Kona Trip!

Aloha!
It is hard to believe that I am already on my 3rd week of school here. School has finally started to pick up and I actually had two quizzes today and I have an exam tomorrow. This past weekend we went on our first trip to Kona! Kona is on the other side of the island. We actually got to go on a submarine which was  a lot of fun. The submarine took us down about 100 ft, and we saw multiple types of fish as well as coral reefs and shipwrecks. I did however get a little sick, we had to take a boat out to the submarine, and going down in the submarine was a little freaky to me. I did survive and I am very glad I did it. The other part of the day we spent walking around the shops of Kona and we also ate at a restaurant on the ocean. I love that side of the island, it is the side where the white sand beaches are, and a lot of tourism.

This past week I also got to stay up in the Mountain. My friend Steph is renting a house up in the mountain and it is about 20 miles from my apartment so I went up with her for the night and she cooked me some delicious stir-fry and we watched some movies and hung out. She actually just bought a baby husky! The cutest puppy ever! So we have been busy playing with Boss (his name). Up on the mountain it is about 10 degrees cooler then where I am in town, so it did get pretty chilly up there.

I also for the first time had a very popular "southern meal". I have met some amazing people from Louisiana. They made Jumbalia, fancy green beans and some garlic bread. It was by far the best home cooked meal I have had yet!

Tonight we have our mixed plate dinner for NSE students. There is going to be free food and it is traditional meals of the hawaiian culture so I am excited to try some new foods.

I know this is a shorter post but I wanted to get some pictures up. I am heading to the pro bowl this upcoming weekend in Honolulu so I am sure I will have tons to write about next week! I am super excited to go, there is a big group of us flying there for the weekend.

Oh I forgot! I experienced my first earthquake! it was 5.0 and it was intense. It felt like someone was blowing my apartment down. There are actually earthquakes every 2 or 3 hours on the island that I am on but they are usually only 1.5 or 2.0 so you don't feel them hardly. This one was big!

I hope all is well with everyone! Miss you all
Aloha!
Brittany

Could not get over how big this Pea POD WAS!!!

Some great new friends at Kona

Bre and I going into the Submarine

Kava- it is a drink of the hawaiian culture that is said to relax you and help with anxiety, it is from the root of a plant. It is not the best tasting, but it was really cool!

the submarine

First Weekend in Hawaii!

Aloha!
I am done with my first week of classes! The end of the week went by really fast, I am excited that time is actually moving at a regular pace now rather then feeling like the days are never-ending. I finally finalized my class schedule! I am officially taking Hawaiian Ethnozoology, Hawaiian language in Action, Hawaiian Ohana, and Physics with a lab. I am very excited about my classes seeing how last semester was horrible! For my Hawaiian classes we get to go classify different animal species in the water and go camping, and we also get to take many other field trips which I am excited about. I never realized that the Hawaiian language was a completely different language then ours, and we have learned quite a bit of history about that since I have gotten here. My vocabulary is slowly increasing the more I hear it, and hopefully soon enough I will be able to master the common words so I am not looking like I am completely lost here. On Friday I was able to lay by the pool for the afternoon. The pool is on campus and it is connected to the work out area. The entire building is called the student life center. I go and work out, lay by the pool and grab a mango strawberry smoothie on my way out, literally to die for and I feel as though that might become my new addiction here.

Saturday was our first NSE trip! We went to Hapuna Beach, the closest white sand beach to Hilo. It is about a 2 hours bus ride including a quick stop. It was beautiful, and they told us that it is actually rated as one of the top beaches in Hawaii. We left early in the morning and stayed on the beach all day, and I did go in the water! The waves there are perfect for boogie boarding, and at one end of the beach you can surf as well. The water is crystal clear, and it had a huge resort at one end of the beach that is  a popular place to vacation. The drive there was really cool as well. It is crazy how in Hilo it can be completely raining all day but if you drive about 2 hours it is completely sunny. There was a point in our drive where we could see all 5 volcanos that are located on the Big Island. We also could see Maui! Maui is only 40 miles by water from the Big Island, and it was beautiful to look across the ocean and see the Mountain tops of Maui from where we were sitting.

On Sunday it was our friend Katy's Birthday! She turned the big 20 yesterday. She wanted to go to Akaka falls, so we made a nice trip up there for her Birthday! Akaka falls, a 422 feet tall waterfall is about 10 miles from Hilo. Anywhere you go on the island I have learned that you will experience your ears popping about 3 different times. The elevation here changes so much its crazy. The waterfall is beautiful, and the hike around it was a lot of fun as well. After our trip to Akaka falls we headed back to town to get some groceries for the birthday dinner. We made BLTHMOS...Bacon lettuce tomato hummus mayo onion and sprouts! Oh and avocado! The avocado here is so fresh its insane! So we piled high our sandwiches and had a nice little birthday party with some cake and ice cream. Our plan for today is to head to Richardson beach, so hopefully it warms up because right now it is pretty cloudy. Another thing I have learned here is the weather is completely unpredictable. One minute it is beautiful, and the next minute it is raining.

I think that is it for today, I miss everyone and hope all is well!
Aloha!
Brittany

Here are some pictures!

Akaka Falls

This is the view from Richardson Beach

Sea turtle!

This is my roomie Ashley and I at Hapuna Beach

Hapuna Beach

This is a view from our drive to Akaka falls

Loco Moco and the Market!

