Our first flight to USA
Fleeing the looming shadows of war in Europe, a spontaneous choice lands two travelers amidst the neon-lit glamour of Hollywood before they finally touch down in the tropical paradise of Hawaii. After a disastrous, tension-filled detour to Maui threatens to derail their dream, a moonlit drive through Oahu’s dark pineapple plantations leads them to a luxurious sanctuary on the legendary North Shore. Welcomed by the unmistakable spirit of Aloha and the crashing waves of the Pacific, they finally find their slice of heaven where the real adventure can begin.
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CHAPTER I: A Short Backstory
It was already uncomfortable driving through the small towns back in February 1990. Instead of the Yugoslavian flag, Croatian flags hung everywhere on the smaller buildings, and beneath them stood armed men, which doesn’t exactly create a feeling of comfort in a vacation destination. With our silver sports car, German license plates, and a windsurfing board on the roof, we were lucky to be seen as ordinary tourists and weren’t stopped anywhere.
As the only tourists on the island of Hvar, we spend two weeks by the sea. One day, as I come out of the water around three in the afternoon, the host and my wife are standing about thirty feet above sea level up on the terrace at Krizni Rat.
“Texan, how long is your mast?” asks Tonko, our host. Me: “Four meters seventy!” (About 15.5 feet) Tonko grins and shakes his head back and forth. Me: “Why do you ask?” Tonko: “Mischko and I have been watching you the whole time. You surf, then you disappear from sight for a few seconds.” Tonko: “When we see you next, you’re far away from where we saw you before!” Tonko: “You’ve been surfing out there in five-meter (sixteen-foot) waves the whole time!” Me: “I had no idea!” Tonko: “If your mast is four meters seventy, then the waves must have been that high, because half the time we couldn’t even see you!”
After he said that, I saw admiration in his face. He’s thinking his guest was just out there surfing five-meter waves. He himself has lived by the sea here for thirty years and doesn’t know how big the waves are out there. And so, despite the armed men on the Croatian roads, we spent our winter vacation by the sea and returned safely to Berlin. Since we plan our next winter vacation six months in advance every year, I want to go back to the island to windsurf. This time, I wanted to drive the car all the way to Italy, take the car onto a ferry, and then sail to my homeland, to the island of Hvar.
My wife rejects this proposal, saying she won’t go to a country where a war is about to break out. The Philippines is our next alternative destination. Since I remember Fuerteventura from TV sports reports as an excellent windsurfing spot, I then chose Fuerteventura. Unfortunately, the flight tickets are too expensive for me, almost a thousand Marks per person.
On top of that, there are the hotel costs. Back in the early nineties, we used to pick up catalogs from the travel agency and choose our destinations at home. While flipping through the travel catalog, I come across the country of Tunisia. The country looked inviting because of the Moorish-style hotels, all painted in white. These weren’t high-rise hotels with many floors. The entrance to the hotel room is right on the ground floor.
But then I thought about it being a country with an Islamic faith: my wife alone on the beach while I’m out windsurfing. That wouldn’t work. Then I discover a resort in the Philippines. Just the word “Philippines” sounded like an adventure to my ears. We found a suitable resort; all we had to do was visit the travel agency and book it.
Sportschau Report: The Delay
Then, one evening, I came home late and wanted to watch the Sportschau (a German soccer broadcast). When my TV turned on, the last fifteen minutes were showing a World Championship stage in windsurfing; meaning, because I was late, the soccer was already over.
Because I liked the waves in this windsurfing report, I desperately wanted to know where the championship took place and turned on my VCR. Watching the recording several times the next day, I noticed that the TV announcer only mentioned the competitors’ names and scores. While trying to listen closely to hear where the competition was taking place, I finally caught one word on the third try: Ho’okipa.
That must be the place, I thought. My wife and I searched our school atlas. When my wife opens the right page in her atlas and traces her finger across the ocean from the American continent, her finger suddenly stops right in the middle of the ocean. “Honey, these are the Hawaiian Islands!” In that moment, I voiced my wish: “You know what, I would love to surf in Ho’okipa just once in my life, just once!” To which she replies: “Ok, if we fly to Hawaii, then I want to see Hollywood first!” And so, we were in agreement. No trip to the Philippines; we are flying to Hawaii.
WE HAVE OUR NEW DESTINATION Maui
The Preparation Because my Fanatic board was quite heavy to carry, about seventeen kilograms (37 lbs), I absolutely wanted to get a lighter board before our trip. So, through a sports magazine, I found a German guy in Berlin who builds custom boards for me. Now I just needed two large sports bags: one for the board and the second for the rest. Two sails, a mast, a boom, and a few spare parts I might need in an emergency in case something breaks. I know someone in our chess club who owns a travel agency.
When we go to the travel agency, we have to walk past a sports shop. We are only flying to Hawaii once in our lives, never again. Therefore, I don’t want to look like an impoverished windsurfer. One day, I walk into the small sports shop and order the brand-new Adidas apparel line, which wasn’t actually scheduled for release until the following year.
For months, the governments in Germany had been advising citizens against traveling to the USA. Even our acquaintances, relatives, and colleagues tried to talk us out of our trip, as Islamic terrorists were threatening to blow up airplanes. Our opinion was: If something is going to happen to us, it’ll happen right down here on the sidewalk too.
We booked three nights right in the middle of Hollywood and rented a car in Los Angeles for three days. We finalized the booking three months in advance. Because staying on Maui at the Kāʻanapali Resort on the West Coast would have cost 27,000 DM for three weeks, we didn’t book any accommodation, hoping we’d find a private rental on the island. Therefore, we only reserved a car for four weeks for Maui. On the island of Oahu, where we would land not far from Honolulu, we also hadn’t reserved any accommodation. For Oahu, we had only reserved a car for three days as well.
THE LAST DAY IN BERLIN
Since seven o’clock in the morning, five of us have been sitting like sparrows under a roof in Steglitz, a district in the south of Berlin, waiting for it to stop snowing outside. Around eight-thirty, the site manager says to me: “Texan, you’re flying to Hawaii tomorrow. Since it looks like we absolutely cannot work today because of the snowdrifts, you can go home early and make your final preparations. We’ll wait until noon; if it’s still snowing then, we’ll all go home too!”
Overjoyed, I say my goodbyes earlier than expected. Unfortunately, we didn’t have cell phones back then. I first had to go home to the Tiergarten district, up to our apartment. Only once in the apartment do I get the chance to call Mischko and tell her that I’m already home. Suddenly, she tells me that I can pick her up right away, also earlier than expected. I immediately ran down to the car and drove over the completely snow-covered roads toward Hasenheide to the Berliner Bank where she worked.
What was great about this last day of work: Both Mischko and I were able to leave work early, and additionally, once we got home, I could take my sports gear straight to the airport and check it in that very same day so I wouldn’t have so much stress early the next morning.
CHAPTER II – Am I a lucky guy?
Back then, at the end of 1990, the Dollar was strong compared to the D-Mark. We had to pay one Mark and 66 Pfennigs for one Dollar. Many potential travelers are listening to the government’s advice, but not us, and therefore we have no problem getting seats.
One day before the flight to Hawaii: I am lucky, and the package with all the Adidas apparel has arrived at the small sports shop from Munich. It is January 30th, and Berlin has been covered in snow for a month. It is incredibly cold outside. The nighttime temperatures are getting colder and colder (minus 12 degrees Celsius / 10°F in the mornings). Since we were supposed to pick up the flight tickets along with the travel insurance on the last day before departure, I drove alone to our friend’s travel agency. When I stood in front of the travel agency, it was locked.
Because Silvia, Henry’s wife, had told us to pick up the tickets on the last day, and her shop downstairs was closed, I went up to the second floor where the two of them live. She opens the door for me. Henry had gone on a trip for a few days to personally inspect hotels so he could recommend them to his clients. A hotel chain had paid for his trip. While Silvia (who is from South America, Peru) and I are talking about our trip, she changes the subject from one moment to the next and tells me that she and her husband are planning to paint their apartment a new color.
In this large apartment she has, the door to her bedroom suddenly opens. She walks in, stands about three feet away from her bed, and acts as if she wants to show me what needs to be painted in there. While I remain standing on the threshold, she continues to stand three feet from her bed, turning her back to me several times so I can see her from behind in her tight white jeans. I found that inappropriate and very strange.
Since my younger brother had just arrived in Berlin from my homeland of Yugoslavia, had no papers, and played in the same chess club, “Turm,” as her husband and I, I told her that when her husband returns from his trip, he could talk to my brother about it at the chess club. Silvia and I had actually arranged to pick up the tickets at her travel agency, specifically on the last day. Why didn’t she wait for me downstairs in her small travel agency? When Mischko and I returned from Hawaii, I asked my brother if he got the job. My brother knew nothing about any job.
When I brought it up to Silvia’s husband Henry at our chess club—thinking I could still get my brother the job—Henry knew absolutely nothing about any intention to paint the apartment. After Silvia and I said our goodbyes on that January 30th, 1991, I arrived home after about a fifteen-minute walk across the snow-covered sidewalks in nearly minus twenty degrees.
While I was still at home, I remembered: My God, I still have the saw belonging to my neighbor Silvio Marschner, who used to live above us on the fifth floor. He had moved about five hundred meters away to the next parallel street, Erasmusstraße. I called him at his new apartment. He didn’t answer the phone, but his girlfriend Martina did. She said: “Silvio isn’t here, but I’ll be home. You can drop the wood saw off!”
On this cold, final evening before our trip, I quickly went down with the saw in my hand. Five minutes later, I rang the doorbell. Martina opened it. “Come in!” When she opens the door, her hair is wet, and she is wearing a bathrobe. She asked me to sit down briefly on an armchair. Since we were the first neighbors they had lived near, I didn’t want to be unfriendly, even though I was in a hurry, so I went in. She disappeared into the bathroom; shortly after, I heard her drying her long, bushy blonde hair.
After about five minutes—that’s how long it took—she came out. She was no longer wearing a bathrobe, but something blue, made of a very smooth, tight, shiny fabric. It was the kind of thing I would wear if I wanted to be fast in a swimming competition. It is simply tempting to see a woman in tight clothes like that. But since we had known each other for years, I didn’t think anything of it. She immediately brought me a drink; she knows I’m a soda drinker. As we talked, she told me that she and Silvio had separated. She now has a new boyfriend who owns a pub. In that same moment, I felt slightly sad inside, because in my eyes, Silvio Marschner was a really nice guy, and the two of us got along well.
As we were talking, she was suddenly lying seductively with her bushy, long blonde hair about three feet away from me, her back leaning against the armrest of her long couch. One leg was stretched out, the other knee drawn up, her leg forming a triangle on the couch. Because I was closer with Martina than with Henry’s wife Silvia, I didn’t think anything of it. She is in her own home and can do whatever she wants and feel as comfortable as she likes—we’ve known each other a long time for that. After finishing my drink, we said goodbye with a friendly hug. “Martina, tell Silvio thanks for the saw, and best regards from both of us!” I told her, as Silvio also knew we would soon fly to Hawaii and wouldn’t be in Berlin for a while.
As I write this, I realize: When I called, I told her I would be coming over. The moment she hung up the phone, did she get into the shower, or was she already in there? Now I’m not so sure about her either—whether she had the same intentions as Henry’s wife Silvia from the travel agency. When we returned from Hawaii, Silvio never contacted us again. He was probably uncomfortable because Martina had left him. Since my wife and I never drink alcohol, don’t smoke, and Martina’s new boyfriend supposedly owns a pub, we had no desire to reach out to her.
CHAPTER III – The Last Evening Before the Flight
Even though we had packed everything the day before and hadn’t been home all day, we wanted to open the suitcases one more time. Just to make sure no one in our apartment had packed anything explosive into our bags. We unpacked everything once more and then packed it all back in. So that I wouldn’t have to carry heavy loads from the fourth floor early in the morning, I had already dropped the board off at the airport four hours earlier; tomorrow morning I just had to check it in. When we lay down around nine o’clock, we were still thinking about whether we had really packed everything.
Knowing that at this time tomorrow we would be on a different continent for the first time, we were already very excited. That’s why we couldn’t fall asleep right away. At some point, tired from overthinking, I must have fallen asleep. When the alarm clock rang, we were still just as excited as before we fell asleep. Well, it’s finally happening. What was good: The suitcases were already packed so that I only had to carry them downstairs.
After getting up, we planned to quickly eat something. While I ate, Mischko wasn’t in the mood for it. She just drank her coffee. When I looked out the window down to the street to see the weather conditions and check if it had snowed more, I saw my father already standing by the car. I had to go down twice with the suitcases, then came back up one more time; we locked the front door together and were downstairs shortly after.
