Photo Friday

It's been so long since I've posted a 'Photo Friday' that I thought I should start that up again.  I already have a folder full of photos to post too - eventually this folder will hold some Hawaii pictures too.  :-)

Paris - April 2011

Konnichiwa!

Watakushi wa Stephanie desu.  So far that's the extent of my knowledge for sentence structure.  Yes, I'm taking Japanese 101 this semester among several other classes.  (Don't judge me, we're only in the first week of school.  We're still learning the hiragana.)

Anyways, I bet you thought I'd start the post with Aloha!

I can't believe there's only been one update since I've moved (well, actually I can because I'm a horrible blogger!)  So I thought I should rectify that.

School started this week and I'm getting into the groove of things.  I really like my classes.  Statistics... oh statistics.  I've heard horror stories of this class.  It's a frustrating class and I've only had two.  I feel like I'm understanding it but then I'll do horrible on the exercises.  Then a little bit later I feel like I'm understanding it and I'll do great on the exercises.  So some of it I'm getting and some of it I'm not but both times I feel like I have it.  I know I should be too hard on myself because it's only been two classes but it concerns me....  I figured if this keeps up I'll just make use of the math tutors that are on campus.

The clubs were out today displaying their might... there's a lot of clubs here.  I joined the Japanese club (I figured it'll help me with my class, right?  More chances to talk Japanese) and the Photography Club.

But you don't want to hear about all this, right?  You want to read and see the fun stuff!  Well I do have somethings to share.

Last week was New Student Orientation, the first part of the orientation is stuff like: take a campus tour, get an id, learn of the services, get a TB test, etc - you know the 'not too exciting' stuff.  The last two days had the fun!

We went to the PCC Friday afternoon and then after a big dinner on campus we returned for the night show:

Toured a few of the villages and tried our hand at the games.  Angela and I were pretty good with the stick game in New Zealand.  (I can't remember the traditional village name... Aeterro??)

We got some tattoos while we were there.  Cara and Angela are sporting New Zealand traditional tats, while Amanda and I have Fijian tats.  Mine represents a princess.   The photo was taken by our "cousin" Carlos (we're one big ohana here!)

The next day we did the Circle Island Tour.  I've done several tours before so I'm excited for an air conditioned bus because dang it's humid here!  Nope, we were in School Buses.  Yellow school buses with no air conditioning.  I felt like I was on a field trip - it was great!  We went to great places like Pali Lookout, Pearl Harbor, the Honolulu Swap Meet, Walmart... yes you read that correctly we went to Walmart.  We live out in the country people and Foodland isn't very cheap. :-)

Pali Lookout (I'm sure if you've visited Oahu before you've gone here.)  If not, this is the spot of the battle between King Kamehameha and other warriors.  King Kamehameha was working on uniting the islands and during this battle several hundred opposing warriors were forced off the cliff.  Well, that's the cliff notes version (ha! pun was not intended.)

Our next stop was to Pearl Harbor.  I've been here once before and it still brought a few tears to my eyes during that video.  You know, 9/11 is burned into my brain like it was yesterday, I bet it was like that with the survivors of Pearl Harbor.  (sailors and civilian survivors)

For those that have not been to Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona is leaking oil and has been for the past 71 years.  A little black bubble escapes her hull and floats to the surface where it turns into the rainbow effect of oil on water.  You can stand there and look over the side and see it happen several times.

After our stop at Walmart to buy supplies we headed toward the North Shore on our way back home - which included a stop at Matsumoto Shave Ice.  That was delicious!!

Remind me not to make this sucking face again for pictures.

I'll end this post with some fun pictures taken by the ever talented Angela:

I'm sure I'll be back with more stuff... soon... or eventually :-)  I'll try really hard to be a good blogger.

Photo Friday

The Louvre, Paris, April 2011

It's about freaking time 9c of 9

My last morning in Iceland was hilarious!  I went to the Blue Lagoon, which was amazing, BUT the weather was no longer the sunny day.  It was raining and soooooo windy.  But I, with everyone else there, didn't care and still enjoyed the geothermal spa.

I decided to splurge a little bit at the spa and upgraded. I had my own little locker room...

And an indoor entrance to the spa, which was very nice because....

...outside was like this.  The worker is in full rain gear and the patrons of the spa are in bathing suits.

It's about freaking time 9b of 9

This was a long day but a great one.  Went on a whale watching tour, which I was super excited for because I dream of seeing Humpback whales frolicking in the ocean.  The day was beautiful!

Besides beautiful landscapes and a beautiful day I saw a whole lot of nuthin when it came to the whales.

And then we were off on a tour of the Golden Circle...

Look, Icelandic horses.

We stopped off at Thingvellir.  Parliament was established here in 930 AD and there's another reason that this place is interesting...

As the tour guide put it 'we were in no-man's land.'  Why?  On the left is the North American plate and on the right is the Eurasian plate.

This is the Gullfoss and it's amazing!  Beware the spray will still get you wet :-)

Then off to an area full of hot springs and geysers. 

Strokkur often shoots up, once it's done the hole fills in again and you wait for the next time.

Sometimes it's small.....

Sometimes it's HUGE

This area is covered with hot springs....

I was walking the path and hearing water boiling.  They're not kidding, this stuff is hot!

We also stopped off at Kerid, which is a big hole left by a volcano.

We also drove through a small community that has to build double basements (or something like that) to protect the house from hot springs.  See this hole that's fenced off?  That used to be someone's house.  He woke up one morning and it was really hot for some reason.  A hot spring formed under his sofa.

To be continued.... my last morning in Iceland.