Aloha!
Today was a very busy day! I had class this morning, and after class my roommate and I decided to walk downtown to the market to check things out. The market is open everyday but on Wednesdays and Saturdays is when most of the venders are there. I could not believe the things they had there! It was amazing, they had everything from clothing and jewelry to food and smoothies. I was so overwhelmed that I really didn't even buy anything (surprising I know). I wanted to buy every little hawaiian dress for Bella and Gracie but I did refrain myself..this time :). Downtown reminded me of South America, especially the market. Even though things were not as crazy as they were in Guyana, that is what I thought of. In fact a lot of this town reminds me of when I went to visit my sister in some aspects. After the market we walked back and I had another class, which I think will be one of my favorite classes. It is called Hawaiian Language in Action. The teacher is so awesome, and the class if filled with mostly NSE students that have no idea what is going on around us. We learned a chant today, and there was a really cool story behind it. It was about the volcano, and the goddess of fire, known as Pele (Pay-Lay) I plan on writing my next blog about some Interesting facts and history about Hilo so I will get more into that next time. Every time we leave that class we must hug the professor, everyone here is so warm-hearted and welcoming, which is not aways the case back home. If you get to know someone local, they really consider you part of their family, and want you to address them as uncle, auntie, brother, sister etc. I think it is amazing how family is such a big part of their life, and you can really tell how much love they have for their home and family by the way they act. It is hard for many of us to think about giving a kiss on the cheek as a hello back home, because if we were walking in Minneapolis and someone random did that it would be very socially awkward. Here it is what they do and you get used to it very fast. I could honestly go on and on about how caring everyone here is, and how much you actually feel like you are part of their family. They ask you your parents names, and what city you are from, even though they would never know where Ely, MN is, they are so interested in getting to know you personally rather then just another face from Minnesota.

I finally got to try their famous "loco-moco" It is quite delicious and inexpensive! It is rice, a meat patty, with a fried egg on top covered in gravy. It sounds a little weird but it was very good! It is quite the popular item here. It wasn't my favorite food yet though, I did have a type of eggplant chicken dish with rice from a small cafe near the food court and that has been my favorite so far. I have fallen in love with eggplant!

Today was the first day it rained! For being the rainiest city in the United States I would say not raining for a week is pretty good. To just give you an idea of how much it does actually rain here
Seattle gets 40 inches of rain a year, Hilo gets 135!!!! and the mountain top gets 320!! its insane, so when it rains it pours, but that is why everything is so lush green :) If you drive 2 hours to the other side of the island, they get 10 inches of rain per year, so by the time it crosses over the Mountain and Volcano top, it is all rained out.

Oh yeah, and I am a little out of luck for a while :( Mangos are not in season. I hear you can get them in Kona (other side of island) and I am heading there this weekend for a night so I am going to stock up!

We have some big trips planned for our long weekend! halfway through my first week of school here and still..."lovin every minute of it"-Nick!

Aloha!
Brittany

Aloha!

I am starting a blog to keep track of my journey here in Hawaii, this is my first blog so please don't make laugh at me! This will be nothing like my sisters, because she is actually good at things like this :)

We finally got Internet! I have only been here a week now, and I feel like I have so much to talk about its insane. Traveling here was.....long. When I got here it was like I was in a different country, I couldn't say ANYTHING! All of the street names looked like gibberish, and everything i tried to even pronounce was horrible. Good thing I had a nice taxi driver to help me, as well as laugh at me. I am staying in Tohbi Hale  for the semester. It is very nice and I get my own room which I am very excited about. My roommate is Ashley! She is great and we have a lot in common which is awesome. So far we have made multiple trips to target and wal-mart to try and buy some essential things we need, as well as try some new food. I haven't really tried the sushi yet...but soon I will. She loves it, and I am still a little up in the air about it. 

Even though getting settled into our new place took a lot of time/walking/taxi rides and organizing we still found time to make it to the beach. It has been beautiful weather here lately which is nice. The beaches around here are not the "white sand beaches" everyone thinks about when they think of Hawaii, instead they are black sand beaches. They are beautiful, and there are many many rocks as well, lava rocks..SHARP lava rocks. I will upload some pictures when I get a chance. We saw sea turtles at the beach, so that was really cool. Every night we have been here my roommate and I have been in bed at about 8pm...we are just exhausted and still getting used to the time change. Last night we stayed up until 11 though, so i think we are getting used to it. 

On Friday we had our NSE (national student exchange) orientation. We met many other NSE students and Zach, who is in charge of the program here and got to know a lot of people. Of course Minnesota won for who had the most students here for NSE. Zach gave us a lot of information regarding the culture, transportation, what to do and what not to do etc. I have been slowly learning some new words, I have a few down!

Aloha- hello, good-bye

Hale- house

Mahalo- thank you

Ohana- Family

When pronouncing words from here, your best bet is just to pronounce every vowel in the word. so, hale would be like (Hall-E).  You learn real fast if you are saying it wrong.

Everyone here has been amazingly nice, I started classes yesterday and my professors are extremely caring. They give out cell-phone numbers and would rather have you call them then e-mail them if you have any questions. They are so relaxed here, which makes it a lot less stressful. I feel like a 100 lb brick was lifted off my shoulders when I finally got settled down here, there is just so much less chaos, stress, and crabby people, I love it. 

A few more things I must add are, the Kona coffee is amazing, the pineapple is delicious, and I'm deathly afraid of the wild pigs and the sharks nobody told me about :). Zach told us if we are in the water and someone spots a shark to just slowly get out of the water...I highly doubt that if someone yells shark I will SLOWLY get out of the water...but of course it is extremely rare anyway...but still, it freaks me out. I am sure I will get over my little fears soon. 

I know this is kind of a lot of random information in one, so hopefully I can post more frequently now and not try to cram so much information into one post! I miss all my family and friends very much :)

Aloha!

Brittany