Roaches Can Fly!

Aloha..

Apparently cockroaches can fly! I had no idea, which makes me feel rather stupid because I think almost all of them have flying capabilities. One flew in while we were eating dinner last night. It flew right into this girls face. They are such lovely little critters.
I got to eat octopus! It had the little tentacle things still on it. It tasted like a kipper snack. I hope you know what a kipper snack is, here is Hawaii most people have no idea. All they do is boil the octopus and salt it. I also ate some raw fish. It was pretty good, it had some nuts and lots of soy sauce on it. I had some corned beef that was out of a can. We put ketchup on it. It didn’t taste bad, but it wasn’t really good either. We ate this cake for dessert called a chantilly cake. I hadn’t ever heard of it, but it’s a chocolate cake with a butter icing and macadamia nuts. It was tasty.
Last Saturday I went to a birthday party for my roommate’s friend. I was the only white person there, a most unusual experience for me. We swam in the ocean at a beach that is full of lava rocks. You can just walk on them, the water is really clear. I swam with big giant sea turtles!! I saw two of them while I was swimming. It was amazing to see them. There are a lot of places on this island where you can spot them. I got to eat a lot of Hawaiian food at the party. I hate some more raw fish, but wasn’t as good as last night. I ate lao lao, which is meat wrapped in a leaf and then steamed. I also tried a pasta salad with different fishes in it.
Last Sunday I went kayaking and sailing in the Hilo Bay. The school has these free trips you can go on during the weekends, and it was with them. We kayaked out to coconut island, which is just a small itty bitty island in the bay. I actually got a little sea sick while I was kayaking. I haven’t ever done that in a body of water full of so much movement. After kayaking the sailing club took us out on little sail boats. I hadn’t ever been sailing before so that was really neat!
I went to the Farmers Market again. They have the coolest fruits there, things I don’t even know how to go about eating. If you go later in the day there everyone will make you deals on everything. I also had my palm read and a short tarot card reading. That was rather fun. I wanted to buy all of the dresses and jewelry they had.
They have a zoo here in Hilo, but I haven’t been yet. The girls were telling me that they have a moose at the zoo! I have never heard of a moose being at the zoo, I just cant get over how funny that is. They don’t have any snakes here, which I enjoy very much. I was surprised to hear that. It is illegal to have them here. My roommate was showing me what plants are native and aliens here, and the majority of them are alien plants. I was shocked. They have the most beautiful flowers here. They have wild plumeria trees all over, the flowers smell so good! My roommate knows a lot about the land and the flowers. She grew up living off the land and her parents just recently got indoor plumbing!
I really like my classes. I actually have the same professor for two classes. The classes are so small, which is really nice. The professors all seem very qualified. My economics professor taught at Weber State for 8 years. Its funny what a small world it is. I don’t think my classes should be too hard this semester. Other than in my US-China relations class I have some issues understanding the professors thick Chinese accent. Im taking geology of the Hawaiian islands class, and I have never seen someone so passionate about rocks.
I don’t really have as many distractions here like I do at home, its strange. I forgot how much I love living on campus though. Not in the dorms they are crappy, but just being close to the campus is so fabulous. It only takes a few minutes to get to class! I can walk the entire campus here in 15-20 minutes. It takes that just between one class at the U or USU. I have little motivation so far to cook a lot. I think its because I don’t have any food to cook. I need go to the grocery store again, but shopping here is such a scary event because I must take out a loan in order to go…
I recently got a job! We will see how it works out though, but it is quite a funny story. This girl I met named Jessica and I were down at the farmers market and went into this ladies booth. We talked for a while and she told us she had seen us at the mall, which was somewhat creepy. Jessica said something about not really having any money to buy anything and the next thing you know the lady asks us if we want a job. On Saturday we went down to the market and worked with her. She is the funniest lady. She is from Tonga, laughs all the time and really loud, and tells dirty jokes. The work wasn’t too bad at all, we just help set up and take down and run the booth, after she pays us in cash. This next weekend she has a booth in front of Wal-Mart and so we will be helping her Friday thru Sunday. I don’t know how consistent it will be yet, but so far it seems to be working out rather well.
We met some people at the Farmer’s Market that we ended up hanging out with Saturday night. They told us there was a rodeo in Waimea (which is on the other side of the Island). The drive to Waimea was so gorgeous! Waimea is amazing also. It was so green, it reminded me a lot of being at home in small towns in Utah. The rodeo was really good; they had events I hadn’t ever seen. They call the cowboys here paniolos. It is still weird to me they have them here in Hawaii. They had the biggest meanest bulls Id ever seen. The farm animals are really big and fat here. After the rodeo we went to this cute restaurant in town that a guy we met the night before plays the ukulele at in a Hawaiian band. It was like Hawaiian bluegrass music. It was really fun and the music was great. We went to this beach afterwards called “69’s,” and watched the sunset while swimming in the ocean. You can see every star in the sky over there because it’s not cloudy all the time like it is here. A guy who was us told me the reason that Hawaii has so many pregnancies is because “every night is a perfect night.” I thought that was super funny. The beach we were at has celebrities come and stay at it all the time. We saw schools of fish jump and apparently we had turtles swimming with us, but I didn’t see them.
I must be adjusting to this warm weather because I am a little cold tonight! I better get to bed. I miss and love you all. I’m sorry this e-mail is so long. I kept adding to it! :)

In Peace, Olivia