"Espen is back in town!"

On the ground in Honolulu I walked out of the plane, almost being happy we arrived a few hours late, and not the scheduled six in the morning. Before entering the immigration at Honolulu airport, I had stamps from 11 countries in my passport from this trip alone. All of these countries had been new for me. Now that I came to Honolulu, the state capital of Hawaii, on the island of Oahu, I would be in a place where I could recognize the streets, buildings, shops and beaches. I could get in to the city and not spend time to orient my mind about where to go, or what to do. I knew that Honolulu would be my first resting place since I left home.

To enter the US, you need evidence that you are leaving the country. You also need evidence that you are leaving the islands, since Hawaii is so separated from mainland. I did not have anything printed when I came up to the immigration, and as usual the immigration officers were being excessively strict and just ass holes in general. My man of the day was Chong, a slightly obese Chinese-American. I could prove to him that I had tickets to Toronto, but I did not have the ticket out of Toronto anywhere else than in my e-mail. I know for a fact that what is required is a ticket out of the US. His argument was that Toronto is so close to the US border that I could just get in a car and drive back to the US. He started asking me how much cash I had, I tild him $100, he said that that was not enough, I told him I had credit cards. I did have pictures of my tickets on my camera, and the people from the airline told me to show that to the immigration, and I would be allright. As I started turning my camera on, the officer just told me that he was not interested, and demanded me to shut it off. All of this, of course, in a yelling tone, with all his frustrations for not being good enough to become a police officer and ending up in a power-trip in underpaid, dead boring job. He started looking through my passport, at all the various stamps, and especially the Russian visa. "What were you doing in communist land?" I told him that I traveled through a lot of countries, and that many of them were ex-communist. He also asked a lot about the American student visa. "What were you doing in America?" "Studying, just like the student visa implies, high school exchange." "Did you work while you stayed here?" "No, I had no working permission." "What are you doing in the US this time?" "Traveling." " No!" "Yes, I will travel through the country, in and out in just about two weeks." "Why are you here?" "Traveling!" "Everyone is traveling, he is traveling (pointing), she is traveling (pointing at a cabin crew member), everyone is traveling." "I am on vacation...?"

And it continued like that; how many credit cards I had, he looked at my credit cards, he asked more questions about personal things that he had no business with, and I told him that he didn't. Then he inquired me about my onwards travel, and finally the whole thing cumulated in him asking: "Do you want me to put you on the first flight back to Fiji?". I simply replied: "There will be no flights back to Fiji. There is a hurricane there." The officer tried to stare at me so that I would break down and admit that I was there to smuggle drugs into the country, blow up some sky scrapers and stay as an illegal immigrant. It did not work, and finally he stamped my passport, and told me to get out of there. Welcome to The United States of America!
When picking up the luggage, I was talking to the two English girls that I all the time mistook for being Canadian. We found a hostel and a ride in to town together, and took off. The drive from the airport was very familiar, and I remembered the same route we drove in the yellow school buses last time I was there, when we had been visiting Pearl Harbor. I saw the street I stayed on in 2008, and the places I ate breakfast lunch and dinner. It felt a little weird not being around all of my friends. Where were Anders, Rut Kristine, Malin, Paul, James, Cecilie, and the rest of the people I spent good times with in Hawaii?

The bus pulled up outside The Beach Side Hostel, just one block from the beach, around 9:30 AM. The price was $25, excluded tax of course. It really annoys me that the US cannot do as the rest of the world, and let you know the actual prices. Even if the states, and even cities have different sales taxes. The hostel was located further south on Waikiki than I stayed in 2008. The dorm was featuring 8 beds and a bathroom, free Wi-Fi, and a breakfast consisting of a doughnut. The next morning I did not bother waking up for that. I spent most of the morning trying to catch up on the photo uploads. The rest of the day I walked around the city, had lunch with four Norwegian students who were studying in Hawaii, and watched a parade.
It turned out that the 14th of March was the last day of the Honolulu Festival. This was celebrated with a four-hour parade. Talking about the date, on the way from Fiji to Hawaii I crossed the International Date Line, so I went from being half a day in front of Greenwich, to being half a day behind. I had to turn the watch 23 hours back, and ended up having an extra day. So March 14th 2010 was actually two days for me, spent in two different countries. It was a little hard to get my head around it, but I at least I gained a day, and did not loose one. I can imagine that a lot of people are missing their connecting flights going the other way.

