Last Week In Maui

I really like Maui Sunset Resort. It’s a super functional complex with a gym, tennis courts, BBQs, shuffle board, book exchange, and of course the pool. The grounds are impeccably maintained to the point that the lawn looks fake. One review online even complained that for such a nice place, the least they could do is put in real grass! The housekeeping staff is lovely. The only downside is the office staff. Both ladies we met were abrupt and dismissive… they clearly did not hire them for their public relations skills.

A lot of the owners are here on extensive vacations or they live here permanently. One lady moved here forty years ago with her husband. She just moved out recently after her 100^th birthday. She had a room on the ground floor with doors that opened to the lawn. As she became disabled, the groundskeepers would open her sliding glass doors every morning to allow visitors and at night they’d come by and close everything up for her. I wish we could’ve met her.

In case you didn’t know it, chickens have taken over Maui. Not just your average chickens either. These are big, little, lean, fluffy, black, brown, and bright multi-colored. There’s one particular family of a mom and three teenage chicks who come running as soon as they see Izzy. It’s adorable how much it seems as though they want to greet her.

Joe and Izzy took surfing lessons. I took so many pictures it was hard to decide which one to show here, but for some reason I liked this crosswalk pic the best. They were out there on the little baby waves for a couple of hours.

While they were surfing, Bill and I went to an outdoor market called Kihei Kalama Village. The little shops were pretty basic, but the grounds were gorgeous. I loved all the trees integrated into the mall. They also have plenty of restaurants there and a cat named Tommy Kalama.

At the top of the list of cool things we did was wine tasting. Maui Wine, formerly Tedeschi Winery, is up-country on HWY 37. It’s across the road from the Ulupalakua Ranch. Ulupalakua has a little general store with western-wear and gifts, plus a deli and a BBQ outside where they cook up burgers. The wine was very good. Surprisingly, I liked the pineapple wine enough to buy a bottle. I also liked the Syrah and the Malbec. I’m sitting here now sipping from a glass of the Syrah Joe bought us. The drive was beautiful and very high up the mountainside, so you can get some great views out to sea.

We went snorkeling this morning near our place and it wasn’t a good sight for snorkelers. It was a good place for turtles though. The entire time we were out there (maybe half an hour) we never went deeper than a couple of feet. With choppy water and a surf, it was always a concern to stay off the reef. It was also murky, so it was a surprise when suddenly you’d be literally on top of a giant turtle. I was so worried about hitting one or cutting up my knees on the reef that I got out of the water.

We’re on our fifth puzzle now. I brought two and we did those way too fast. Then we found one down at the book exchange. We finished that one and found one here in one of the cupboards. Out of desperate addiction we went to Ross and bought another puzzle of a turtle in the sea. 

Speaking of turtles, we returned to the VFW Beach to watch the turtles come out for the night. This time there was a large group of people there watching… mostly volunteers from a church from the mainland. They had Lahaina-relief shirts on.

Izzy and I have tried to get a few days of writing in. One day we decided to go to Kalama Park. It’s a large park with all kinds of sports areas and a massive tented play-structure. We found a picnic table under a giant tree and settled in for some peaceful writing. Before the guys took off Joe had to try out the swing-set.

The first event to make us realize that we’d made a poor choice of parks was the guy in a wheelchair trying to maneuver across the grass while singing “I shot the sheriff” at the top of his lungs. That sort of drowned out the family singing and playing the ukulele. Next came the group of guys and their ice chests of food and baggies of weed. We were beginning to be concerned about getting a serious contact high. Then another guy showed up with a dog who barked like it wanted to kill the dog with the stoners. Surprisingly the stoners let their dog run free. It came straight to the aggressive barking dog. I hate that feeling of impending doom at the prospect of a dog fight. But shockingly the barker cowered and whined when the stoner’s dog reached him… it turns out that it was a mother and son who were meeting for the first time since being weened.

