Hawaii trip, 2007-04-17

After a good night's sleep, our cabin full of snoring hikers woke just after sunrise. We ate a hearty breakfast of chocolate pancakes and SPAM (a Hawaiian favorite), and then went spent a few minutes exploring a lava tube. A lava tube is a kind of cave formed after an eruption. Lava closer to the air cools first and hardens into a shell, while the lava in the interior keeps flowing. Eventually, you're left with just the hard, outer shell: a lava tube:
The cave was very spacious, and we walked about a hundred yards in. No one could resist singing the Indiana Jones theme song.

After the tube, we set off on the hike out of Haleakala.

Today's hike was a shorter distance (around 4 miles), but was much more intense. We spent the morning trudging up switchbacks in rain and mist. The fog was probably a blessing at times, since it tended to cover the sheer drop below.
After finally reaching the top and collecting both cars together, we drove to peak a few hundred yards away, which was home to the highest point on Maui and to the telescope that Robin's currently working on.
We got a guided tour of the guts of the telescope. With so many engineers in the group, there was lots of interest. (We had to drag Kate away).
After the telescope, we had an afternoon to kill before catching our flight back to Oahu. We headed into a small town where it proved surprisingly hard to find food and drink, but eventually persevered at a small, slow tea shop. Dan pronounced the sushi "delicious," and the waitress "tasty."

Mindful of the trouble on the flight from Oahu to Maui, we arrived at the Maui airport early for the return flight, and breezed right onto the plane. Lauren had encouraged us all to embrace the thought of "flying stinky," which we did with aplomb, having not seen a shower since we landed on Maui.

After checking back in at the Beachcomber on Waikiki, a small, hungry contingent walked across the street to Duke's. It's touristy, but hey, we're tourists! The beach food and rummy drinks really hit the spot after a long day on the move. We enjoyed our late dinner on the patio right next to the beach, waves brushing the shore a few feet away, unseen under the new moon.

From Holua cabin, Haleakala Crater, Maui

[Written in my handy notepad, which later took an unplanned dip in the Pacific...]

We're more than three days into our Hawaii trip, and this is the first spare minute I've had to put pen to paper. I take this as a sign that we're having a very fun (and busy!) time.

We arrived in Honolulu early on the evening of Saturday, the 14th. Lauren's mother, Donna, was at the airport to greet us with smiles and lots of leis.

With checked luggage quickly in hand and with our rental van procured, we met up with Robin and went straight to Lauren's first dinner choice: Zippy's. She described it as "like Denny's, but tastier and more ghetto."

At Zippy's, Bill was delighted to discover that the stories he'd heard about Hawaiians and SPAM were true. But at the end, the pull of the Chili Loco Moco proved too strong for Bill, Albert, and me. Chili Loco Moco... Start with enough white rice to make a meal, and put it in a bowl. Then comes the obligatory layer of mayonnaise. Top this with a burger and gravy and you've got loco moco. Replace the gravy with meaty chili and you've got Chili Loco Moco.
We all felt a little sick afterward.

From there, it was straight to the Beachcomber hotel in Waikiki for some deliciously jetlagged sleep. The time change worked in our favor the next morning, when we all found it took much less effort than usual to "do the Ben Franklin" and be early to rise. Lauren and I walked along a mostly empty Waikiki beach just after sunrise and dipped our toes into the clear, blue Pacific.
We met up with the group at 8:30 and drove to breakfast at another childhood favorite of Lauren's, the Koa Pancake House, which she described as "kind of like Zippy's." (How is this girl so thin?!) We feasted on pancakes, waffles, and a Portuguese pork dish that tastes like equal parts pork and vinegar. Very similar to Dad's favorite kind of BBQ, actually.

From there, we went shopping for beach supplies, spending an hour bouncing between bookstores, surf shops, and similar. It was at this point that I finally noticed the diamond ring on Kate's left hand. She and Bill had taken a walk along the beach that morning as well, where Bill popped the question! We spent a lot of the day congratulating the two lovebirds.
After our shopping spree, we went to Lauren's lovely home in Kailua, where Donna and Robin were ready to greet us. After saying hi to the family dog, and looking at all sorts of embarrassing old childhood pictures, we threw on our swimsuits and drove to a gorgeous beach about a mile away. The water and sand were amazing. We were on Oahu's windward side, and it lived up to its name, with a strong wind making conditions perfect for bodysurfing (and difficult to do much else).

After a couple of hours on the beach, our smiling, sun-pink, wind-blasted crew drove to Lauren's favorite shave ice spot, Island Snow. (I recommend Snozberry/Lime, with a scoop of ice cream at the bottom). Then, it was home to Lauren's for showers and dinner. Lauren's paternal grandmother, Grammy, showed us how to make our own sushi:
...and Lauren's maternal grandfather, Kung Kung, brought the party with singing, dancing, harmonica, and lots of stories:
Dinner was delicious, and at this point the arc of the trip became clear: I was to be fattened up.