While she carried her brown leather bag containing our valuables, I carried a bag packed with food for the trip over my shoulder, along with my white sports bag. When we were both at the car, we looked up to the fifth floor of the next entrance, where my mother was leaning out the open window, waving to us. We only had a four-kilometer drive to the airport.
Because my parents were going to look after the cats, we had already handed over our apartment keys the day before. The snowplow had piled the snow at least a meter high on the sides of the road. When we arrived at the airport, it was completely empty. As if we were the very first passengers that morning.
Before getting out of the car at the airport, I explained and showed my father how the automatic transmission worked. After my father got behind the wheel, shifted gears a few times, and we had brought the suitcases into the terminal, we said goodbye to him.
Now we stood all alone in this empty airport terminal next to our suitcases, watching to see if my father could handle the car, since he had never sat alone in a sports car like this before. A Camaro Z 28 E. Our car was silver, the snow was white, and my father drove off very slowly. After about ten seconds, he disappeared down into the tunnel beneath the first building of our Tegel airport. Since there were no other people in the terminal besides us, I could leave Mischko alone for a moment.
So I headed down toward the first staircase where I had dropped off my two sports bags the day before. About half an hour after returning to Mischko with my sports gear, the first passengers arrived. The hall began to fill up. Since we were first in line near the check-in counter, we would be the first passengers processed as soon as the counters opened.
Standing there, we were the only ones who stood out from the other passengers. Between the two of us, we had six large pieces of luggage, including two massive sports bags. I saw the other passengers eyeing our unusual luggage. When the check-in counters opened and our tickets and seats were confirmed, two baggage department employees arrived shortly after to take our sports equipment straight to the plane. At the same time, we also got rid of the suitcases, leaving me with only my white Adidas bag on my shoulder. We moved away from the remaining passengers, stepped to the side, and finally wanted to eat something. Outside, it was slowly getting light.
While we were still in the waiting area, the first rays of winter sun appeared that morning. We flew direct to New York with Pan American. When we boarded the plane, Mischko sat by the window. After the seatbelt announcement, we looked forward to our first long, nine-hour flight. As the plane lifted off the ground, we saw Berlin from above for the first time, covered in a white carpet of snow. Barely had the plane reached its cruising altitude when a flurry of activity began on board.
The stewardesses prepared drinks and breakfast for the passengers. Pan American’s route took us high over England and then right over Greenland. As we flew, I just stared down at the endless expanse before us, the blue sea. My thoughts spun: If this plane were to crash, we’d be done for—if not from the crash, then at the latest in the freezing water. The Titanic says hello.
Not wanting to scare myself, I simply tried to think about something else. We were both sitting in our leather jackets, as the plane itself wasn’t exactly at the warmest temperature. Up here, the outside temperature was minus fifty-five degrees Celsius (-67°F). Since we each had our own radio and TV, I listened to a woman singing the entire time on the plane. I didn’t personally know her, but her voice was fantastic: Gloria Estefan.
Meanwhile, you could hear an American rapping the whole time on the plane. He was so loud that he could be heard at both the front and the back of the aircraft. When he finished a song, the passengers applauded. At midday, we even received lunch. By then, we had also flown over Greenland. It was interesting because Greenland could only be seen covered in snow and ice. Mischko watched TV the whole time.
Since she was the only one who spoke English, she was my tour guide on this trip. In Yugoslavia, I had learned Russian as a foreign language, and I even got top marks in it. Barely had we finished lunch—while some stewardesses were clearing the tables—two other stewardesses came through with customs formalities, handing a slip of paper to every single passenger. You had to check whether you were carrying any prohibited items, and bringing food into the States wasn’t allowed either.
CHAPTER IV – ARRIVAL IN THE USA New York
After nine hours, the pilot announces our imminent arrival, and shortly after, we see New York beneath us for the first time. Because we are curious and arriving here for the first time, seeing it from above is already a tourist attraction for both of us. What we know from the movies: Sky Towers (skyscrapers). New York is in the dead of winter. When the plane lands safely and smoothly, the passengers applaud the captain for bringing us safely back to Mother Earth. We were in no rush to get out of the plane. The flight attendants stand by the exit as standard procedure.
With a smile on their faces, they kindly bid farewell to every single passenger, thanking us for flying with Pan American and wishing us a pleasant stay in the USA. As we walk through the tunnel at JFK Airport, who is walking in front of us? The rapper from the plane. He continues to shout himself hoarse.
Once we are in the arrivals hall, I hear one of the officers, dressed in black with a gun on his hip, shouting loudly. I ask Mischko what he’s yelling about. She tells me: “He is welcoming all the flight passengers to New York and saying ‘Welcome to Mr. President.'” Since multiple border control counters are in operation, a second officer dressed in black organizes the passengers into the correct lines. After leaving the customs officers behind, we have to go to the baggage carousel where our suitcases are arriving. Mischko is fully focused from the very first second. After finding the right carousel for the suitcases, we recognize a few passengers who traveled with us.
After our four suitcases have come out, we have to get our two sports bags. Mischko explains to the officer that we have a windsurfing board. He points us to a gate about thirty meters away and says we should simply ring the bell there. It was not easy dragging all four suitcases behind us. Since we had no other choice, we just had to push through. First, I pull two suitcases with the white bag on my shoulders, then I leave the items not far from the gate where we are supposed to ring. While Mischko now walks to the gate, I fetch the other two suitcases.
Shortly after we ring the bell, the gate opens. When Mischko tells the employee what we are waiting for, both sports bags are already waiting ready behind the employee’s back. By the time we got our things to customs, all the passengers from our flight had already been processed, and new passengers from another city were already entering the terminal. After being cleared by the customs officers, and since our luggage from Berlin was already checked all the way through to Los Angeles, we only had to drop the bags off with the employees standing by ready to forward the luggage. They simply took the suitcases, and they disappeared somewhere onto the black conveyor belt in the hall, where airport workers would sort them and load them onto the right plane.
After that, we have to head to our next flight, which will take us to Los Angeles. What time is it in Germany? Yes, we thought aloud. At this time yesterday, we went to bed wondering where we would be at this time tomorrow evening. We have actually arrived in the USA for the first time. Instead of going to bed and sleeping now—as would be normal in Berlin at this hour—we have to wait a few hours for our next flight, even though we are tired. Here in New York, it is just before dark.
In Berlin, it is 11 PM, the dead of night. We would love to go to sleep. But we have to push through it and suffer at the New York airport. Through the large glass windows, we watch snowplows in action, clearing the snow. When we are finally allowed to board the plane, we are glad to be moving again. We still have another six hours and ten minutes ahead of us.
Here too, we are served dinner after the plane reaches cruising altitude. When we land in Los Angeles and the plane slowly taxis to the gate and stops, I look out curiously for the first time toward Los Angeles, a city we only know from television. While we sit in the plane in our heavy leather jackets, I call out to Mischko: “Hey, they’re wearing shorts!”
This is so bizarre for us because we flew out of Berlin where the temperature was minus twelve degrees (-10°F). While it was snowy and cold in New York, people here at the end of January are actually walking around in summer clothes. She looks out the window into the darkness with me.
We rejoice together because we won’t have to wear heavy jackets here in Los Angeles. When we leave our plane, we have to collect our things with the four suitcases from the baggage carousel again. Mischko is my true tour guide. She looks at the board to see where we need to line up. Once we have the suitcases, we again have to collect the two large sports bags with my windsurfing gear. Just like in New York, Mischko asks an employee here where we can pick up our sports equipment, and he points in a direction. When we turn around, we see an airport employee standing outside with our sports bags, waiting for them to be picked up. I knew I would have to lug a lot around on this trip, which is why I had specifically gotten a lighter and shorter custom board made in Berlin.
CHAPTER V – LOS ANGELES AIRPORT
Now, we had rented a car here in Los Angeles for three days through our friend at his travel agency. But since we had no desire to lug all this gear to our hotel in Hollywood, Mischko asks the first employee we see at this airport if it’s possible to leave the two bags with the windsurfing equipment here for three days—just like we did at the airport in Berlin.
Without much hassle, he explains it to us and points us to the location with the lockable room. He calls an employee via telephone. Before we even arrive there with our things, the person who is supposed to charge us was already in his room. Once he collected the money, he gave us the claim ticket for our luggage, which we have to show when picking it up, and we say goodbye. Relieved that we don’t have to lug all this with us to Hollywood, we breathe a deep sigh of relief. Only now did I realize what it really means to travel for a long time by plane. In Germany, the night is now almost over. Instead of waking up soon in Berlin, we hadn’t even arrived in Hollywood yet.
When we leave the airport terminal, we are standing on the street where the rental shuttles drive by. We first look around to figure out where the car rental station is. When we finally arrive at the right bus stop, I am almost drenched in sweat. Since there are several car rental companies in Los Angeles, buses are constantly driving by. We stare eagerly into the distance to see where they are coming from. When ours finally pulls up to the bus stop, the driver is friendly, pitches in, and loads our suitcases onto the bus.
After about ten minutes of driving through curves on unfamiliar streets in the dark, he stops in the large parking lot right in front of the car rental entrance. The bus driver helps us once again to get the suitcases out of the bus. Mischko hands him a tip. When we step through the large window into the interior, we are alone with the two passengers who were on the bus with us. The clerk is nice and friendly.
Mischko gives her our reservation number, which our friend had printed out for us when he sold us the ticket in Berlin. A male employee is standing next to the female clerk. While she fills out the contract, I have to sign at the end. When we go outside, the employee who was standing inside next to his colleague is waiting. He hands us the car keys and the car. At first glance, I don’t like the look of this car, and I am dissatisfied. In Berlin, I have driven the most beautiful sports cars for almost ten years, and now I’m supposed to drive a car that looks like it’s meant for older people. It is more of a family vehicle with four doors, in cherry red. When I get in and see the column shifter on the steering wheel, I become even more dissatisfied.
I express this out loud to Mischko while the employee is still standing next to her: “I don’t want to drive this car!” Mischko turns around and tells the employee that I don’t want to drive the car, and asks if he has a two-door. He says he doesn’t have one. I get out of the car and look around the large parking lot. I point in a direction to the employee, toward a silver two-door standing by the fence. The employee says something I don’t understand. Mischko translates for me and says that it is an old vehicle and they don’t rent it out anymore. I ask how old the car is. He says it is two years old. I say to her:
“Please tell him that to me, a two-year-old car is still new. Tell him I want to drive that car.” The employee goes into the office to the female clerk and tells her to change the contract and enter the Thunderbird into the agreement. That was the name of the car I had pointed to. When we go inside, the clerk is still friendly and amends the contract. I have to sign anew.
We pack our four suitcases along with the white bag into the car. Since we received a map of Los Angeles along with the contract—which is apparently automatic at car rentals here—we sit in the car in the parking lot in front of the office for a while to figure out which direction we need to drive.
CHAPTER VI – SUNSET BOULEVARD
It is currently nine o’clock in the evening in Los Angeles. After about a half- hour drive from the car rental, we are on Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles is a legendary main artery about 35 kilometers (22 miles) long. It runs from Downtown LA through glamorous Hollywood and Beverly Hills all the way to the Pacific Ocean in Pacific Palisades. It is considered the beating heart and is a fascinating cross-section of the metropolis. On
this first evening, as we arrive in Los Angeles, the street doesn’t mean much to us yet. Our first impression of Sunset Boulevard: This street is very lively. We see countless bars and nightclubs; neon signs glitter above the bars. To make sure we are driving in the right direction, we pull over to the side of Sunset Boulevard several times to ask someone if we are on the right path to Hollywood. Everyone that
Mischko asks is nice and friendly, continually pointing us in the direction we have already taken. It seems as if Mischko is guiding us in the right direction. Since everything is new and different for us compared to Berlin, we experience everything as if we were in a beautiful fairy tale. Yesterday we were in cold, snow-covered Berlin at minus twenty-one degrees (-6°F), today
we are on the other side of the world and have to figure out their street signs and the city map the car rental agency pressed into our hands. Suddenly I hear Mischko say: “Honey, the part of this street we’re driving on right now is called the Walk of Fame!“
That doesn’t mean anything to me, then she adds: “This is where the Academy Awards are handed out!” Then I remembered that I had seen on TV how they give the actors the
awards for their movies. Barely has she said that when we have to take the first street turning left. After driving about fifty meters (160 feet) from Sunset Boulevard, we pull up in front of the Holiday Inn hotel. We have arrived right in Hollywood. It was around eleven o’clock at night when we registered as guests at the hotel. The male clerk is also very friendly. He finds our reservation number, gives us the room keys, and shows us the direction to the elevator. Meanwhile, the bellhop has joined us and walks with us to the car. Once the bellboy has loaded our four suitcases and the white bag onto his cart with the round golden bars, we follow him to the elevator. This takes us all the way up to the highest floor. The bellhop obviously knows the room number and leads us in the right direction. When we stand in front of
our room, Mischko slides the electronic card into the designated slot. The door opens by itself. We hold something like this in our hands for the first time in our lives. After the bellman places our things in the designated hotel furniture, he explains a few things about how everything works in this hotel room. Before he walks out, Mischko asks him if the hotel restaurant is still
open at this time. After explaining this to us, he leaves our room with the tip we had already prepared beforehand. Because we are hungry, we go downstairs to first park the car in their large parking lot.