The Honolulu Festival Parade was pretty interesting to watch, and in addition to the Hawaiian and Polynesian numbers, the Taiwanese, Japanese, Chinese and Korean communities also performed dances, showed off their installations and played music. While the parade went by, I used the opportunity to take a whole bunch of sunset pictures. The sunsets in Hawaii are all magical, and I always end up taking way too many pictures. I can never choose the best ones after, but I guess that is alright. Everyone loves to see a beautiful sunset.

The next day I walked around the city for a while, before I sat down in the shade under a palm tree on Waikiki Beach to type up some posts for my blog. At 3'o clock I met Jay, a Couchsurfer I was moving in with for the rest of my stay in Honolulu. Jay is from the US state of Georgia, but she has been moving around all her life, living in places ranging from Texas to Korea. She just traveled to Hawaii on vacation from Korea, but then she decided not to go back to Asia, and just stayed in Honolulu. Her roommate just received a Didgeridoo in the mail, and kept practicing playing it. Really cool to listen to, and I almost felt like being back in Australia.

The ABC Stores are familiar to everyone who has been to Honolulu. There is a joke about them, saying it is an abbreviation for "All Blocks Covered". This is not far from true, and you can get anything from beach towels and t-shirts to some simple groceries. They also sell drinkables. We bought a couple and headed down to the beach to go for a swim and enjoy the drinks while watching the sunset. Later on we hit up her local bar. It was really cool to see something that was a little off the tourist beaten area down by the beach. Jay lives right behind the golf course, which is the landmark segregating the hotels from the residential areas. It was about 15 minutes walk to the beach, so pretty central.
You know you are drinking too much if you know all the songs in the karaoke machine, and I realized that there were a few of the guests who were out this Monday evening, who had been out a night before. I found a song by Pink Floyd, and fired it up, but that was enough for me.

The next morning we walked around the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus. It seemed like a good place to go to school, with large outdoor areas, a local fruit market, and a cabinet with a lot of elephant statues in it. We basically spent the whole day walking, and on campus they had designated a few buildings to different cultures, including the Korean. There was a huge Korean temple-style building used for teaching Korean studies.
On the way back we stopped by a large grocery store to shop for some dinner. I figured it would be a cool thing to make Norwegian Tacos, one of the most eaten meals in Norway. The name of the store was "Maika'i", which is the Hawaiian word for "Excellent". They gave me a member's card, even if I was only going to shop there once. Accepting this card I saved more than $5. When we got back to the apartment we made tacos, and ate them. It was really good, and I convinced yet another foreigner that fresh vegetables are the best to put in Tacos, not beans.

It was so great to finally be Couchsurfing again. I had missed it a lot, and you get such a different experience when surfing than when staying in hostels. I have not been able to keep as much in touch with people I surfed with as I have been hoping too, but when I get home I will have more constant internet connection and I will be able to keep it up. The trust of Couchsurfers is so good. Jay, was heading to work, just left me her keys, and told me to feel free to do whatever. There should be more people like the Couchsurfers I have met, I am sure the world would be a more friendly place if there was.

I woke up at 4 in the morning and headed down to a hotel where the airport shuttle had a pickup, got out to the airport, and on the plane to Maui. While boarding I met a couple of sisters from Fargo, North Dakota. The oldest one lived on Maui and was getting married soon. They said they could give me a ride from the Airport when we landed. I thanked them, sat down and fell asleep.