I'm turning Hawaiian

I can't believe there are only a few days left of this trip! My cell phone hasn't been working well at all, so I have barely been able to call out. As of Saturday, I won't even have it on for a while.

The other day I got to do some awesome snorkeling out by Captain Cook's monument, saw some beautiful fish...

And even got the rare opportunity to swim with HUGE manta rays!! It was incredible, they were two of them out in the day time, which is pretty uncommon, and these ones were about 8 feet across, even thoguh some of them can get to be 15 feet. I was probably about 3 feet away from them at one point- took my breath away; there are such intersting creatures in the ocean!!

Les and I drove over to the other side of the island, where we got to see some amazing views, rainforest waterfalls, and other things so native yet spectacular on the big island. I feel like if you were to grow up here you would become so jaded by all the beauty of the islands. Then I come over here with virgin eyes, and am just in awe of it all. I love it here, as I type this there are aray of native birds singing outside, it feels like you're in some tropical jungle. Also, there is so much to explore out here! I love walking along the lava rocks and seeing the tide pools, or just going off the trail a bit to get a little dirty :) It's wonderful.

Overall the last week has been great. It has been really nice because Lesly is working quite a bit, so I've been hanging out with some other CWU kids and her roomates, who are all really fun and have shown me a good time. Ben took me on a motorcycle tour along some road I don't remember (c'mon, there are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet, all the words sound alike) where we got gorgeous views, and saw some of old town Kona. Very cool. Then last night a few of us went to a Hawaiian luau! Really great food, and some fire dancing and hula-ing also. I really wanted to go on stage and be taught how to hula, but no luck :( It was very entertaining, and had an open bar, so we all had to take advantage of it.

I'm just not ready for this week to end! I'm stoked to head out and start my internship, but everything is so laid back and nice here, I wouldn't mind spending another week. But with 8...10...peope in one house (I've lost count) It'll probably be time for me to leave as Saturday creeps up. Aloha...