We walked at night after dinner and stumbled upon The House Without a Key which is a restaurant in this nice hotel that I wanted to check out. We sat out on the patio and had drinks and watched hula dancers and Hawaiian music. Oh, did I mention they also provide free potato chips on the table—HEAVEN! It was a great time and conclusion to our day!
