An eventful few days...

Well, I'm in Hawaii at the time of writing this, but my trip here was not without adventure. The drama began when I arrived at Edinburgh airport at 4 am on Friday morning. When I got to the check-in desk, I discovered that I didn't have the right visa for entry to the U.S. Then began a race against the clock to get the visa in time to be allowed to board the flight. I did get the visa in the end (but not before being diverted by one of those scam websites that takes money from your credit card and acts as an intermediary in the visa process. They sent me a second visa after I had already arrived in the United States.) In the end, I missed my flight to Amsterdam, and the airline re-routed me via Paris, where I had rather a long wait, and had to phone back to the UK to cancel my credit card.

The flights themselves were pleasant and uneventful, but the re-routing meant that I had less than an hour's transfer time in Seattle - barely enough time to go through immigration and customs, and re-check my suitcase for the onward flight to Hawaii. I arrived in Kona late that evening, only to discover that my suitcase hadn't made it, and would only arrive the next day. Two days later, I was still waiting for the airline to deliver my suitcase. Despite the fact that they told me it had arrived on Sunday morning, it seemed unusually difficult for them to work out the delivery. I got rather tired of spending my evenings indoors, sitting up beyond midnight and waiting for the suitcase to arrive. And I had to make my way to Walmart to buy pyjamas, underwear, toothbrush and other essential items in the meantime.

After numerous phone calls with the airline, my case was finally delivered to me just a couple of hours ago!! Just in time for me to drop it off with friends, before I head across to spend two days on the other side of the island.

Although a lot of my time in Kona was wasted shopping for clothing and waiting around for the case to be delivered, I still managed to find time to take a pleasant walk along the beach and ride all around the town in the (one and only) trolley bus - the only public transport in the town. It gave me a good idea of what the place is like, and I'll be coming back here again for our KKI leadership meetings that begin on Thursday.

Over the next two days, however,  I'll be heading right across to the other side of the island to visit the town of Hilo. If you look at the map above, you'll see Kailua Kona on the west side of the island, and Hilo on the east. It's a long and meandering bus journey between the two. I'll catch the bus at 6.30  tomorrow morning, and only arrive in Hilo around 10 o'clock. But they say it's a cultural experience to take the commuter bus :-) and a good way to see the inland areas of the island. I'll sleep two nights in Hilo, and then make the same bus journey back to Kona again on Thursday morning. I'm trusting that my days in Hilo will be relaxing and less eventful than the past four days have been.

That's all from me for now. I'll post more news when I can.