Aloha*

Greetings from Oahu, Hawai'i. Yes, that's right, my immediate family is taking a vacation to Mom and Dad's timeshare in Hawaii for the next week. I arrived yesterday, and I have a few reflections as I am wrapping up my first 24 hours in one of the most remote states. We had to fill out customs forms saying we weren't bringing outside fruit into the state (I am not making this up). That's how remote it is.

Upon arriving in Honolulu International Airport, I learned the following things:

1. The orchid lei's you see/ hear about that they put around your neck when you arrive make you break out into hives
2. And secondly, most importantly, "aloha". Aloha is a term that technically means "Hello" and "Goodbye". It also is used in a more general sense to convey "You are now in Hawaii". Just in case you happen to repress the fourteen hours of travel that it took you to get here, which involved a never ending flight from Houston and a screaming child which at some point caused me to lean over to my co-passenger and say "I don't remember my existence before I got on this plane" to which he frantically whispered back "I think we were in Houston", there it is "Aloha".

For example, today, we took the bus passing the Aloha Saturn car dealership, crossing Aloha Drive, navigating between the cars whose plates say "the Aloha State", zipping past Aloha Elementary, and arriving at Aloha Stadium to take place in the biweekly Aloha Swap.

After an afternoon of shopping, we had lunch at Wakiki Burgers, and in keeping with the way that life is in the Aloha State, I had an Aloha Mai Tai and chowed down on an Aloha Burger.

*This is the first vacation that I've taken with my immediately family since 2001. Aloha is soon going to mean "Hurry up, I need to get in the bathroom"