Honolulu

For the month of March I have been flying mostly Honolulu.  I held turns to Cozumel but realized after the fact that the only reason I held them was because it was spring break and no one wants to haul the vacationers down to Mexico.  I was successful in trading them all for other things with the exception of one which I did last week.  It was mostly drama free except for a passenger who got argumentative with me when I told her that she could not sit in a row of three with two other people plus her two infant twins since there is only 4 oxygen masks in case of a decompression.  She seemed more concerned about the inconvenience of moving than the well being of her children.

But I digress.... anyway, I traded for several Hawaii trips.  Not really anything out of the ordinary. We did have some of the "simplest" people on the first trip, including a woman who complained that her cell phone did not work at 35K feet over the Pacific Ocean, another who wanted to know what the currency exchange rate was for Hawaiian money (seriously?!?!) and yet another who wanted us to call the police on a teenager sitting behind her who kept kicking her seat.

My most recent trip was fun because my friend Bobby was on it with me.  He's been on leave for most of the last year so I had not had a chance to fly with him recently.  He was on my Tampa trip a few years back where we spent the day in Sarasota.

(http://ronno1976.blogspot.com/2009/03/strolling-down-memory-lane.html)

I had a pretty decent room this last trip with a view of the atrium area and an ocean view.  Normally I do not see this much water!

Almost the entire crew went to Top of Waikiki.  Given my dry spell, the bartender Jeff took pity on me and created a special "mocktail" just for me.  It was a combination of guava and cranberry juice with fresh mint and lime.  It was pretty refreshing.

Afterwards I switched to non-alcoholic German beer, which was actually pretty good!

My appetizer consisted of Kalbi, which are little sliders made of braised beef with bock choy.

Of course everyone else was drinking adult beverages.  Jeff the bartender even made a drink in honor of our FO J.J.  We appropriately dubbed it the "Flying J.J."!

Kevin enjoyed a dirty martini.  When asked how dirty he wanted it, he replied "Cristina Aquillera dirty" so you can see how much more cloudy it was compared to Karla's.

We had great views from the rotating restaurant.  The pink building is the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, which was the first resort on the island, and a favorite spot with Teddy Roosevelt.

Bobby and I broke with the group at the end of happy hour and went to Siam Square for Thai food.  On the way back we stopped at a Ukelele store.  They were pretty pricey.  The "tenor" that Bobby is holding priced out at about $380! (But it came with a free carrying case).

The next morning we went to Eggs n'Things.  It' a pretty famous breakfast spot, but I had never  eaten there before.  We only had to wait about 20 minutes, which is pretty good, as the lines can get pretty long.

I ordered the pancakes, eggs, and corned beef hash.  Nothing like a big breakfast to start the day.

Bobby's inner tourist kept coming out during our morning walk.

I was dragged into a Baptist church for Sunday morning services.  I figured I owed it to Bobby since I have dragged him to my traditional church services.  This was a contemporary service with a Praise team and rock music.  Songs consisted of three verses sung five times.  Lots of hands in the air and lots of "Amens" during the sermon.