Fortunately, the Holiday Inn hotel still has a restaurant that is open, we thought. We find it with ease. Once inside, we see several employees in white shirts. Even though I am seeing this kind of people for the
first time in person, I recognize that they are not white, like Mischko and I from Europe. They are so-called Latinos. When they see us at this late hour, they are surprised that someone is still entering the restaurant so late. In terms of height, these Latinos are slightly shorter than me. We wait at the entrance until one of them greets us with a smile and leads us to a table. We are led to the purple leather booths in the row against the
wall. He politely asks if it suits us. After we confirm this and sit down, he asks us what we would like to drink. Once he takes the
drink order, he points out the area where the buffet is served. It is unusual for us to fetch our own food.
Not far from us was a long row, like a glass counter. Beneath this counter, we see several large square pans where the food is kept warm. We are supposed to just grab a plate and fill it up as we please.
Ah yes, we thought. Other countries, other customs. Since it is so late, the selection at the buffet is no longer that large. Nevertheless, we content ourselves with the leftovers of today, whatever was still remaining, and agree: In any case, the food is better than in a fast-food restaurant.
Barely are we at the table when one of the Latinos arrives and serves us our drinks. We look around. What catches our eye: Above our heads, hanging on the long wall, is one picture after another— all famous actors from Hollywood. These pictures tell us:
We have actually arrived safe and sound right in the middle of Hollywood. Glad that we finally gotten something decent into our stomachs, we say goodbye to
the nice Latino employees, naturally leaving a tip on the table here
as well. Before our trip, we had consulted the travel guide and learned: The main income of a waiter in the USA is the tip. The corresponding percentage was also mentioned in the travel guide. We walk to the elevator and take it up to the floor where our room is located. It is the highest floor. First, we have to
open the suitcases containing our sleeping clothes. It is already exhausting enough to pack the suitcases, but opening them is even more exhausting, because we had taped electrical tape over the securing straps on the suitcases so the straps wouldn’t slip off during the journey. With bare hands, it was a true feat of strength.
CHAPTER VII – THE FIRST HURDLE IN HOLLYWOOD
Because I was often drenched in sweat from lugging the heavy suitcases, I want to take a shower in the USA for the first time. While I am already prepared and standing naked in the shower wanting to turn on the water, I am clueless and looking for the faucet. There I am, already facing the first hurdle in the USA. I look for a faucet but don’t see one. I’d love to shower, but I’m too stupid to find the water. I see something silver made of metal in the shower, about eight to ten centimeters (three to four inches) in
diameter and round. I grab it with my hand and try to turn the round piece. It won’t turn. It is completely stuck. I am at a loss. I am standing naked in the shower and have no water. Since their faucet technology is different than in Europe, I now need an expert like Mischko. She is the one who likes to solve these types of household problems. It takes us
a while together before we figure out how I’m even supposed to turn the water on. First, I have to grab the round metal piece in my hand and pull it slightly toward me. I would never have come up with that idea being so tired. Only when I pulled the faucet about two centimeters (an inch) out of the wall toward me could I turn it. Now I turn the water on, and cold water comes out. The room is slightly heated, but the shower water is
simply too cold for me. I need hot water. Now I have to call for help again. We turn the water up further, but it just gets colder. Because I am too cold, I quickly shut the water off entirely and accidentally over-tighten the round, silver faucet. What I didn’t know in that moment: I over-tightened the silver valve. Because the water is barely running from the shower head now, it just drips slightly, but this time it’s lukewarm. Only then
did we get the idea: The same faucet serves for both hot and cold! So, try again. After pulling the faucet out of the wall as far as it goes, I have the option to turn it to the left (cold, which I had already tried) and to the right to get hot water. Together, it took us at least ten minutes for these two scenarios to finally be able to use the water for showering. One faucet for hot and cold water—we didn’t know about that until this moment.
Thank God their bed is not so complicated and is operated just like ours in Europe. Since we are right in the middle of Hollywood, it is exactly to be expected the way we found it: Everything sparkles, whether in the bathroom or in our room. After showering, we fall completely exhausted into this comfortable bed. Between the two of us, Mischko is the champion of falling asleep quickly and sleeping long. After I stretch out my arm to turn off the light on our
nightstand lamp and we wish each other a good night, she is immediately in a deep sleep. Even though I am excited and in a different environment, it didn’t take me long either to fall asleep. The next morning. Even though we had showered upon arrival last night before going to bed, I shower again early in the morning, since it’s free—something I would never do in Berlin.
Showering twice within 24 hours would be a waste of money there. It was nine o’clock when we left the back door of our room behind us. Right around the corner was the elevator. As we come around the corner, there is a giant windowpane in front of us, at least three to four meters (ten to thirteen feet) long. Since we booked on the highest floor, I am curious about what can be seen below the hotel. Before I even reach the window, I call out to Mischko: “Look there! We know that from TV!” She looks in the direction I have stretched out my hand. The white letters on the mountain not far from us. It says in huge letters: HOLLYWOOD. On the green mountain. When we get very close to the window, we immediately see the expensive houses of the rich directly below the window on the left side. We are thrilled. Unfortunately, we don’t have a camera.
The airlines had warned all travelers that electronics were not allowed to be brought onto the plane. Because Islamic terrorists were threatening to destroy airplanes, it was easier for the security screeners to check the passengers if they weren’t carrying any electronic items.
We weren’t allowed to pack anything electronic in our suitcases either. We are sad that we cannot capture this first moment in Hollywood with the click of a camera on a photo.
Once we have satisfied our admiration, we go to the elevator and press “down.” When we arrive in the restaurant, a different shift of employees is there this time, but also Mexicans, just as nice, friendly, and cleanly dressed in black pants and white shirts. When one of them sees us,
he walks toward us, smiles, and asks where we would like to sit. Then he leads us to the table Mischko has chosen. Again, the standard question of what we would like to drink. Once he turns around, we are allowed to serve ourselves again. This time, breakfast is served as a buffet, and all the pans under the glass cover are full of food. This morning, while we eat, the hotel is quite full. As if all of
Hollywood comes here for breakfast. We are curious and stare, wondering if we might spot a familiar face of a movie star at the breakfast tables. The atmosphere is unique. Even though the restaurant is full of visitors, it is peaceful and quiet. Everyone is glad they can eat in peace.
CHAPTER VIII – WALK OF FAME
After breakfast, we leave the hotel in the direction from which we arrived with the car last night. About fifty meters to Sunset Boulevard. While I am describing this, I must mention that this hotel, in which we checked into in 1991, no longer exists.
They built a new Holiday Inn in Hollywood, not as tall as the old one where we spent those three nights. After about three to four minutes, we are on the most famous street in Hollywood, the so-called Walk of Fame. Since we slept right nearby, we didn’t know how lucky we were to have booked here. We will only find that out later. The Walk of Fame is empty. Barely a person is to be seen on the sidewalk. We are sad that we don’t have a camera. Beneath our feet are nothing but stars and handprints of the most famous actors in the USA. Personally, I had absolutely no idea until this morning that such a thing even existed:
A street and a sidewalk where actors immortalize themselves with their hands and feet in the asphalt and concrete. Mischko knew this because she is interested in that sort of thing. That’s why we are here in Hollywood for the next three days too. We spend the first day on Sunset Boulevard.
Since we still have time, we walk back to our hotel. From a distance, we see, not far from the Chinese Theater, that the sidewalks are now overflowing with tourists. We have to cross to the other side of the street because it is simply too crowded. This really seems to be the number one attraction here in Hollywood, the Walk of Fame, I thought.
Once we are in our hotel, we are hungry again and don’t miss out on lunch. Since we were out walking all morning and are now a bit tired with full stomachs, we walk to our rented car after eating.
We want to explore the entire Hollywood area using the Los Angeles map the car rental agency gave us. Before that, we go to the reception to ask where we can rent a camera so we can take a few souvenir photos of this once-in-a-lifetime trip.
As we turn left from our parking lot and shortly after turn right onto Sunset Boulevard, tourists continue to overcrowd the sidewalk in front of the Chinese Theater, which is not far from our hotel. We now agree that it wasn’t a bad idea to book our accommodation right in the middle of Hollywood. Because after breakfast, when we went out, the Walk of Fame was completely empty, and we were able to look at all the stars individually and undisturbed for a long time in peace. As we watch the crowd of tourists on our right, we agree:
Tomorrow after breakfast, if we can rent a camera somewhere, we will immediately go back out onto the sidewalk and take souvenir photos of the Walk of Fame. When we stop on Sunset Boulevard at the address recommended by the reception, it isn’t very busy here, so we can park the car on the side undisturbed and without any problems.
We walk into the small photo shop together. The rental fee for the camera cost us more than the two rolls of film. We also had to pay a
deposit so we couldn’t run off with the camera. The employee showed us beforehand how to take the film out and insert a new one once the first film he had just loaded was full of pictures.
Shortly after, we are in the car and turn into the first street on the right, so that we are away from the main road for a moment. Barely were we in the side streets of Hollywood when everything is green and the streets are empty. On the side street, we see two children waving at us from a distance . They have something in their hands. It is a boy and a girl. Two Mexican children. We had already passed them, but since I am curious, I say to Mischko: “I want to know what they are offering in their hands.” I stop the car, about twenty meters (65 feet) past them. Since the street is empty and there is absolutely no car driving right now, I reverse back. Mischko rolls down the window and asks what they have in their hands. Mischko translates for me. They are free booklets containing the addresses of famous actors. We take a booklet.
Then I tell Mischko to give the roughly ten-year-old boy five dollars. As we drive away, I see in the rearview mirror how the girl is curious and wants to know how much money we gave him. When he tells her, I see the girl, who is a head taller than the little boy, nod her head up and down twice, which I interpret as a sign of approval from her.
Good for the boy. He just got a five- dollar bill as a tip from a generous foreigner. Now that we have this booklet, we stop
for a moment, study the booklet, and look for the street we are currently on.
When we find it, we can see which actor’s house is closest. That is how we spent the rest of the day, admiring the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. As we look at the beautifully maintained houses and everything around them, we feel as if we are truly on another planet.
We are two simple people. In Berlin, I do heavy labor all day long, and now I have the honor of viewing the most famous and beautiful area of
Hollywood with my own eyes. The place where only actors and wealthy property owners live.
Because we are so curious and keep checking the map to see where the next actor lives, time flies by, and it is already dark. When we return to our hotel, park the car in the large parking lot on the right side, and enter the restaurant, we meet the same servers as during our late arrival the day before. They recognize us immediately and are glad to see us again. As we eat, we secretly and discreetly glance at the tables next to us now and then, wondering if someone we know from the movies will sit down.
When the little Mexican man from the previous evening is at our table, Mischko is curious and wants to know if actors come in here too. He said that an actress (I can’t remember names well myself) had just walked out. We must have passed her on our way in.
When Mischko hears the actress’s name, she is thrilled. What we missed that evening becomes reality early the next morning. This restaurant is so impressively furnished and decorated that even inside, you are meant to see and internally feel that you are currently in
Hollywood, enjoying your meal. After dinner, we take a short walk to the Walk of Fame.
CHAPTER IX – UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
Photos. We are in luck; the sidewalk is just as empty as it was early the morning before. Undisturbed, we take our planned photos. Once we are done taking pictures, we drive our car to Universal Studios, which is not far from us in Hollywood.
For us, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Even before entering, we are excited. Up until this day, I knew nothing about Universal Studios. While we stand in line behind a crowd of visitors, Mischko explains to me that it was officially opened on March 15, 1915, as “Universal City” by the film pioneer Carl Laemmle, who hailed from Upper Swabia (Germany). The parent production studio itself was founded earlier, in June 1912. Carl Laemmle merged several small film companies into the Universal Film
Manufacturing Company. He bought a 170-hectare (420-acre) chicken farm in the San Fernando Valley to build an independent studio lot. When it’s our turn at the ticket counter, she buys the expensive tickets.
We hadn’t even paid that much for music concerts in Berlin. “It’s simply a unique experience,” she tells me. Mischko’s wish was to be fulfilled. So we walk into the studios and look at all the film equipment up close.