Then a sweet dad loaded up his two daughters onto the swings and commenced pushing them to shouts of “higher!” He obeyed until the younger one went flying through the air and landed on her back. There was a moment of tense silence until she breathed and then cried. Dad scooped her up and they went home. Then came the digging chickens. These little guys dig like a dog—dirt was flying as they worked to get that elusive worm. Finally came the guy who laid out a towel on the grass and proceeded to lay in every possible way like a contortionist… seriously, he looked like a living pretzel. We didn’t get much writing done.

One of the most exciting things to rattle our nerves was on Sunday when our waitress wrote the date on our left-overs container—the 5^th. That sparked a discussion. We all thought it was the 4^th, because we were leaving on Wednesday the 7^th. All of our cell phones came out at once to confirm that she was right and we were leaving on Tuesday the 7^th not Wednesday the 7^th. I can just picture us all lounging around the pool watching the plane fly over and saying, “Those poor saps are going home now, but not us… we don’t have to leave until Wednesday.” What a mess that would’ve been :)

We went to Chang’s Beach again for some snorkeling yesterday. It was pretty rough, but we did it anyway. It was kinda cute when a turtle swam up to me and watched me put my fins on. It was maybe six inches away from my legs. It even came up to look at me with those ancient eyes.

Last night we went out to dinner one last time to the Maui Brewing Company. That’s a really fun place. It started out with a vicious game of foosball. Izzy and Joe tied 7/7, which led to a heated discussion of who would’ve won if they hadn’t called us to our table.

They usually have a one-man band there, which is nice. I have to say, it’s a little humiliating to order food there because their ordering system is all done through your phone. We didn’t even try the first time, but we decided to try it last night. What a fiasco! No matter what any of us tried we couldn’t get our orders on the same bill. Our sweet waitress, Emily, took pity on us and got our order the old-fashioned way. It really kind-of puts a damper on the mood when everyone is looking at their phones and then getting frustrated. Of course, no one else seemed to be struggling with it.

Well, thanks for going on vacation with us (Izzy's doodles chronicling our vacation). I need to finish packing now.

First Week in Maui

We had an uneventful arrival to Maui. Several of our friends have had airport disasters lately, so I was a little worried. I mean I don’t usually borrow trouble from others, but it was still in the back of my mind. Our only hiccup was waiting forever for the long-term-parking shuttle to swing by and give us a ride to the terminal (it turns out they are short-staffed). But we made the flight. Hawaiian Air’s version of a meal left much to be desired… a box of vending-machine food. As you know, I travel with food because I prefer to eat whole food, but Izzy appreciated the gluten free cookies. Joe and Bill will eat anything.

We had a car rental set up where the owner met us at the airport with a Toyota Highlander and turned the keys over to us. Unfortunately, we had a five hour wait for check in to the condo (Maui Sunset). Not a problem. Right by Costco in Kahului is a lot full of food trucks. We ate at the Mexican truck and it was beyond delicious. Then we walked next door to the Marriott to partake of adult beverages by the pool. Then we headed over to Costco to get set up for the two weeks, and then to Safeway in Kihei for the smaller stuff. And then a little miracle occurred. The condo texted me to say our room was ready two hours early… Yes!

Miracle number two is they upgraded us to possibly the nicest condo in the complex. Seriously, we’re on the fourth-floor overlooking the massive lawn, pool and more importantly, the ocean. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Joe and I got the king en-suite, Bill got the queen bedroom, and Izzy got the Murphy bed in the front room (sucks to be the youngest, right).

Today started off on the wrong foot. Joe snuck past Izzy and made a pot of coffee in the fancy machine that made lots of noise, but no coffee. All of us took turns trouble-shooting it to no avail. I had given up right away and pulled out our pour-over and made Joe a cup of coffee to tame the beast. All of this woke up Izzy, so she put all her years of higher-education to good use and searched all the cupboards and found a second coffee maker. This one makes coffee not noise… Izzy is currently our hero and may usurp Bill for the queen-sized bed.

Bill and Joe are at the gym now and Izzy went for a run. The designated lap-swimming in the pool opens from 8:00-9:00, so I will head down there now… Okay, I went to swim laps, sort-of. It was the busiest I’ve seen the pool! Mostly dog-paddlers, but I managed to carve out an imaginary lane and got in a few laps. Kind of a bummer that they don’t allow fins—those work as a floaty for me when I’m just working arms and they give me a great leg work-out. Oh well… I got a 30-minute swim in. (post-script; I saw someone swimming laps with fins, so I tried it and no one kicked me out of the pool.)

