The Eagle Has Landed

I MADE IT!!

The flight over involved lots of snoozes, so I missed much of the widely varying ocean beneath the plane. Oh well, life goes on... it's been about 80 degrees since I arrived and it's been consistently overcast, which is gorgeous. Here's a photo I took from the plane window of Mauno Kea (where we'll be working)! Hopefully we'll be working at a high enough elevation that it won't be too cloudy, because I'm not looking forward to daily showers. But at the same time, the rain makes everything so beautiful. Hilo is SO GREEN. Everything is oozing with different shades of green and the flowers are at least 10x brighter than anything at Stanford. It's such a beach town, and all the houses have slightly faded paint jobs and the shingles are stained with salt. It's wonderful. I got a pink bike, some groceries, and found a nice little cafe that has free wi-fi since my apartment doesn't have it set up yet.

Hawaiian hospitality is so great! Devin, the graduate researcher, picked me up from the airport and babysat me as I struggled through Walmart, finding a microwave, dish rack, pots and pans, etc... for the apartment, then went grocery shopping. We stopped at a little restaurant to get burritos, and mine came with PAPAYA salsa. YES HAWAII!! Haha it was a little odd, and entirely delicious. I've set up a lot of the apartment and unpacked my stuff - I attached a photo of our kitchen. The apartment is so nice!! It's a new building, so no one's lived in in yet and the some of the chairs still have plastic wrap over the seats. None of my apartment-mates have arrived so it's a little lonely though. I loved living in a quad and having people around (although I will admit to enjoying the privacy for a brief period), so I'm looking forward to Jake, the other Stanford student, arriving on Monday.

I also found out that I'm going to learn to shoot a CROSS-BOW!!!! Because that's what we use for setting up bug traps. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! I will definitely include a picture as soon as I get one. I was getting into Devin's car and noticed my seat was occupied by a large spear-like contraption, which I will soon be master of. I am so excited!!

This weekend I plan on biking around Hilo and getting to know where stuff is. I have a rain jacket and a plastic bag for my computer, so hopefully I'll be prepared if it starts to downpour. Yesterday we were eating and then it was pouring outside, and then it stopped. Just like that. Yay tropical weather!

And with that, I leave you to venture to the great green yonder!