Then the houses where the producers shoot their films. The entire layout of Universal Studios feels to me like a small film city, like its own district in Los Angeles. Several original film shows were presented, such as scenes from the movie Conan with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Miami Vice, and other film series. Only now do I feel that the admission was worth it. At the entrance, the sum simply seemed too high to me, but the performances and
the presentations are so true to the originals, as if we, the audience, were right there on set during filming. Since we still have a jet lag on this second day and our eyes have had so much to take in, we decide to treat ourselves to a bit of rest for the third day. We agree:
We want to spend a day at the beach. When we return to Berlin and happen to watch the series Baywatch with David Hasselhoff, then we can proudly say to each other: “Hey, look, we were at that beach too.” Since we had used up the two rolls of film for taking photos, we stop briefly on the side of Sunset Boulevard on our way to Venice Beach. Here, we return the rented camera, collect our deposit, and drive straight ahead to Venice Beach. Although we are not very familiar with the residential areas in LA, since it’s a rented car with full comprehensive coverage, we park the car at the first opportunity not far from the ocean, on the first parallel street near the beach. Barely have we stepped out of our car, when a fresh sea breeze from the Pacific reaches us.
As we walk toward the beach past the last row of smaller buildings with graffiti-painted walls, our first glimpse of the ocean takes us directly to the spot on our right where the City of Los Angeles’ workout equipment is set up and installed.
There, all the athletes show off their muscles while casually working out. Whoever has the opportunity to show themselves off here, more power to them, I think to myself, and yet I am jealous that I don’t get to live here. What I see with my own eyes in this moment looks more like the athletes come here to present themselves to the famous world, hoping that some film producer will discover them for a movie.
This beach at Venice Beach is the first beach in my life where I see a truly large expanse of sand. From my homeland, I only knew rocks. If there was sand to be seen anywhere on our Adriatic shore, then it was only very narrow strips of sand where bathers practically lie on top of one another. For example, in Italy and Spain too.
Another thing that is uncomfortable in my homeland: While lying on the beach, you constantly hear cars driving by on the main road. Here in LA, the nearest road navigable by cars runs directly parallel and is only a few meters (about 30 to 160 feet) away from the actual beach.
The famous pedestrian promenade, the Venice Beach Boardwalk, separates the sandy beach from the first streets. Even the sandy beach at Venice Beach in Los Angeles is up to three hundred meters (almost 1000 feet) wide at its widest point. We are overwhelmed. From the water to the famous beach promenade (the Boardwalk) stretches a massive expanse of fine sand; in total, the beach is about 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) long. Here on this sandy beach, you can truly lie down anywhere and enjoy the peace and warmth undisturbed,
even though you are in the big city of Los Angeles. The nearest and most famous streets directly by the beach are: • Ocean Front Walk: The immediate pedestrian zone right on the beach, where no cars drive. Pacific Avenue: The first major parallel street directly behind it, which is used for car traffic and as a residential/commercial district.
Venice Boulevard: Ends right at the coast and offers the closest direct parking spots there. As the sun’s rays warm us up, we lie undisturbed on our large towels, resting far away from the nearest couple.
I would have loved to go swimming that day, but traveling with wet clothes in the suitcase was not something I was keen on. Because we felt throughout our entire stay at the studios as if we were on an actual movie set
while the producers were shooting their films, I would rate the visit to the studios as the best day.
The shows were spectacular. Even after the shows, the participating stuntmen who stand in for the actors come out to the visitors and let themselves be photographed. We are glad that we rented a camera; we admire the muscleman who played Conan and remain patient.
We wait until he is free so I can photograph my wife with a real, strong guy for once in her life. The muscleman in the photo that I took is pretending to choke my wife while she laughs her head off. For me, that is the most beautiful memory of this second day. I would rank the visit in Hollywood and this third day at the beach in Venice Beach on the exact same level. We felt on our first day in Hollywood and right now on the beach in Venice, as if we were on another planet.
It is simply a different world that we Europeans do not know. The most impressive moment on the first day was early in the morning when we stepped out of our room and walked around the corner to the elevator. We were not even close to the large glass window yet.
But at the very first glance outside from the highest floor, the large white letters spelling out HOLLYWOOD were visible.
CHAPTER X – Farewell to Hollywood
The Fourth Day. Since our flight isn’t until the afternoon, we have plenty of time this morning in Hollywood to properly pack the one suitcase that had been open for our sleepwear, and to tape the strap down again with electrical tape so it couldn’t slip off the suitcase.
Thus, we also arrive at our last breakfast here in Hollywood and can say goodbye to the nice Latinos with whom we had already become somewhat friendly. After the hug, and while we are saying our goodbyes, a few guests glance over at us curiously; they want to know
who these employees are bidding such a warm farewell to. In this moment, I already feel like a minor star here in Hollywood.
As we say our goodbyes, neither the Latinos nor we suspect that in the coming years we will rejoice together again and again, because we will keep returning to say “Hi” to these nice people, and to eat and sleep here in peace. When we turn right out of the hotel onto Sunset Boulevard in our car and drive along it, the sidewalks—because it is still early in the morning—are as desolate and still empty as they were over the past three days.
The name Los Angeles translates from Spanish as “The Angels.” It originates from the original, very long name El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels). This name was given to the city, which was founded on September 4, 1781, by the Spanish governor Felipe de Neve.
The name refers to the Virgin Mary, who is venerated in the Catholic faith as the “Queen of the Angels.” Over time, the bulky, original name of the settlement was shortened to the final part, Los Angeles.
When we drove away from the car rental four days ago, it had been dark. Now we are driving back the exact same way as yesterday when we drove to Venice. As a result, we no longer feel as foreign as we did on the first night.
The sun is still in the east, rising higher by the minute. It is quiet on the sidewalks. This time, we don’t see the open nightclubs and bars behind the sidewalks on either side. The advertisements that immediately catch the eye from afar are the cowboy billboards beneath the large,
gently swaying palm fronds. It is sunset in the photo: He sits on his horse, red rocks in the background, and the lone cowboy with the hat on his head is in the desert lighting a Marlboro cigarette.
Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles is famous for its palm-lined avenues. Especially in the affluent sections like West Hollywood, where we had looked at the actors’ houses from the car on our first day. The blue sky stretches over our heads. We don’t think about Berlin for a single second, because we just feel good here. Our radio station, playing extravagant music from LA, is turned up loud; we feel right now like we’re in an American movie. When we
reach the car rental and return the vehicle, the bus drives us to the airport.
There, the first thing we have to do is walk with our suitcases to the spot where we had dropped off our two large sports bags three days prior. After that, we check the luggage in and only have our white Adidas bag with drinks and some chocolate with us.
Mischko carries her brown leather bag with the valuables. Afterward, we go through passport control and walk along the massive airport all the way to the end, to the specific gate where you can hear the sounds of Hawaiian music from a distance.
Since we are very early at the airport and have to wait before boarding the plane,
we want to eat something again and quickly go to the fast-food restaurant Burger King. Barely are we back, while a few passengers heading to
Honolulu are already standing in line ready to board, we hear
some loud announcements and passengers’ names. Here in the waiting line, we feel as if we are already in the South Seas because we can softly hear Hawaiian music in the background. Even though we boarded last in the waiting line, we are astonished when we get inside the plane.
This flight isn’t even a quarter full. It seemed as though the terrorists had indeed deterred many passengers from traveling with their threats. Above us, the overhead bin for the white bag is empty, so we can easily stow it up there without a problem. Even here in the plane, as we sit for a while with the sound of South Sea music in our ears, we feel as if we are already in Hawaii. We are sitting in a row of three by the window in the middle of the plane. Next to us, the third seat is empty. In the center aisle there are another four seats, and they are also empty. On the other side of the
plane by the window, there are three more seats, and those are empty too. Even though we had reserved seats, we were probably distributed so that a few passengers occupied seats everywhere throughout the plane. Therefore, I think, our row is completely empty, allowing us to easily walk from our seat to the
other side of the plane without disturbing anyone. While we grow impatient and Mischko checks her watch, the doors finally
close. The stewardesses explain the standard rules on how to fasten the seatbelts and what to do in the event of an emergency.
After they have familiarized us passengers with the rules, we are greeted by the captain. Mischko pricks up her ears and listens, while I don’t understand a word of English. After the captain finishes his announcement, he asks the flight attendants to take their seats.
CHAPTER XI – DEPARTURE FROM LA
During the takeoff roll, we look at each other happily and wish each other a pleasant and good flight. Barely has the plane reached its cruising altitude after a few hundred yards, when it begins to change direction toward the west. After not even a minute, we watch the City of Angels fall behind us.
Below us, nothing remains but the blue ocean of the Pacific, and ahead of us lie another five hours and forty minutes of flying over the water. After the flight attendants distribute the first drinks, Mischko finds her TV channel. Since I don’t understand a word, I content myself with the well-equipped headphones, turn on some music, and look out the window. While I am internally overjoyed and have no idea what awaits us in Hawaii, I admire the individual cloud formations. It is
incredible how many different variations of clouds can be observed, yet they are only white clouds. Even though we are flying at an altitude of about thirty thousand feet (ten thousand meters), white crests can be seen on the water below, which tells me, as someone who knows the sea: There must be massive waves below us with so much white foam on the blue ocean. The airplane food is served as lunch. We are thrilled because we hadn’t expected such quality. Sure, the portions are small, but still. It keeps us occupied, and the time will pass faster. Several times I think about it:
It is quite unusual that there are hardly any passengers in such a large airplane. Because the American government is planning to attack Iraq, the terrorists threatened the passengers—this is now the repercussion. We certainly don’t regret having made the trip. After the meal, the customs forms were handed out to every single passenger. For entry into Hawaii, two different forms must be filled out on the plane: the standard US customs declaration and the Hawaii agricultural form. The forms are handed out shortly before landing. After about five hours, the captain makes an announcement. Mischko tells me that he just informed the passengers to look out the window on the left side of the airplane.
We can see snow in Hawaii! “I didn’t come here to be in the snow!” I blurted out loudly. Mischko explains to me that it is a different island and not Maui, where I want to windsurf. After that, I was relieved. The main airport, Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) in Honolulu on Oahu, is the largest hub and the primary gateway for most flights from the US West Coast.
About fifteen minutes after the captain’s announcement, the first islands appeared. Now the captain speaks up again, pointing out that we are currently flying past the island with the snow. At that moment, I didn’t know that this island with the snow is the largest Hawaiian island and is actually named “Hawaii”. The locals also call it Big Island, because it is the largest island. When we look out on our left side, we actually see an entire mountain on Big Island completely covered in snow. Next year, I will finally get to experience it, visit it, and learn more about this Big Island. Here, where the snow lies, is Mauna Kea, where the observatory is also located. It is truly worth seeing. And an experience.
On Big Island (Hawaii), there are two main types of facilities related to satellites and space: professional satellite ground stations for space travel and world-renowned observatories for exploring the universe. The summit is 4,200 meters (about 13,800 feet) high. The Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii, the largest island in the archipelago, houses one of the most important observatories of the present day. Although the telescopes on
Mauna Kea are operated by various universities and institutions from a total of 11 nations, they are collectively referred to as the Mauna Kea Observatory. The location is ideally suited for operating an observatory, as the air at this altitude is already very thin and extremely dry (a prerequisite for infrared astronomy), the summit usually sits above the cloud cover (making the number of clear nights very high), and the air is largely free from turbulence, which would degrade the quality of astronomical images.
Telescopes: Between 1968 and 1999, a total of nine reflecting telescopes for the optical and infrared spectral range were put into operation, including the Gemini North and the Subaru Telescope, each with a primary mirror of 8 meters in diameter, as well as the two telescopes of the W. M. Keck Observatory, each of which has a primary mirror (composed of numerous smaller, hexagonal segments) measuring 10 meters in diameter. Until July 2007, the two telescopes of the Keck Observatory represented the largest optical telescopes in the world and can also be operated together as an optical interferometer.
They were succeeded as the world’s largest optical telescopes by the Gran Telescopio Canarias, whose similarly segmented mirror has a diameter of 10.4 m. In addition to the optical telescopes, there are also three instruments for the submillimeter range (microwaves) on Mauna Kea. The Submillimeter Array, consisting of eight antennas, each with a diameter of six meters, was only completed in 2002. Finally, the Mauna Kea Observatory also houses a radio telescope with a diameter of 25 meters, which is used worldwide in conjunction with other radio telescopes as a radio astronomical interferometer.
As we approach the arrival island, we see small puffy clouds beneath us, and below them, the lush green coastal landscape of Oahu. It is like a fairy tale. We are actually landing on an island in the Pacific, where tropical —for us, summer-like—temperatures await us. When the first towns appear on the green shore, it is a sign: We will be there soon. When the captain asks the passengers to fasten their seatbelts, we are about five minutes from landing. The first houses of Honolulu are already below us on our right side. The plane flies past the island heading west, makes a right turn, and gently steers from a distance toward Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. Below us, we see smaller towns with gray roofs. When the plane is about two hundred meters (650 feet) above the earth, it flies over Ewa Beach, a town in western Oahu populated by many Filipinos.
