When you're sleeping in a dorm of six beds, your roomies come and go, and last night it turned out I was sharing with four girls from Sao Paolo. Not as glamorous as it sounds, when they arrive back from the party at 2am chattering like a flock of macaws. Still, I was never really going to get much sleep with a Thanksgiving party going in the same building and with a five am start. I woke on time though and crept out of the room to finally check out of my Miami party hostel – it's been fun, but three days was probably about enough – and onto the flight I went.
It was five PM by the time we touched down in Hawaii. It's a truly beautiful place. As we circled the south of the island of Oah'u we flew over a couple of perfectly green golf courses with their yellow bunkers and blue water hazards that could've been coloured by felt-tip pen; I wondered if it would be bad form to leave the research for a week and just work on my swing! But no, I had to get to the Hotel and get a good night's sleep in order to make the most of my time on the Islands.
On the advice of Barbara, my Hawai'ian correspondent. I had rented a car while on the islands; apparently many of the best places are in difficult to reach, and the buses are rather temperamental. But I was in no mood to drive. With little sleep for three days, culminating in less than four hours last night, and coming off the back of a 12 hour flight (I can't sleep on 'planes) I was exhausted. Add to that the fact that a brief storm had just blown in, I didn't know where I was going *and* they'd given me an automatic car (I HATE driving automatics) it's a miracle that I got to the hotel at all. However, get there I did, and once I'd dumped my bag there was just enough time to get to Waikiki Beach, just around the corner from my hotel, to see the sun go down; if you look carefully, the black spot in the middle of the ocean is a Stand-up Paddle Surfer a newish version of the sport that is becoming more and more popular.
Such a nice way to end an exhausting day's travelling.
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