Well, all right then.

When no one could eat another bite, we said our goodnights and returned to the hotel to pack for our trip to Maui.

We met in the lobby on the morning of 4/16 at 5:45a.m, still not too difficult for people on California time. There was a lot of confusion and a close squeeze at the airport, but we and our bags made it to Maui in the end.

We stopped to pick up bento lunches and then drove straight up to Haleakala, parking a stone's throw from the big telescopes, at an elevation of almost 10,000 feet. Robin and I dropped one car off at the end of the trail, then returned to the trailhead where everyone took a sunscreen bath before starting off.
The hike to the cabin was seven and a half miles through volcanic landscape. I guess I would call it more moonscape than landscape. Ochers and blacks fought and faded into one another. Jagged rocks scattered over the flatlands, Zen-like. Otherworldly plants (silverswords) threw their startlingly silver stalks toward the sky:
And the clouds beneath us hid an enormous cliff in the distance, looking like nothing so much as the end of the world.
We finally arrived at the cabin, with just enough daylight left to do a quick Waltons impression (Dan chopped the onions, Bill boiled the water, Albert and I lit the wood-fire stove, etc.). After a pasta dinner and a few minutes of the most breathtaking stargazing of my life, we all turned in.
It's now 7a.m., and the bustling sounds of breakfast and packing are all around me. Today, we'll hike four miles up switchbacks on a lush, green ridge. Aloha.

Paris / San Francisco Travel Log 2007-01-02

Black holes are all fundamentally identical. You can completely describe a given black hole by stating its mass, spin, position, and orientation. That's it. So they're like electrons. Or plane trips.

My plane trip was from Paris directly to SFO.

Departure: 35 minutes late at 10:50am, Paris time.
Arrival: 80 minutes late at 2:15pm, San Francisco time.
Total flight duration: 12 hours, 25 minutes.
Length of my lanky body: 6 feet, 7 inches (or 2 meters if you're so inclined).

There are only three things to note about this trip in prose, then:

• I didn't really believe Dad when he talked about Charles de Gaul airport before the trip, but now I'm convinced. It's not just a bad airport. It's not just the worst airport that happens to exist right now. It's the worst of all possible airports. It's some kind of anti-Platonic form of an airport. But hey, I eventually got on my plane. :)
• Business or first-class seats have been a decadent luxury in my mind since I can remember. They were just a means for suckers to toss their money away. Honest, smart, frugal folk would never bother with them. However, I've decided that I'm an honest, smart, frugal guy who's taller than Michael Jordan, and the next time I fly across an ocean, you'll find me up front if there's any way I can afford it.
• Planes are still amazing. I was in Paris, France. And then 12 hours later I was in San Francisco, California. It's easy to forget that this is probably the greatest time and place in history to be alive.

Since this has ended up being a travel blog, I guess I'll sign off now. Until my next trip then, thanks for reading, and au revior.

Paris Travel Log 2007-01-01

After eating a quick and tasty breakfast, we headed toward the two chosen sights for our last day in Paris: Notre Dame and St. Chapelle. Both would be repeats for me from my earlier stint in Paris this month, but I was happy to revisit them.

Sadly, it was not to be. The holiday crowds had formed a line to get into Notre Dame that stretched all the way out of the large square in front of the cathedral. The presence of such a line also sent an ominous signal about what the crowd would be like inside Notre Dame. Since we'd all been in the cathedral before, we decided to give it a miss and move on to St. Chapelle.

Nathan had been waiting for a sunny day to go visit St. Chapelle, and on this early New Year's afternoon, we finally had one. However, as we drew close to the chapel's entrance, we were again worried by the line, or more accurately, by the absence of a line. We all guessed what we would find as we rounded the corner: the dreaded ferme sign. Ah, well. One more good reason to come back to Paris someday.

We split into two groups, with Anna and Nathan going the nap route. Lauren and I headed to the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore by the banks of the Seine. Very small, very hip, very City Lights. The staff apparently get free board upstairs (and minimal pay) as long as they read a book a day and are writing something. We spent an hour there, partly because I was indecisive about plane reading, and partly because I was just so happy to be around so much English text after more than two weeks in France.

We met back up with Anna and Nathan for an early dinner. Nathan had really wanted to head to Montmartre before we all left Paris, and so we jumped onto the metro for the long ride up to the Abbesses station. Station had been closed for renovation until very recently, and renovations obviously weren't complete. I commented to Lauren that it reminded me of stories of London tube stations used as bomb shelters during WWII. Also worth noting was the spiral staircase we hiked up to get out of the station, which gave no indication of its Dante-esque proportions to the unwary traveler.