The lower it descends, the more clearly the waves can be seen crashing onto the shores of Oahu. After we pass Ewa Beach, we fly only about a hundred meters (330 feet) high above the earth. On our right side, we see several military aircraft parked next to each other, which means: Hickam military airfield is also here.
We are almost just fifty meters (160 feet) above the ground, the military airfield is left behind us, and the runway is almost so close that it seems tangible beneath the long-extended wheels. Because it isn’t windy, the landing is smooth. It seems to be a tradition in the USA: Just like in New York, the pilot receives applause. A few passengers clap because they are glad to have landed safely in Honolulu. We both join in the applause. We haven’t even stopped clapping when the captain speaks. Mischko translates for me what he is currently telling the passengers.
On behalf of Pan American Airline, he wants to thank us, looks forward to our next flight with their airline, and wishes all passengers a pleasant stay in Hawaii. I am curious and look out the window; far ahead of me, I see the only major city on this island, not far from this international airport.
CHAPTER XII – We Have Landed HONOLULU AIRPORT
While the plane makes a small circle on the runway on its wheels to taxi to the terminal building, we see the first palm trees up close, as if they are waving at us with their green leaves in greeting. It meant to say: Welcome to Hawaii. While walking down the narrow aisle between the seats in the plane, we have no fellow passengers in front of us. With my white tennis bag (the one endorsed by the Czech tennis player Ivan Lendl) over my shoulder, I walk toward the exit.
There, where the path leads to the captain’s cabin, the flight captain stands in the middle along with two flight attendants with friendly, smiling faces. They bid farewell to every single passenger with a “thank you” and a smile, and wish us a wonderful stay in Hawaii. When I say goodbye to the three of them and leave the airplane, I step into the connecting tunnel that is attached to the terminal building. Inside, the air conditioning is running at full blast. This passageway acts as a tunnel, about twenty to thirty meters (65 to 100 feet) long and about two meters (six feet) wide, so that two passengers can walk side by side.
While we walk side by side, rejoicing that we have finally landed, I step onto the first floor tile inside the terminal building at the end of the connecting tunnel. I am wearing cowboy boots, and the heel of my boot is capped with steel at the bottom. When I notice on my first step that I am almost slipping on the smooth tile, and my thoughts are focused downward, my throat suddenly cramps up in that exact moment, and I can’t get any more air into my lungs.
My breath stopped. When I realize that I cannot breathe, the tunnel becomes my escape route. Like lightning, I automatically run two steps backward, to where I was able to breathe normally just moments before. In the same instant, Mischko turns around and asks me: “Did you forget something on the plane?”
Because my throat is cramped, I drop the bag at my feet in that same moment and clutch my stomach with both hands. Barely having a little air in my lungs, I lift my head and try to explain it to her. Because I couldn’t say it clearly in my panic, she didn’t understand me correctly. I continue holding my stomach for a while, gasping for air.
She notices that something is wrong with me and gets worried. Then I lift my head while still keeping my hands on my stomach. “No, I didn’t forget anything, I can’t get any air out there!” She thinks she misheard and asks again. When I tell her that I got a respiratory cramp when inhaling the air from the airport interior, she refuses to believe what she is hearing.
Terrified, I stand inside until I recover and breathe normally. After a few minutes, I pick up the bag and try to get out of the covered exit of the airplane. Now I step with my foot onto the tile and try to walk. Terrified, I feel my throat cramp up again, and I run back into the tunnel. Now we were both startled. We flew all this way, and the last passengers pass us by, clueless as to why we are standing in front of the exit from the tunnel.
Time passes. The flight attendants walk past us; we are the last ones. I try it again. I endured it outside for a while, but after a few minutes, I have to go back inside. After standing in the tunnel for about another five minutes, I dare to try for the fourth time. Very slowly, I take one step outside. I stand there, breathing fearfully, dreading that I will have to retreat again. Then, after a few minutes, I take another step. Now I am two steps past the tunnel. The airport air is in my lungs, and I am now two meters (six feet) away from the tunnel. Then I take a few more steps and stand there for a while. The cleaning crew for the airplane has already passed us too. After standing in front of the tunnel for about ten minutes, still with fear in the back of my mind, I dare to slowly start walking—which was also advisable because of my steel heels.
*(Narrator’s Note: Because this happened to me again in 2000 at the airport in Chicago while eating chili, I went to a doctor in Berlin. There I learned that we have two passages in our throat: the trachea (windpipe) for the lungs, and the esophagus for the stomach.
At the junction between these two organs sits a nerve. The nerve is supposed to prevent water from entering the lungs. When I inhaled the tropical, humid air with an open mouth in that very first second out of the airplane’s connecting tunnel—which was pumped with air-conditioned air—the sheer amount of moisture in this tropical air inside the airport building gave the nerve the command: “Alarm, water is entering the lungs!” No doctor told me this; I figured it out myself.)*
When we finally reach the arrivals hall, there are still many passengers there, and more passengers are arriving from another plane that has landed in the meantime. Knowing it from the movies, I thought that when you come to Hawaii, you get flower leis draped around your neck. I look around. There are indeed people standing there with flower leis, but no one approaches us.
In that moment, it becomes clear to me: I only dreamed up such a thing. There are indeed people standing there with flower leis, but these are handed over to the travelers they are personally waiting for. Since no one was waiting for us and we had absolutely no reservations—neither at a hotel nor privately—we didn’t receive any flower leis either. Now we focus on our suitcases. When we arrive at the baggage carousel indicated on the board, where our suitcases are supposed to be, all the passengers from our flight are already gone. We are the last ones. A uniformed airport employee stands by our suitcases, waiting for the final four suitcases to be picked up as well.
When Mischko tells her that the four suitcases belong to us, she asks where we can pick up our two large sports bags. The employee is nice and comes with us to the spot. She opens the gate and tells a worker what we want to pick up. The person who was inside the airport’s interior disappears briefly and returns with the windsurfing equipment.
Henry from the travel agency, who had sold us the tickets, had advised us: When we are at the airport, we should immediately check if the board arrived intact. If we leave the airport and only discover the damage outside, the airlines will not cover the damage. Therefore, whether we like it or not: The first thing we do is unpack the board from the bag. Right in front of the airport employee who handed us the board. It was taped with a lot of electrical tape around the bubble wrap. It was not easy to pick the tape off with bare hands.
With force, I rip the sides open, open the bag, and pull the board out. I hear the employee behind me say: “Nice board!”
CHAPTER XIII – The Board is Slightly Damaged
Barely having the board out, I flip it over, inspect the underside, and discover that it is slightly damaged. Because it is a fiberglass board, it looked in one spot as if someone had thrown a rock at a pane of glass. The glass pane isn’t shattered, but it shows hundreds of tiny cracks. That’s exactly how it looked on a spot on my board, roughly five to ten centimeters (two to four inches) in size. Since the airport employee was also present, Mischko goes to the Pan American counter and brings an employee over to our board.
She then tells us she will issue us a check for three hundred dollars. That should be enough to repair the board. We were glad that she issued us the check. Now I had to repack the board, and then we had to get out of the airport building onto the street. While I am packing the board, Mischko asks the employee where we could get a place to stay. We have our preferences: We don’t want to stay in a hotel in Honolulu where there are only tourists.
The nice Pan American employee who issued the check tells us there is a single hotel on the north side of the island. We should go there. Mischko conveyed this to me while I was still in the process of repacking my damaged board. In the terminal, we were the only passengers left. The guy who brought out the board was also long gone. Now we have to get out of the terminal. I have to drag the suitcases for about forty to fifty meters (130 to 160 feet) and carry the board with me.
The tropical air is warm, and I was already drenched in sweat just from unpacking. Now I had to make two trips again. Mischko waited just before the exit, where a female security officer doesn’t let anyone out easily. This officer ensures that the luggage doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, so no passenger takes someone else’s bags—which we didn’t know in that moment. Since Mischko is with the security officer, I don’t have to worry about anything happening to her. I run the fifty meters back again. Since I carried the board on one shoulder and the other bag with the sail and mast on the second shoulder, I only had to go back once. When I reach Mischko and the security officer, the officer asks to see our flight tickets. Then she compares them with the pieces of luggage, because the flight ticket states how many pieces of luggage we checked in at Los Angeles. She is very meticulous and inspects the tickets and the luggage closely. Only then are we allowed to leave the airport building. We are now outside, standing in the dark in a foreign country. We have no accommodation. Whether we will even find a place to stay tonight is uncertain. But since we brought enough money, we are confident that we will find something.
No matter what price they demand, we are willing to pay that much for the first night. We look at the clock: Seven o’clock in the evening. The street in front of us is empty. Not a car, not a soul to be seen. The palm trees are friendly to us, waving gently in our direction, as if watching over us.
We would like to return to the building to talk to the officer and ask if we can even get away from this spot of the airport at this time. When Mischko steps close, the door won’t open from the outside. After about five minutes, a security guard suddenly appears out of nowhere, standing on the sidewalk about thirty meters (100 feet) away from us. He had probably been behind a concrete pillar in the dark the whole time. Mischko goes to him and asks about the buses that take passengers to the rental offices.
When she returns, she says that the bus will definitely come. It is boring. We are stressed from unpacking, packing, and the flight. We still have jet lag. After about fifteen minutes, we see headlights shining in the distance, slowly approaching from our left side. We are excited, but unfortunately, this bus drives right past us. The bus displays the name of a different car rental company. We think the next bus will be it. Wrong again. Yet another car rental company. We keep waiting; what terrible luck we have. It is seven-thirty. Here comes the fifth bus.
Only when it turns right do we hope that it will stop for us. And indeed: It stops for us. It is the Hertz car rental. When we stood at the bus stop, we thought all passengers coming out of the airport building stand here and get picked up by the various buses. The bus driver, a very nice Black man, sees that we are fully loaded. He gets up from his seat, opens the middle doors, and helps us put the things onto the bus. Mischko asks about the hotel that was described to us. He says we will get a map at the car rental, but since he has an Oahu map with him, he gives it to us immediately.
Since we boarded in the middle of the bus, he walks to his seat first and then comes back to us. Since he has plenty of time and no other passengers are boarding, he takes the time to open the brochure with the island maps and calmly explains the entire route up to the North Shore, where the hotel in question is located.
Because he was so friendly, I ask Mischko to prepare a five-dollar bill as a tip for the moment we arrive at the rental office. After thoroughly explaining everything to us, he returns to his seat, drives off, turns only twice—and we are surprised that we have already arrived at the car rental.
When we step out, we see the same airport building we were just standing in front of, only from the other side of the street. We get out, and the nice Black guy, around thirty years old, helps us get the things out of the bus. When we walk inside through the large glass door, the clerk is quite friendly.
It takes a while for the three-day contract forms to be filled out. After I have to fill in some abbreviations of my first and last name several times, all that is missing is the signature. When we are outside again with the contract and keys in hand—and since hardly any planes land at this hour—the nice guy, who is alone outside in his bus, takes the time to show us where our car is parked. We rented a convertible.
My sports equipment: One end of the bags lay on the floor behind our front seats, the middle part leaned against the back seats, while the other end pointed up into the sky over the trunk. When we were ready and had stowed everything in the trunk, the bus driver and Mischko talk for another moment. He explains to Mischko once again how and when we have to turn at the exit heading north.
CHAPTER XIV – We Drive North
We set off from the airport car rental in our open convertible at around eight o’clock. We had locked our leather jackets in the trunk along with the suitcases. It is pleasantly warm and humid. A light breeze brings us the scent of fresh plumeria blossoms from all directions. Because everything we breathe smells of flowers, I quickly adapted to the humid tropical air. It doesn’t bother me at all anymore; I am already enjoying it. We take the first exit from the airport heading north.
It is Highway Number 1. As the cars pass us, we hear the loud rolling of their tires on the rough asphalt just a meter (three feet) away from us. The noise in our open car is almost unbearable. While we drive carefully at a moderate speed in the middle of the six-lane highway, the locals pass us on both sides, as if they were in a race and everyone wants to be faster than the other. We are stressed. Our ears are even more sensitive because of this; the rolling tires just a meter away sound threateningly loud, and the thought that a tire could blow out during one of these overtaking maneuvers is simply terrifying.
It feels to me as if a shred of a blown tire could hit us in our open car at any second. After about a fifteen-minute drive on the H1, we take the exit for Highway Number 2, leaving Pearl City on our right side. While the H1 heading west was still brightly lit with streetlamps, we miss that now on the H2. We are now driving through absolute darkness toward the North Shore, just as it said on the exit sign. The H2 runs straight through the middle of the island to the north. Total darkness prevails on both sides of the highway.
