today at four seconds past three minutes past two a.m., the time/date was 02:03:04 05/06/07. I didn’t wake up to experience this once in a century event, but it definitely is worth taking note of.
It was sort of an odd day today. The library was unusually quiet. It’s the day before port and the last day of classes. The Global Studies exam was this morning. Normally the day before port, there is heavy traffic in travel guides, but not so this time. Either folks already know what they are doing in Hawaii or they are not doing much. We’re only there for the day, anyway. Mostly what I’ve heard is that the students who were jealous of their friends’ sky-diving adventures in South Africa are planning to sky-dive in Hawaii. And lots of people are counting the hours to the return to U.S. cell phone service so that can talk to friends/family at the cost of normal minutes. And then there’s the beach. I have a morning trip planned to Pearl Harbor (I’m a trip leader) and my afternoon is free. I’d like to walk along the beach also. My original plan was to mail some packages home, but they are not letting us take anything off the ship. We’ll be going through immigration in Hawaii, but not Customs. So, we’re not allowed to take any more off the ship than we need for our one day stop in Hawaii. No boxes and no large backpacks. And no food, except for sealed bottled water. That news put a damper in a lot of people’s plans. I would like to find a UPS store, or even a CVS, for a few packing supplies. I have tape, but no markers. Robin has bubble wrap. I currently have 2 boxes and was going to pack them tonight so that I had a sense of whether I needed to buy more, but it’s a busy night. Don’t know that I’ll get that done. Plus, I’m really hoping I don’t need more than 2 boxes …
We’re told immigration is going to start at 6:00 am tomorrow. They’ll wake us up for face-to-face meetings with the immigration officers and we’ll get our passports back and our immunization cards back and then we hold on to them for the duration. We’ll officially be back in the United States. I’d like to get up early to watch us dock, but that’ll be REALLY early tomorrow and we lose another hour of sleep tonight. I don’t know that I can make that happen. I’ll get up for San Diego.
I’ve gotta say, I’m kind of looking forward to understanding the money without having to do math, I’m looking forward to easily finding an ATM, and I’m looking forward to being able to read the signage. I’m also looking forward to -- in principle -- finding toilet paper in the ladies room. And, even though it was very interesting to read other countries’ impressions of the U.S., I’d like to get my hands on an American newspaper. It should be a nice day.
