We made it to 7:30 p.m. and will probably crash soon. I'm pretty proud of the progress we made today, though it's hardly anything compared to all the stuff we have yet to figure out in the next few weeks.
The flights were uneventful, on time, etc. My huge piece of news is that I'm 98.5% sure I saw Greg Grunberg (he's in Felicity, Alias, Heroes) in the Seattle airport. I got a good look at him, and yep, I'm almost positive it was him. Jeanie and I stalked him a little bit, and he disappeared around the time a flight to LA boarded the first-class passengers.
We arrived in Kahului around 1 p.m., and the shuttle from the Kihei car rental picked us up--this awesome Hawaiian dude and his awesome Hawaiian music. It was pretty much culture immersion. We got our car and found our way to Paia, where we will be staying for the next month and possibly longer. I was in love as soon as I saw the house--a classic island house, totally laid-back and very lived-in, close to the ocean, in the cutest town on Maui. Holly's friend Maria lives here with her husband and their kid Kivah (who is very possibly the most adorable child I've ever seen), and they rent out another room to this guy we just saw briefly. Jeanie and I got the house tour, then explored Paia a little. We got suddenly tired and overwhelmed, so we took a break before going back to Kahului to do some grocery shopping at Costco. Also tiring and overwhelming (high prices, huge quantities, tons of people). We managed to pull together a few measly meal options (I'm not proud to say we had Mac and Cheese from a box tonight) to last us a little while. We got lost on the highway a couple times, so that was fun.
Oh, we also met Retha, who is in charge of housekeeping for some condos in Paia, and talked to her about a work trade, where we get free rent if we do cleaning for a certain amount of hours each week. It sounds like we're in, and the place we'd be living is directly next to Maria's house, so that's convenient :) Currently all the rooms are being rented out to guys, so we'll see how that goes. I'm glad I've had a lot of practice going long chunks of time without privacy, because that's prepared me well for sharing life (and a bathroom) with at least five other people.
My emotional state varies. When we first landed on Maui, it suddenly hit me what we were getting ourselves into and how incredibly difficult it is to translate theoretical plans about work and life and friends into reality. There are a crazy, crazy amount of details tangled into a web we're just stepping into. Also, I'm finding myself very aware of who I am, similar to the way I felt in Kenya--a little white girl pretending not to be a tourist. I'm such a fraud. But still, overall, I'm optimistic, not panicked, feeling quite competent (hooray counseling) and grown up.
One day at a time....
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