While in Berlin we had hidden unauthorized, nearly 400-watt auxiliary headlights under the hood of our Camaro Z28E and were spoiled during our night drives, I feel almost blind on this first night with our rented car and its maximum 2 x 55-watt lighting. Since not a single light has been seen in the distance on the left or right side for more than fifteen minutes, it means we are driving through uninhabited land the entire time.
Another thing we noticed: We are the only ones on the road heading north. Since we got on the H2, we haven’t seen any cars in front of or behind us. Since the H2 has new, smooth asphalt and we can barely hear our own tires compared to the H1, it is very quiet around us. With soft music on the radio, we feel as if we are floating in space. What is especially pleasant is the smell of nature. Eventually, the H2 ends before Wahiawa, a small town in the center of the island. What we didn’t know: A large military garrison is stationed here.
Once we pass through this town, we have to drop our speed to 25 mph and drive very slowly along a narrow country road. First, we drive down a gentle hill into the valley, then we climb slowly again. As the bushes encroach onto the road from both sides, it feels very narrow, as if barely two cars could pass each other. On the side of the road, our headlights only illuminate the bushes and tall grass.
When we have almost driven out of the small valley at the top, there is a small intersection. We turn right first and shortly after, to the left. Because we are driving with the top down and catching the wind from the front, we don’t even realize at first that our faces and t-shirts have become completely drenched due to the extreme humidity.
The further north we advance, the more the temperature drops. The damp air and the wind from driving make me increasingly uncomfortable and cold in my wet t-shirt. Mischko gasps out loud as she looks at the temperature display. When we arrived at the airport, it was still 23 degrees Celsius (73°F). Now it is only 18 degrees Celsius (64°F). It’s clear to us: If we want to prevent catching a cold, we absolutely have to pull over somewhere to get our leather jackets out of the trunk.
I don’t dare just pull over in the dark next to the bushes on the side of the road. Besides, in the dark, I wouldn’t even be able to see my hand in front of my face. The stars in the sky are visible the whole time, but I would definitely need a flashlight. I stop at the first country road intersection. There is a single small streetlamp illuminating a sign. I stop right in the middle of the intersection under the lamp. First, I look around to see if anyone might jump us. We have to turn off the car because we need the key to open the trunk. Since I knew where I had tossed the two leather jackets, I feel for them in the dark behind the suitcases on the floor of the trunk and pull them out. I quickly slam the trunk shut and get back into my seat.
I stick the key into the ignition, start the car, and drive off. We put on our jackets while driving. Afterward, we warm up and feel relieved. Because it is so quiet and we don’t hear any palm leaves rustling, we don’t know that in this very moment we are driving through the massive Dole pineapple plantations. For almost fifteen minutes, we drive straight ahead on a slight downhill slope.
We have no idea that in this total darkness we are surrounded on both sides only by pineapple and coffee plantations. Eventually, a street sign appears where we read “Haleiwa.” We drive through the town. It looks like a Western movie: Just one street, but no residential houses. Small souvenir shops, all closed. No people, no cars. It seemed to be a completely dead area at this hour. It is late, at least nine-thirty. As we leave the town over a narrow bridge, everything ahead of us is dark again. What we hear now is new to us: the crashing of waves against the shore on our left.
This tells us that we have reached the North Shore, where our hotel, the Turtle Bay Hilton, should be located. From Haleiwa, we now drive east. Here in the north, you can already smell the sea air and the scent of fresh plumeria blossoms. About ten minutes after we passed Haleiwa, we hear the distant sounds of country music in the dark. A few minutes later, everything is quiet again.
Only the rustling of palm leaves and the occasional crashing of the waves can be heard. When we suddenly turn right, drive down the road, and arrive at the very bottom in a small valley, we have reached Waimea National Park.
Now we are at sea level in our open car. On our left, in the total darkness, we cannot see the tall sand dune that beachgoers flock to during the day. This sandy hill prevents the ocean from reaching the road we are currently driving on.
CHAPTER XV – Waimea North Shore
To our right lies the national park. We drive slightly up the hill, then right, and once the hill is behind us, we continue on a straight stretch. It’s getting later and later. As we drive through smaller towns—more like villages to me—you occasionally see a light burning in a house. Otherwise, you hear nothing. Then it is dark again. We are tired and hungry, hoping we will reach the Turtle Bay Hilton soon.
It is already eleven o’clock at night. Eventually, the sign “Kahuku” appears. A town where hardly a house can be seen, just a gas station. We continue driving through the darkness. Then comes the next town: Laie. When we see a Burger King right on the street, we are so starved that we simply have to stop.
We park the car by the large window pane and go into the empty restaurant. The staff consists of young, quite heavy-set people wearing caps bearing the name of the joint. We sit down. Once we’ve agreed on what to get, Mischko goes to order, while I stay seated by the window, right next to our car parked outside. After ordering, Mischko comes over to me and says: “Honey, we drove past it. The hotel is about a fifteen to twenty-minute drive from here back in the other direction.” While we drink and eat, we are initially completely alone with the staff.
Suddenly, a group of young people walks in, easily twenty of them. It looks as if they just came out of the movie theater, and every one of them wants to eat. We were lucky to be in the restaurant before them. When we finish eating and are finally full, we get into the car and drive back in the direction we came from. After leaving Kahuku, the small town, behind us, we are supposed to look out for tiki torches with fire on the right side.
These really shouldn’t be easy to miss on the right side. Indeed, it doesn’t take long, and we see the wind moving the flames from a distance. As we get closer, the name is also there: Entrance to Turtle Bay Hilton. Even though it’s just a two-lane road, we were probably so tired earlier that the fire, which we might have even seen, just didn’t register with us properly. There was no sign of the hotel itself from the street.
Everything is dark ahead of us; we have to drive down a rather long entrance road. The entrance and exit are separated by a median. In the middle, plumeria trees are planted at certain intervals, each in a different color and with fresh blossoms. Even though it is dark ahead of us, we see in the light of our headlights that we are driving up to a truly upscale hotel. After about five minutes of slow driving, a small guardhouse with a boom barrier appears in front of us. Even though it is almost midnight, an employee sits in the small guardhouse and greets us with a friendly “Aloha.” Mischko explains to the nice Hawaiian man that we are looking for a place to stay the night.
He assures us that we will get a room. We have to pull a ticket ourselves. After wishing each other a good night, we continue driving. After about a minute or a minute and a half through the darkness, a brightly lit building with round pillars and highly polished golden columns appears before us. In that year, 1991, when we arrived there, the Turtle Bay Hilton on Oahu’s legendary North Shore was one of Hawaii’s most distinctive hotel resorts. The resort is nestled in pristine nature and offered the perfect retreat away from the hustle and bustle of Waikiki. It is the only luxurious mega-resort in the region and offers a perfect blend of seclusion, breathtaking nature, and Polynesian flair across a massive property.
As we drive slowly up to the entrance, an employee stands there, even though it’s midnight, in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt—I’d rather say, in a Polynesian style. When he sees us arrive, he leaves his mahogany podium, which is about three feet wide and five feet high, and on which his telephone sits. Always at the ready, he walks, from our perspective, to the right toward the main entrance. Because we arrive in an open car, we hear soft South Sea music in the background.
The canopy at the entrance, the porte-cochère, is characterized by its expansive, open architecture in the style of the 1970s. It is inspired by Polynesian-Hawaiian aesthetics, built flat, and harmonizes with the sprawling, semi-open lobby.
CHAPTER XVI – TURTLE BAY HILTON
What we didn’t know at that moment: We had landed in one of the best hotels in Hawaii. This nice employee tells us we can just leave the car there and go to the reception to check in.
When we arrive at the reception, a female clerk is sitting there. Mischko asks if they have any rooms available. She confirms they do and says that the hotel is currently only a third full.
We immediately thought of the terrorist threats. That is why the hotel is so empty. To attract guests, they lowered the prices. When she tells us that the rooms normally cost $285, but offers us one for $185, we book three nights right away.
We are glad to get the room a hundred dollars cheaper. In three nights we thus save three hundred dollars. The price even includes a five-dollar voucher for breakfast. After we have booked the rooms, we go back outside to our car.
The bellman loads all our belongings onto his luggage cart and wheels it through the entire hotel—a distance of at least thirty meters (100 feet)—to the elevator. When we step out of the elevator upstairs, we are thrilled. With the very first step out of the elevator, we walk on a carpet decorated with hibiscus flowers. Around the red and yellow flowers, everything is so green it looks as if there are real green bushes under our feet.
The Holiday Inn in Hollywood was nothing compared to this hotel. As we walk down the long hallway, it is quiet. A security guard in black pants and a white shirt approaches and greets us.
Then Mischko slides the electronic card into the slot, and the door opens by itself. Whether we meant to or not, a “Wow!” escapes our lips. The bellboy couldn’t miss our enthusiasm. He unloads our suitcases and the sports bags from his cart and places them where the luggage rack is designated for the suitcases.
Before he walks out, Mischko pulls out the tip again. Once he is gone, we look at each other happily. We are glad that we have found an overnight stay. I am curious and want to know what is hidden behind the colored curtain.
It is located directly behind the bed, right where we will lie with our heads. When I slide it to the side, I discover a large glass sliding door that leads to the balcony. I slide it open, and in the same moment, I hear a massive crash. A wave has just broken right in front of our window. I step out onto the balcony, stare into the darkness, and call Mischko over so she too can see how close we are to the ocean.
There was absolutely nothing you could complain about in this rented room. Everything is perfect, the furnishings are ultra-luxurious. This is a jackpot, we are sure of it. Afterward, we unpack our suitcases, and when we are done showering, it is 1:00 AM.
We go to bed and wish each other a good night. Since it is totally dark in the room and Mischko is already in a deep sleep, I assume that it is still dark outside as well. I don’t want to wake her, so I lie there patiently and motionless, listening to her breathing in and out.
I would love to know what time it is. Eventually, after perhaps an hour, I can no longer stay in the same position and have to turn slightly.
So I carefully roll onto my side. In this position, I can stretch out my right hand and grab the edge of the curtain behind my head.
Once I have it in my fingers, I carefully pull it aside inch by inch. Suddenly, a very narrow beam of light pierces in from the outside—as if someone had just turned on a powerful Maglite flashlight in our pitch-black room. “Are you awake?” she asks me. I am surprised because I was sure she was still sleeping.
She tells me that she has been awake for fifteen minutes. I reply that I have probably been lying awake for at least an hour. In the same moment, I pull the window curtain even further to the side.
“It looks like the sun has been up for a long time!” I call out loudly. After a good-morning kiss in bed and the certainty that we both slept wonderfully in this pleasant and comfortable bed, I am impatient and curious about what it looks like outside our window.
I get up and want to see it. When I pull back the curtain on the side where the sliding door is located and open the door, it is like a fairy tale. Above stretches a blue, cloudless sky. In front of us, below the window, the palm trees rustle.
A few coconuts have already fallen and lie beneath the palm tree, waiting for some tourist to pick them up. As I look down from the balcony onto the green grounds, I see a few gardeners wearing large round Vietnamese straw hats.
They are kneeling there, tending the flowers below the balcony. About twenty meters (65 feet) from the balcony, I see waves about three meters (10 feet) high tirelessly crashing against the rocks one after the other, causing a massive roar. The colors of the waves are mesmerizing.
During the wave’s cresting, the sun’s rays pierce through the water and transform this white water spray into a rainbow. Standing on the balcony, we are both thrilled by the view. Because it is already eight-thirty, we leave the balcony after about fifteen minutes and go shower in the room. When we close the door behind us, we once again admire the carpet with the red hibiscus flowers beneath our shoes.
Even though the hotel is currently only a quarter full and there are five accessible guest elevators, they seem to be in continuous use, since it is exactly breakfast time.
When we get into the guest elevator, gentle, traditional sounds from Polynesian culture reach our ears—an instrumental piece with the ukulele. When we step out of the elevator, a parrot stands before us on its round brown pedestal.
Hanging from a golden round perch, it seems to me as if he wants to inspire us with his acrobatics. His round, brown polished wooden pedestal looks like a circle.
Underneath it, some sort of green palm plant is set up as decoration. A golden pole is mounted vertically, and in the middle of this circle, there is another horizontal perch on which he can walk around freely.
CHAPTER XVII – OUR FIRST BREAKFAST
The main restaurant for breakfast is located directly in the main building of the resort on the left side and offers a direct, unobstructed view of the Pacific Ocean. When we stand in front of the restaurant entrance, a hostess in traditional Hawaiian dress greets us.
The hostess wears a circular lei of plumeria blossoms on her head. She welcomes us with a radiant smile and a warm “Aloha.“
She is dressed in an elegant resort style suited to the tropical climate. She coordinates the seating, keeps an overview of the crowd at the omelet and waffle buffet, and ensures that guests can relax and bridge any waiting times with an ocean view. She adds our names to her guest list. After a waiting time of about fifteen minutes, our family name is called out loudly, and we are led to a table in the non-smoking section.