Izzy discovered the herb garden. That meant she made a gourmet breakfast for us. A win-win. I’m thinking it will elevate one of our dinners soon.

Now I’m sitting in one of those funky cafes that sell expensive pastries and coffee. We, Izzy and I, chose it for its atmosphere, but this is a pretty good cup of iced coffee. We walked from Maui Sunset down a back street and discovered a flea-market. Of course we had to wander through it. We stressed Bill and Joe with our divide and conquer technique. Joe assigned Izzy to Bill and followed me. The guys dropped us here and went in search of beer.

Following tradition, Izzy made chocolate chip cookies for Joe's birthday. She brought the ingredients from home, so we didn't have to buy a bag of flour. The guys really enjoyed that! Her and I have been indulging in wine as our treat, so we're all happy.

Yesterday was an adventure. We found Chang’s Beach, which is famous for its turtles. We geared up with our snorkel stuff and headed to the south end of the beach. The day before we’d attempted to snorkel in front of Sugar Beach resort, but it was too rough and silty. Yesterday was great. Within ten minutes we found turtles. There’s something incredibly ancient and wise about a turtle… they’re up there with elephants. Unfortunately we got too close to the shore and the coral. It was an extremely tense moment for us as we fought our way out of the trap—it felt like being in the agitator cycle in a washer (which is probably why they call it “being Maytagged”). I got out unscathed, but Bill got a little cut on his hand and Izzy scrapped her legs. Joe watched from safety. It was honestly an every-man-for-himself situation. After that, looking at the reef and fish seemed so tame in comparison.

We came back to the condo and vegged for the rest of the day. Izzy and I finished a puzzle. Then we walked to the Fourth-Friday street fair in Kihei. That was a blast. They had a band, tons of tables of crafts, and food trucks. Dogs are a big thing here, but one dog really stood out. It was a robot dog. I tried to get a picture but it didn’t turn out good.

It’s a full moon right now. The sunsets here are amazing, but even more magical was the sunrise this morning with the full moon on the opposite horizon over the ocean. You may be wondering how Heidi could possibly see a sunrise, but you forget Hawaii is three hours ahead of California. Sleeping in until 5:30 is 8:30 at home.

This resort has a great hot tub by the pool. Last night, after wandering around the street fair, we went down to soak our sore muscles from our near-death experience on the reef. A pleasant man struck up a conversation. He’s here on contract with the Coast Guard. They are working to clear the harbor of all of the boats destroyed by the recent hurricane and fire. I never thought of that. He said the close-up boats completely burned, but the ones further out were destroyed by the hurricane—apparently their ties were burnt and that set them free. They caught fire also but being tossed at sea the fires were put out. Anyway, there’s a lot of sunken boats out there. The most surprising problem to me was a tour-submarine. It was moored and its battery compartment was exposed because they were charging the batteries over night. The submarine was torn free and rolled out over the reef and now it sits at the bottom with those batteries flooded by sea water. The guy was saying that it was going to be tricky getting it out because of the toxic battery-acid. He’s thinking they’ll suction the water in that compartment out to a container, and then they’ll chemically neutralize it. Isn’t that interesting? He said we could drive through Lahaina, but I don’t want to… I think it would break my heart.

We ended up driving around Lahaina… past a sign that says “Lahaina is not for sale.” Not sure what that’s all about, but I can imagine there’s a lot of raw emotions in Lahaina. I thought the flags at half-mast was heart-wrenching. We went to a snorkel beach, Kahekili Beach. Really worth it to snorkel there. It’s a huge flat coral reef with hundreds of different species of fish and turtles.

Then we went to Round Table Pizza in Kaanapali. The reason we went there is because after the fire, the owners—Christiane and David Mello, started giving out free pizza to the fire victims… and they still do. While we were in there ordering there was a separate line for ‘Fire Victims’. A man and his wife were holding a pizza and trying to understand why they didn’t have to pay. It was endearing to say the least.

