The Rant

I'll get to the good stuff in just a minute.
1. Honolulu traffic is maddening. Almost every street is one-way, and they close down a main street in Waikiki just about every night for some huge party. Make sure you've got a decent hotel with a jet engine for an air conditioner, or you'll hear every car with a bass cannon all night long. I swear the word "civilization" is a meaningless term; the more "civilized" a nation becomes, the less civil its citizens are to one another. Did you know there are now over 1 million people living on Oahu!? It's like Japan with English...I take that back; I have never been anywhere as crowded as Tokyo.
2. Renata got very sick on our honeymoon, and I got sick twice. The first one we both got; it's a virus that everybody gets when they stay on the Marshall islands for a while. You're tired, weak, aching, nauseated, and diarrheal for about a day. That was day two of our honeymoon.
On the way back to Oahu, I made the mistake of eating CURRY CHICKEN(!!!??) served to me by Continental Airlines (your only choice for flights to the Marshalls), thereby resulting in 4 days of the same symptoms; this time from food poisoning, and this time, much worse. I was running to and in the bathroom every twenty minutes. Because my health insurance is only valid in Japan, we are paying full price for a visit to the hospital in Honolulu as well as hotel, taxi rides, and ticket rescheduling. We haven't gotten the hospital bill yet, but, from the bills we have already payed, I'm guessing we're down a grand total of $1000 for the trouble.
3. The Marshallese apparently find it entertaining to bring a cooler of dead fish with them when they travel to the Hawaiian islands...EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Continental will be reimbursing me for replacement of damaged luggage irreparably stained with fish juice; I'm glad I brought a hard-shell guitar case.

Now, with that out of the way...