She explains to us that we should serve ourselves at the buffet. Just like at the Hollywood Holiday Inn hotel, we thought to ourselves.
We were not familiar with this type of dining culture and buffet in Europe in hotels up until this year, 1991. Here too in this breakfast restaurant, we hear the gentle sounds of a classic ukulele.
We truly feel like we are in a South Sea dream. After the hostess walks away from us, the next server arrives, also in traditional Hawaiian dress.
However, she has only tucked a single hibiscus flower into her hair above her ear. She wants to know what we would like to drink. After she serves us our drinks, we go together to the buffet station.
This breakfast restaurant offers a lot of fresh fruit, salads, and pastries; it is artfully decorated and reflects the local agriculture of the hotel’s own Kuilima Farm.
The entire area is designed to be very open and airy, fitting perfectly with the panoramic view of the ocean that can be admired from here. Since I am not a big fan of seafood and also a very picky eater, what I put on my plate is probably the simplest and most standard fare. I put a few crispy, small, thin sausages on my plate, as well as red potatoes with the skin—or peel.
This presentation of the potatoes seemed somewhat unappetizing and dirty to me. I thought to myself: The potato skin was stuck in the dirty earth; how am I supposed to know if the potatoes were washed properly according to regulations?
When I return to the table and start to eat, the potatoes simply do not want to be eaten in my mouth the way they are probably intended: with the skin. I roll the red skin-on potatoes back and forth in my mouth until I have pushed the peel to one side of my mouth.
Then my hand comes into play: I take the napkin I used to cover my knees with both hands, bring the white cloth to my face, cover my mouth, pretend to wipe my lips, and let the potato skin drop into the cloth.
Then I wrap it up and place it on the table. Since this becomes too exhausting over time and my napkin fills up quite quickly, I start separating the potato from the peel on the plate and only put the bare potato into my mouth.
Besides that, I have scrambled eggs, a little salad, and two rolls on my plate. The breakfast was included in the room rate. Mischko herself has made a better selection, which I am happy about for her sake. During breakfast, various servers came to our table with a smile and provided us with fresh drinks.
Once my plate is finally empty, I get a fruit plate for dessert, which I decorated myself with the available fruit. While we eat and spend at least an hour in the restaurant, we look outside at the surfers who are riding their first early-morning waves not far from us and the window.
During this hour, different servers constantly came to our table; if there was something to clear away, they took it, smiled at us every time, and were super friendly.
When we are full, we leave a customary, appropriate tip on the table. We don’t leave the table unnoticed; the attentive waitresses of this hotel bid us farewell with a friendly smile and the traditional Aloha greeting. Afterward, we head straight up to our room.
The first thing we have planned for this day: driving my slightly damaged board to the southeast, where I wanted to get it professionally repaired. The shop belongs to a Californian who emigrated to Hawaii many years ago.
I have often seen his son, Robby Naish, on television during World Championship competitions. He himself lives in Hawaii, in Kailua, and does nothing else but windsurf; which is why he is a multiple-time World Champion in several disciplines.
Before we leave our room, Mischko picks up the phone and calls the bellman to bring our car around. We are downstairs shortly after. We are alone in the elevator. When we reach the ground floor, we notice something for the second time today: As soon as we step out of the elevator, we see the bird of paradise, the parrot, standing about six or seven meters (20 feet) away from the elevator.
The distance from the main entrance doors to the central elevators is only about twenty to thirty meters (65 to 100 feet). After check-in, the expansive open-air foyer transitions directly into the central area where the elevators for the main accommodation are located.
While this bird of paradise is busy with itself, we walk past it inconspicuously. After walking another ten meters (30 feet), we pass the reception on the right side.
From a distance, we see our rented car, where the bellman is waiting for us with an expectant look. When he sees us with the board, he walks toward us and takes the bag.
He had already unlocked the car beforehand and pulled the convertible top back. Then he loads the board exactly as I had stowed it the evening before when leaving the car rental. This ceremony in front of the hotel feels as if we are in an American movie. The bellman first opens the door for Mischko and closes it behind her again.
Then he hands me the keys, I give him the tip, and I walk to my driver’s side. After I have sat down, we hear him call out: “Aloha guys, and have a wonderful day.“
We drive in a semicircle here under the canopy around the flowers that separate the entrance and exit. Here too, under the canopy, the South Sea music can be heard. Hundreds of birds are chirping simply wonderfully loud on this first morning in Hawaii.
We feel as if we are somewhere in the middle of the wilderness. As we pull onto the exit road, the bellboy raises two fingers in the Hawaiian Hang-Loose greeting, which we easily imitate; we wave back and shout an “Aloha!” after him.
While we are driving at just walking pace, we casually put on our sunglasses and drive the stretch up to the boom barrier, where a very nice Hawaiian employee is waiting for us. Her name is Virginia—a Greek woman.
When she finds out we are hotel guests, we do not have to pay for parking, because we will return to the hotel to spend the night.
As we say goodbye, we hear an Aloha greeting called after us for the umpteenth time that morning. First we heard the waitresses at breakfast; since six different women attended to our breakfast, we heard it at least six times at our table alone.
When we said goodbye to the women, each of them called out an “Aloha!” to us. Then the bellman, and now this cashier at the exit. So today we learn: When we arrive anywhere, we are greeted with an Aloha greeting, and when we leave the hotel, we are bid farewell with an Aloha greeting again. Very practical and simple.
CHAPTER XVIII – DRIVING TOWARD KAILUA
Kamehameha Highway 83. Traveling at just five miles per hour, we drive over the first speed bumps. These are intended to prevent drivers from driving too fast on this hotel exit road.
Ahead of us is a two-lane exit road heading toward the main highway, and a two-lane entrance road coming from the main highway. A green grass strip about a meter (three feet) wide, protected by a high concrete curb, separates these four lanes in the middle.
Massive trees are planted every fifteen meters (50 feet), both in the middle on the grass as well as on our right side and on the right side of oncoming traffic: so-called plumeria trees. Among these trees, native Hawaiian flowers also grow on the green grass.
These plumeria trees, with their freshly bloomed buds in various colors, look from a distance as if several giant colorful bouquets of flowers had been set up in the middle in front of us.
While we are traveling at five miles per hour and slowly rolling toward the main road, white, red, and pink flower buds fly through the air in front of our windshield like in a fairy tale.
Some land on the lush green grass, others on the gray asphalt, and some stray, fly over our heads, and land behind us on our windsurfing board.
When the white blossoms fall from the trees and fly through the air, we have the blue sky in the background before our eyes. In this moment, it looks as if giant white snowflakes are raining down on us from the blue sky.
It looks as if it’s snowing white flowers—again like in a fairy tale. We feel like the happiest creatures in seventh heaven. Only for fractions of a second do memories surface of when we took off from Berlin: It was literally freezing temperatures there.
We are barely driving along this well-kept exit road in our open car when I feel the first beads of sweat flowing over my forehead and making their way toward my eyes. Currently, the sun is shining directly on us from the left side.
I also feel the first beads of sweat on my back, seeking their way downwards; it feels as if ants were crawling down my back.
We watch as nature truly awakens after this past night, and how light steam rises into the air from the wet soil from all sides around us. Countless white pearls reflect everywhere in the morning sun of Kawela Bay: on the wet green grass by the roadside, on the fresh blossoms of these trees.
Plumeria trees (also called frangipani) are the floral emblem of Hawaii. Originally from Central America, today they define Hawaiian culture with their colorful, intensely fragrant blossoms and are the classic main component of traditional flower garlands (leis).
Plumerias are actually not native to Hawaii, but were introduced in the late 19th century by the German physician and botanist Dr. William Hillebrand. The plant was named after the French botanist Charles Plumier (1646–1704). Joseph Pitton, himself a botanist and explorer, was a friend of Plumier’s.
To honor him and pay respect to Plumier’s great work, he named this plant “Plumeria”. Plumerias belong to the family of Apocynaceae (dogbane family) and are toxic in all their plant parts. When the plant is injured, a white liquid secretes, the so-called milky sap.
It can cause skin irritation. Therefore, caution is advised when handling these beautiful plants. There was nothing this morning that wasn’t wet and didn’t sparkle in the sun. A fascination of nature. High wire fences have been erected on both our right and left sides.
Behind these fences of the golf course resort, we see steam from the green grass rising into the air toward the blue sky from both sides of the facility.
The strong west wind allows the rustling of wildly waving palm leaves to reach our ears. The first tourists are out on the golf course— all small people from Asia with their tiny electric carts.
While some sit in their small vehicles waiting in the shade of the roof for a hole to finally open up, other guests stand around the hole while their playing partner tries to sink the ball.
“The Asians sure are cute,” we agreed. They are almost as small as the golf bags strapped to the back of the vehicles. It is particularly funny when they have to take the bags off the cart, because they are too short to pull the golf clubs out from the top. Once the bag is finally on the ground, it is almost as big as the players themselves.
When the bags stand next to the golfers and several people gather around the cart, we can barely make out the people, because both the bags and the players are dressed in white and completely motionless.
When we reach the end of this impressive, slow drive from the hotel and take the exit to the main road, we turn left onto the Kamehameha Highway 83 heading southeast.
What neither of us knows at this moment: This highway (often simply called Kam Highway) is one of the most important coastal and main arteries on the island of Oahu and stretches in a wide arc of about 106 kilometers (65 miles) around the island. This highway connects urban Honolulu and the suburbs near Pearl Harbor with the rural regions of the island.
The route leads from the southern military bases (which we had already seen yesterday upon landing from the plane) through the center of Oahu (where it got too chilly for us yesterday and we had to put our jackets on) all the way up to the famous North Shore (where we stayed in our hotel last night).
The drive along the Windward Coast is scenically one of the most spectacular in all of Hawaii. What we also don’t know yet at this moment: The Kamehameha Highway meanders between the emerald-green, rugged volcanic mountains of the Kualoa Mountains and the deep blue Pacific.
These famous Kualoa Mountains are part of the Koʻolau mountain range and stretch as a gigantic, green mountain ridge from the north near Kaʻaʻawa inland in a southerly direction all the way to Kaneohe.
This highway looks more like a country road to me. It often runs directly along picturesque sandy beaches with an emerald-green ocean surface and is known for its breathtaking views and hidden coves, which will not escape us on this drive to Kailua. Over long stretches all the way to Kailua, this road is single-lane, and the speed limit is low.
Since the speed limit is mostly restricted to 35 mph, even I, as the driver, can relax and enjoy the view ahead of me.
It is ten fifty-five when the gas station of Kahuku appears before our eyes. Only locals live in Kahuku, the true, poorer Hawaiians. Their houses are scattered on both sides of the road. We pull up to the gas station, which is located on the left side of the street. Mischko goes inside and comes back out shortly after with two giant cups of ice-cold drinks.
Our car has a special holder between us where you can place the drink cups. We had never seen anything like this in any car in Europe up until that year, 1991. Here in the USA, this is standard in cars, so people don’t have to hold their plastic cups in their hands while driving.
With two ice-cold drinks, we continue the drive toward Kailua. We occasionally look to the left toward the ocean. However, it is far away from us. Because the breathtaking, bushy landscape blocks our view, we only see the blue sky above the green landscape.
What we don’t know: On this so-called Windward Side, where the mountains in the north and east are not far from the ocean, the clouds pile up longer, and it rains here more often than in the south.
I have to drive particularly carefully on this two-lane road today because we have to cross countless red, muddy puddles. The mud of red earth splashes up from our wheels and sticks to the red-painted bodywork of our rented convertible. In some places, the asphalt is so dirty that you don’t even feel like you’re driving on a road, but rather across a red field.
As a driver, I have to be particularly careful not to slip off the road. In the last curve, a police car and a roadblock with several signs are set up. In front of the roadblock stands a construction worker holding a helmet and a stop sign in his hand, stopping us as the only car on the road.
Hawaiian road workers wear highly visible safety clothing as a standard, just like in Europe and the USA. The dominant colors are high-visibility yellow or high-visibility orange. This morning, the construction workers ahead of us are trying to clear the red mud from the road or fix a blockage caused by the water that is supposed to flow from the mountains toward the ocean.
What a contrast before our eyes: the red mud of the red earth on the road, while everything to the left and right is lush green. While we sit in our open car and refresh ourselves with our freshly bought, ice-cold drinks, the police officer is actually standing not far from the mud by his car, making sure that the road workers can clear the red mud from the street without danger.
CHAPTER XIX – Windward Coast I
What immediately catches my eye is their clothing with reflective stripes to ensure safety in flowing traffic. Additional contrasting colors, especially on the pant legs and sleeves, are partly dark blue and black.