Bill struck up a conversation with some lady about turtle sightings. She gave him directions to a nocturnal resting beach for the Arribada (arrival by sea of turtles). So right before sunset we walked five minutes from our place to the beach by the VFW in Kihei and settled in to wait. It turns out there’s a serious etiquette regarding the arribada. First of all, I think you’re supposed to be quiet. Secondly, do NOT go closer than 15 fifteen feet to the turtle. Apparently it’s against the law to get closer. I know all this because one of the regulars sitting in her lawn chair in anticipation of the blessed event came unglued when an elderly lady, who happened to be walking by, stopped to take a few photos. The regular was clearly not a humanitarian along with being a turtle lover because she humiliated this little old lady. I think it would’ve been simple enough to have gently told the lady—such inexcusable behavior! But, we got to see about twenty turtles come in for the night.

Joe and I had a lunch date today. He took me back to Kaanapali to the Duke’s Beach House Maui. Duke is a famous Hawaiian swimmer and surfer from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. He won four Olympic gold medals in swimming and essentially made surfing popular in California.

So we’ve been here one week today. We’ll see what next week brings.

From Portugal to California

It's starting to rain. I'm under a giant umbrella at the park watching an ancient man go down the street with a box on his head—ingenious. The lady who runs this kiosk is staring at all of us to make sure we don't move her tables. That's forbidden. So everybody has to stand under my umbrella while their table gets wet. She's quite militant about it. That's why I pick this table. It's one of the few that's completely under an umbrella.

We'll be home by the time I post this blog. I may have some additional adventures to relate by then. One thing I've been meaning to explain to you, in general, is how my blog works. Many, many years ago I wrote an email to family when we were on one of our adventures. I'd hunt down a cyber-café and write a quick run-down. To save time, I learned to make a group email. The group grew. A-liu, my friend visiting from Taiwan sat me down and forced me to create a blog. 

So here's the part which will be interesting to those of my more conspiratorial readers; I only have four followers according to Google. That's because I own the list of my followers. If I decide to close this blog address, no problem. I take you with me. For this reason, I don't have a good relationship with Google. 

It drives them crazy that my blog gets so many views without going through them first—because your route is direct. It made them so mad they suspended my advertisement-income account every time I traveled because I'm cheating their system. That's why you don't see adds on my blog… I canceled my add account. I don't make any money from my blog, and I don't want to. But I do make money from my books which are located on the right side of this page.

Fashion is always of interest to me. This visit has been the rubber pants. I have no idea what these britches are made of, but they look like thin flexible rubber. All ages of women wear them and they don't look good on any of them. The younger girls wear the crop tops, crop sweaters, and crop jackets. Wearing a down jacket that bares the stomach seems counter-productive to me. Another fashion statement is the big huge shoes. We call them Frankenstein boots. A girl could have a slimming and dainty outfit on and then those shoes! But I can't skip the nylons—they wear nylons here… all types of designs, but lots of nude color. I haven't seen that since the 80s.

Most men wear fitted jeans/pants or nice sweats. Levi jackets are popular here, and the Levi pants are really expensive—around 100-150 dollars! So are Converse shoes… really expensive. The cheapest pair I've seen was $95, except the used ones at the flea-market.

The weird colored hair is popular here. Not as much as in the States, but definitely here. The difference is colors are much, much more intense. No soft hued green here. The one that really strikes me though, is the beards. Guys die their beards orange, green, and blue… though, honestly those guys look like northern European tourists.

They have an unusual sport here. Something we've never seen before. It's called futvolley. It can be played anywhere, but usually on the beach. A volleyball net is set up and the teams are placed in the volleyball format. The difference is they don't touch the ball with their hands! Seriously, it's only heads, shoulders, and feet. It looks like an incredibly hard sport to me… but I can't play either soccer/futball or volleyball, so I'm easily impressed.