Since it was before 7:30pm, many Paris restaurants were not yet open for dinner. So we killed some time with an unplanned stop at the Chapel of St. John right next to the Abbesses station. Church had a red brick facade and more modern feel, but still had many Gothic accents like all the other churches we'd visited in France. Interesting.

From there, we started walking up the steep hill, toward a cluster of guidebook-recommended restaurants. Along the way, we passed the fruit shop that featured prominently in the movie Amelie (a fact that you can't miss, since the shop has dozens of newspaper clippings mentioning it as being featured prominently in the movie Amelie). Anna was tickled and wanted a picture; Nathan was embarrassed and wanted to keep pretending he was a Frenchman and not a tourist. You can guess how that turned out:Finally, we made it to La Maison Rose, a small, quiet bistro where the food was French, but was lighter and simpler than much of the fare we'd had so far. Very tasty onion soup, pastas, chicken, and cheese. Even a slightly gruff waiter couldn't bring down our spirits.

Lauren and I had an early morning of trains, plains, and automobiles ahead of us, so we skipped the hike up to the Sacre Coeur church and instead went straight back to the metro after dinner, marveling as we walked at the crystal-clear view of the city lights below. What a relaxed and relaxing way to end our stay here.

Thanks to everyone who helped plan the trip, who joined us in France, and who sent good wishes from far away. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone.

Paris Travel Log 2006-12-31

We began the morning with the Rue Mouffetard market just a stone’s throw from the hotel. On each morning except Monday, the entire street gives way to vendors hawking fruit, bread, cheese, seafood, and most other things you could imagine. It looked like a supercharged Whole Foods had been turned inside-out and dropped onto a narrow street in the heart of Paris. Lauren picked up some fruit and we all ate some pain chocolat to tide us over.We then looped back to the hotel to pick up Anna, who’d been feeling under the weather earlier, and it was officially time for Second Breakfast. We walked to the nearby La Contrescarpe café, where I had an omelet and the others stuck to pastries of various kinds.

From there, we walked to the day’s main stop, the Pompidou Centre. This is to modern art (post-1905) what the Louvre is to classical and renaissance art. The museum itself had a controversial design where all the ductwork and such are on the outside. Looked just like a Borg cube to me. Inside, we found that the Pompidou is much like the Louvre in another important way: it’s just too big to take in one gulp. Anna and Nathan, getting hungry, put on the jets and ended up speeding through the museum faster than Lauren and me. So we planned to meet up afterward at a certain bridge on the Seine, which made me feel like a Cold War spy. Which was awesome.

Anyway, the museum contained some art that disturbed, some that intrigued, and much that just confused. I was partial to the Robert Rauschenberg collection that we saw first. We each had our favorites, but all agreed that the massive Yves Klein exhibition was our least favorite (big, blank, blue canvasses; nude women spraypainted as a string orchestra played a single, sustained note; a self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing artist … really, it was like a spoof of modern art).We left the museum around 4pm, and after meeting on the bridge we headed to a nearby creperie for some food to tide us over until our late dinner. We were trying to pace ourselves so that we’d be awake and excited for midnight. The crepes were tasty and wonderfully soporific. We all headed back to the hotel afterward to nap and gather our strength.

After waking up, we drank one of Dad’s going-away bottles of wine in Anna and Nathan’s room (a bit of New Year’s Eve pre-partying; thanks, Dad!). And then we took to the streets to find a late dinner around 8pm. We ended up going back to the Rue Mouffetard that had been so lively in the morning, and found that our top choices from Lonely Planet Paris were sadly ferme. Undaunted, we looked at all the lively activity around us and decided to choose a place at random. So we walked into Sushiko, and I can honestly say that there could have been no better choice in the world.

Sushiko served cheap, plentiful, and absolutely delicious Japanese food. And they had plenty of vegetarian options for the seafood-impaired (me). And they let us crack open the bottle of wine that Anna had brought along, with no corkage fee. And they had the best desserts we’d tasted so far. And they gave us some free sake as we ended the meal well after 11pm, just to say merci and bon annee (“Happy New Year”). They left loyalty cards with our check (“buy 9 meals, get one free”), and we all bemoaned our Tuesday departure. Otherwise, we’d certainly be making some trips back to Sushiko.

Leaving the restaurant, we had only minutes to spare before 2007. We hustled to the small roundabout at the Place de la Contrescarpe, which Hemingway once overlooked from his Paris apartment. We caught our breath, grabbed café tables, and got hold of some beer just in time to toast the new year.I’m not usually one to assume that everything will “just work out,” but honestly, I couldn’t have planned this night better if I’d tried.

Hello, 2007. Bonne année.