Those of you who know me are aware that I can deliver the "Mom look." It comes naturally to me with no practice at all. Izzy says it's terrifying. I used it in Sweden when a guy was provoking Joe (like provoking a grizzly-bear). The man instantly backed down. Well, I got to use it the other day at the grocery store. Grocery stores are set up with an inside entrance gate and the registers as the exit. A guy was walking with shampoo and lotion containers toward the entrance gate. I stopped what I was doing and watched. He looked furtive as he crept through the veggie section. He passed through the entrance gate and kept his eye on the oblivious security guard. Then he opened his jacket and covered up his loot. I stared hard at him. He must have felt my eyes from fifty feet away. He looked at me and froze. We maintained eye-contact for a few seconds and then he turned around and went back through the veggie section. I watched him until he put the shampoo and lotion back and left. See… I have a super power! Of course, that wouldn't have worked in California. The guy would've just stared back at me as he walked out.

We're home now. The eleven and a half flight with an additional forty-five minutes at each end for some airport issues, was awful, as usual. We've decided that the Airbus is our least favorite airplane. Mainly because the light-switch is out of reach, so you have to stand up to flip it on or off. But worse than that is there's no discernable flow of air. There are no little vents above you. The upside is I don't feel so dried out. The downside is I have to fan myself with the safety pamphlet constantly.

I hate to throw a company under the bus, but Tap Air does a terrible job. The service and food are simply deplorable. In the entire flight they came by with a cheap lunch and seven hour later, a snack tray. Twice they came by and offered water… twice in thirteen hours. I always feel like I'm in survival training in the Army. Thankfully we learned from our first flight last year and we bring our own food. For someone like me, who doesn't normally eat any grain-based food, I have to be creative. I bought two ham and cheese sandwiches and threw away the bread.

It's nice to be in my own home. Picking out what to wear this morning was difficult. I'm not used to so many choices. The biggest shock, of course, is sticker-shock. It's amazing how expensive everything is in the States, expect gas which is the same if not less. Food and drink are the ones that hit us in the face all day, every day. While waiting for our flight from San Francisco, we ate at the airport. We split a hamburger, I had a glass of wine, Joe had two beers for $92.03.  I chose a comparison restaurant in Cascais. This is the most expensive community we visited in Portugal. It is similar to Carmel-By-The-Sea in California. We were one street away from the oceanfront at an elegant restaurant. We split a hamburger, I had a glass of wine, and Joe had two stout beers for 19.00 Euros (about $20.00). Even if you say it would be double at the airport in Lisbon, that's still only $40. By the way, their airport is only slightly more expensive than the outside prices. A ham and cheese sandwich was only 4.40 Euros.

Well, I'll talk to you next time we all go on a trip together.

Lisbon Surprises

Our time is drawing to a close. Our stay with Martinho and Antonio has turned into a competition of making dinners, opening good wine, and being clean and tidy. They will remain our friends when we move here. The other night they had a friend come over from London. Sadly, his father passed away here in Lisbon, and he just needed to be with friends… lucky for us he's also a chef in London. He didn't cook dinner, but the meal they purchased was definitely gourmet. We were flattered to be part of it. A week later another friend came for dinner. This was his first time to come to their house because they never have company when they have paying guests. Again, we were flattered to be part of it all.

Another benefit to meeting the second guy was he referred us to his attorney who handled his visa process. We have an appointment tomorrow. I think it will be about $180 each for getting our NIF (like a social security card), opening a bank account, and I don't know how much for setting up the documentation to get a D7 visa for retirees. We walked to his office today to see how long it would take. It's a really, really fancy office with a receptionist for the building. She used a swipe card to let us into the elevator area, then she entered the floor. The doors slid shut and we went straight to the fifth floor… no way to sneak off the elevator at a different floor.

Afterward lunch, I googled rooftop bars in Lisbon and we hunted one down using my Portugal Map app. I would NEVER have found this place! It is possibly the most eccentric hotel and bar I've ever been in.

When we left the bar to go home, everybody else also left their respective bars to go home. The soccer game was over. The metro was packed beyond belief. I actually refused to get on the first one because the people getting on were too rowdy for me. The next one was equally packed but calm. I had people calmly pressing into me from four sides. I wanted to get a picture of all the hands holding the pole in the middle, but I didn't want to seem weird, so I snuck this one of our feet.

I'm looking back on the impressions from the last two months and some things sort of stand out. Church is one of them. Riverside International Church has been a blessing for us. The pastor just did a sermon series on the book of Ruth. You may wonder why that would be impactful, but you have to understand the audience—95% immigrants. So, to recap; Naomi immigrated from Bethlehem to Moab (an enemy country) with the hubby and sons. Hubby and sons died, leaving Naomi with three daughter's-in-laws. Naomi decided to go back home to Bethlehem. The three girls decided to go with her, but Naomi refused to let them, but Ruth stood her ground and said, "where you go, I go." So now Ruth is the immigrant in a foreign land. She gave up everything to go to certain poverty and struggle in a culture who didn't like her people. As I looked around, I saw many tears being wiped away by people with the same struggle.

There're times when I feel like an outsider. Especially at the pool. All those elderly Portuguese water-aerobic ladies don't feel comfortable around me. They see me as a white lady who can't speak Portuguese… true, but still, it's awkward. The other day a woman got pissed because my Portuguese is terrible, so I switched to English. She waved a hand and said, "No, no English!" I told her I was trying to learn Portuguese in my limited range of words and she immediately softened. She slowed down and really tried to help me understand her. It was a major achievement for me. When I left the pool, the receptionist gave me a daisy to celebrate International Woman's Day.

Things surprise me sometimes. The other day I was walking along at a train depot and some teens rushed me from behind. I spun around—on guard! He just wanted tell me that my backpack was unzipped. Lol… that cracked me up. Then I was at a café and a lady poured her sprite into her glass of red wine. I'm at a loss for words. Then this one surprises me over and over again… the dude zipping past me on roller-skates wearing a bright one-piece pink leotard with his waist-length blonde wig flowing down his back. That's enough to get my attention, but the fact that he stops to randomly dance or climb a statue and make humping motions on it… well it just surprises me every time. A couple of weeks ago we went to Setubal on the train. We went to our train's sales window, but it was closed. We went to their competition's window and he said, "Just get on their train and pay for it when you arrive." I thought this idea seemed like something people would abuse. I was even more surprised when we arrived at Setubal and tried to pay, but again the window was closed. I asked the next window over and with a little wave of his hand in the air, he said, "Just go enjoy your vacation." I was in conflict for about five minutes, then I got over it and took his advice.

Here's another one I can't seem to get used to—being electrocuted by the converter. In case you didn't know, the electricity is different in different countries. Our hair dryers will self-destruct if you plug them into an outlet in Europe. Take it from me. So the converter converts the electricity to match your device. Oddly enough after you unplug the converter and touch the two prongs simultaneously, you will say a cuss word and fling it across the room. I hear that's a universal response. (Almost all new electronic equipment like laptops and cell phones have converters built into their chargers. Research it first.)

My table here in Alameda Park keeps wobbling. Joe surprised me by pulling out a wine-cork he'd cut into a wedge. He stuck it under one table leg and problem solved! He's so smart. Today was busy. First we went swimming, then rushed back to our place to change and drop off our gear. Then we walked 30 minutes to the attorney's office for a 1:30 appointment. We were starving, so we actually ate at Burger King first!! It's been a good fifteen years since I've eaten there and it tasted exactly the same. Our purpose was to hire the attorney to get us a tax ID number (NIF) and to open a bank account for us. Another surprise was it was $850 instead of $360. I suppose we could've done it without him, but it's pretty complicated… especially from the US. Then we went to a kiosk and discussed our plan-of-action over a beer and a glass of wine. Then we hustled home to drop off our documents and now we're at the park so I can write. The attorney told us that we have to have a six month lease prior to filing for a D7 visa. I can't quite wrap my mind around how that'll work.

We've got the house to ourselves this weekend, so the party's at our pad! Hah… more likely we'll make chili and hotdogs and watch Hercule Poirot. Proof that we're actually pretty boring. My legs ache from all the walking. I'm looking forward to getting back to Sacramento (even though it pouring down rain there) and my garden and my friends and family. I've made great friends here, but old friends' hugs are so much better. I would say my cat has missed us, but we had Izzy stay at our place this last two months, so I'm pretty sure she's been spoiled rotten.