The sun is so hot this morning, and these people are sweating in the blazing sun so that we can drive on safely. We have to wait for about ten minutes. When the construction worker standing in front of us with his yellow helmet and his yellow- black-orange striped clothing—who is exposed to the sun the whole time—waves us through with his flag, we slowly drive with our already dirty tires over the contaminated asphalt and past the red mud mess.
Even though they are sweating and have to work hard, while we in our open car with the board on the back are probably immediately recognized as tourists, these Hawaiians are friendly.
With a smile and their Hang-Loose Aloha greeting, they wave at us and all watch our little red sports car drive away. The mountains on our right side disappear a bit inland.
On the right side, lush green pastures now spread out, on which you can only see black cows. While some graze standing up and others lying on their stomachs eat their meal, some just stand there motionless and stare in our direction as if they were counting the cars. An electric fence ensures that they don’t wander onto the road.
On our left side, dense forest pushes right up to the road, which means that Malekahana Beach Park is not far. What we don’t know on this first day: Locals come here to camp over the weekend. When we take the entrance and I stop the car, we see that the entire ground is full of water. I get out. My flip-flops sink deep into the red earth.
While I feel this, I hear Mischko from my right side swearing: “Ewww! I am not getting out here.” I have no choice but to grin. When I realize that I can only free my sandal from the mud using my hands, I pull my foot up.
Shortly after, my dirty flip-flop, full of red earth, lies behind my seat. It’s just a rental car, goes through my head. Here at Malekahana Beach, we would have had to walk up a hill three meters (ten feet) across the grass to get into the forest. In the forest, it was probably even muddier. We would have had to walk twenty meters (65 feet) through the forest to reach the beach.
That would have been way too much of a mess and would never have gone well. Therefore, we decide to continue driving south and have the board repaired in good time. For a mile, the pastures on our right side and the wild, overgrown flora and fauna on the left accompany us. After a sharp curve, the first houses of Laie appear. In other words: A Salt Lake City in the middle of the Pacific. Here on the northeast side of the North Shore, mostly Hawaiian and Samoan Mormons live.
The Mormons maintain a large white temple here. The Laie Hawaii Temple here on Oahu is over 100 years old. It was dedicated on November 27, 1919, as the fifth temple worldwide and as the first temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outside the US mainland.
The actual temple is reserved only for active members of the church. Only the surrounding gardens may be entered by non-believers. The building is modeled after the biblical Temple of Solomon. The exterior facade consists of concrete that was refined with crushed, local lava rock and finished in a creamy white.
What we don’t know and don’t suspect on this first day: Our first friend in Hawaii will be a blonde, red-haired Mormon student. Eric Carlson from Alaska. He is a student married to a student from the Palau Islands. These two are studying, have four kids on the side, and are both deeply devout Mormons.
While I am writing this story, I currently have goosebumps and tears in my eyes because I am very sad. She died very young on the mainland. Mona Carlson (March 27, 1966 — August 23, 2023, St. George, Utah).
If you would like to read more about Mona, you can search for her name online. Her entire story is described there very thoroughly. How we will get to know Eric: Since he works as a bellman at the Turtle Bay Hilton and Mischko calls him every morning because we need our car, he immediately recognizes her voice, and so we see each other every morning.
Because he takes a liking to us, he invites us to his home. He warns us in advance that he has four children with Mona. We go to his home and bring several kilograms of chocolate with us. When we sit together, he reveals something to us. I understand absolutely no word. Mischko translates: “Eric says you are the biggest tipper he has ever had in all these years!” We can’t help but grin.
Since I have absolutely no sense of money, he received five dollars from Mischko every morning when he brought the car around for us. When we came from the beach, another five. Sometimes he worked overtime, so that within just sixteen hours he received twenty dollars in tips from us (bringing the car around once for the beach, parking the car away after returning, then after showering going out in the evening to Haleiwa to the pizzeria, and if we returned before twelve, he was still there).
Then Mischko said: “Most give a dollar, some absolutely nothing at all. And if he ever received more from a guest, then it was at most two dollars.” It was quite unusual for us. Mona is so young, and they already have four kids—all around four years old. Mona and Eric lived right in the residential complex below the white Mormon temple, which is established exclusively for Mormons.
Right next to the temple is a freely accessible visitor center with gardens. On this first morning, we drive past this temple, which is located on our right side. Not even a few minutes later, we have the next attraction on our right side: Kualoa Regional Park and the Polynesian Cultural Center.
CHAPTER XX – Windward Coast II
On the drive from Laie, we have to pass through the following smaller towns. While passing through them, we always have to smile at their names.
The towns always have multiple A’s in their names: • Hauʻula: A small, quiet coastal town. Perfect for a short stop at Hauʻula Beach
Park. • Punaluʻu: Known for its black sand beach and excellent views of the ocean. • Kahana: Here lies Kahana Valley State Park, a green river valley that is excellent for hiking and kayaking.
Kaʻaʻawa: A picturesque coastal region defined by the imposing cliffs of the Koʻolau Mountains and known as a famous filming location. Kualoa: Home to the famous Kualoa Ranch. From here, you get a great view of the small islet Mokoliʻi (often called “Chinaman’s Hat”). • Waikāne & Waiahole: Quiet, rural communities.
• Kahaluʻu: A sprawling residential area right on the bay. Kahaluʻu Regional Park is located here. • Kāneʻohe: The largest city on this coast. An ideal place to visit the Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden.
Throughout the entire drive from Kaʻaʻawa to Kaneohe, the gigantic green mountains rise to our right, and the sea lies at most two meters (six feet) below the asphalt of the two-lane highway we’re driving on.
Because the drive from the Turtle Bay Hilton is getting long and we finished our cold drinks a while ago, we stop at the very first opportunity at a flat-roofed food store and get fresh cold drinks.
Now, for the first time, we find ourselves among the real, truly poor locals. After leaving the store and continuing our drive, we pass through the above-
mentioned smaller towns and see completely neglected houses and old, rusted cars hidden away on overgrown, unkempt
properties. Having been on the road for almost two hours, we feel quite lost somewhere on the country highway. By chance, we spot an older gentleman riding his bicycle alone. We ask ourselves:
What is this man doing in this heat in the middle of nowhere, where there is no residential area? It looks like a jungle. He has only a bicycle, nothing to drink, and is riding alone down the road under a blue sky heading south. We pull over and ask if we are on the right path to Kailua.
He tells us that not far from where we are standing, a turnoff heading to Kailua is coming up. And indeed, shortly after, we are already in Kaneohe (the largest city on the East Coast; here we can turn onto the Likelike Highway or the H-3 to continue to Kailua).
Kailua. Once in Kailua, without having to ask many questions, we find ourselves directly in front of the windsurfing shop of Robby Naish, the multi-time windsurfing world champion. When we go inside the shop, it’s swarming with Japanese tourists and a few other tourists. We also meet a German employee here.
When an older gentleman speaks to us, we don’t realize at the time that this is the father, Rick Naish, of world champion Robby Naish. We explain and show him the minor damage. He says that it’s no problem. We can definitely pick the board up the day after tomorrow. Thus, we leave
the shop relieved, picking up a few t-shirts as souvenirs on the way out. Since we have been driving in an open car from the North Shore for at least two hours and the strong sun was constantly beating down on our faces, we are so drained that we are hungry again and need to eat something. When we leave the windsurfing shop, we quickly want to grab something to eat at Burger King. Since we are already in Kailua, we drive after eating to the Public
Beach, where we discover the most beautiful beach on this island that day. A sandy beach from Lanikai all the way to the end in the north of Kailua. At least a mile and a half long! It was here on this beach that the world champion learned his windsurfing skills. In the evening, just before sunset, we leave
Kailua and drive north. In front of the hotel, the next bellboy is waiting. He takes our car keys, gives us a ticket, and parks the car far away from the entrance in their parking lot. Once inside our hotel, we have our dinner in the main restaurant: the Alaia
Restaurant. It features a modern, chic, and bright farm-to-table design that perfectly matches the tropical surroundings. The counters feature warm wood tones, combined with light workspaces, marble elements, and modern indirect lighting. There are also
spacious live-cooking stations (including areas for custom-made omelets and freshly baked waffles). The food here is not cheap. Fifty dollars per person. A complete dinner including drinks averaged up to $70 per person.
We spend the second day on the North Shore. We swim completely alone in the bay of Laie. On the third day, we have to go back to Kailua to pick up the board. After picking up the board from the Naish shop and coming back outside, we spend this second day in Kailua at the Public Beach as well. Kailua Beach is the most beautiful beach on all the Hawaiian Islands by far.
CHAPTER XXI – OUR FIRST ARGUMENT IN OUR ENTIRE LIVES
On this day, we drive back north a bit earlier. On the way, I try to convince Mischko that we should stay on this island because the hotel resort is simply too perfect. While eating breakfast, we watch the locals who are not far from us riding the morning
waves before heading to work or school. The waitresses are so friendly. They have already taught me a few phrases in Hawaiian. In the breakfast room, soft South Sea music plays every morning.
I had long since made peace with the food and the potatoes. Even though I had already packed the suitcases the night before, on the fourth day I am still trying to talk her out of leaving. I tell her that I want to stay on this island. Deep down, I have good instincts. This island is simply too
perfect. Early in the morning at the table, she says to me: “We paid around 150 Marks per person for the tickets to Maui.” I truly appreciate that Mischko is the one who watches our money.
She is the one making the big money, not me. If I didn’t love her more than I love myself, she would see a very different side of me. Then I would have convinced her the hard way. I weigh 85 kilograms (187 lbs). Let her try to carry me out of the hotel if she can. She can’t.
But I could carry her out of the hotel at any time. Furthermore, I have the driver’s license, not her. If I say I’m not driving, then she simply has to stay here in this hotel. I have many ways I could easily checkmate her.
But because I love her more than I love myself, I try the gentle approach. I don’t want to make her angry. Because I love her. She is stubborn and only thinks about the loss of three hundred Deutsche Marks. It surprises me that such an intelligent woman, to whom I have never said “No,” is denying me my own
wish. I am happy to forgo Maui. I am one hundred percent sure that Maui cannot be more beautiful than this island. We are both tired and still suffering from jet lag. Neither of us is thinking clearly. If only one of us had thought clearly in that moment, we would have come to two conclusions:
First: When we were searching catalogs at home in Berlin for accommodations on Maui six months ago, we couldn’t find anything under $470 for a night on the Kaanapali Coast in the west. Second (the clear idea we failed to grasp): If we had only asked ourselves why the
island of Oahu is the most densely populated, then we would have realized: There must be something to this island. The beaches here must be the most beautiful. That’s why the Americans settled this island so heavily. One thing was immediately clear to me when I told her I would
skip Maui: No matter where I had been windsurfing before—in Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, or my homeland—I had never noticed a difference. I had fun out in the waves everywhere. All I need to have
fun is wind. That’s why the sport is called windsurfing, after all. I would have completely understood Mischko if she had been the one who expressed the desire to fly to Maui. But she won’t yield. And so
we are having a disagreement for the very first time in our entire lives. We flew all this way just to have our very first argument. At home, we never had a reason to fight over anything. Everything went so perfectly. I absolutely never care about money. Why? Because my father ruined my future and my potential education solely for the sake of dirty money. Making money was more important to him than giving his own child the
promised education. Therefore, and only therefore, I refuse to work for the things he worked for. To me, this wasn’t a real fight early that morning. I was just getting annoyed because she absolutely wanted to leave this island. Consequently, I gave in, and we flew to Maui that day.
CHAPTER XXII – I Am Pissed At the Breakfast Table
I only try my best this morning not to show the friendly waitresses in their Hawaiian dresses, with hibiscus flowers tucked behind their ears, that I am angry at my wife. We leave the hotel and drive all the way across the entire island to the airport. It takes us almost two hours to get
there. I haven’t said a single word to her. Only the radio was on. In
my head, the entire time, everything revolved around the sum of three hundred Deutsche Marks. Let me reiterate: up until this day, we had
never had a single disagreement in our entire life together.
When we arrive at the airport in Honolulu, we return the car. Afterward, we are in the terminal and shortly after, sitting on the plane to Maui. After twenty minutes, we spot the island. I can tell by the palm trees that it is windy, and my mood instantly improves. After we land, we step outside. It is quite windy; I am thrilled to finally be able to windsurf, and I try to forget the beautiful grounds of the Turtle Bay Hilton. We pick up our rental car. Only now do I speak to her for the first time today. Because the car rental agency here on Maui doesn’t have a convertible, I have to make do with a roof rack. I have to secure my two bags with the
straps I brought from Berlin—exactly the way I do it on our Chevrolet Camaro in Berlin. Using the map the car rental agency just gave us at the airport, we drive to Ho’okipa, the place where I plan to windsurf. When we reach Ho’okipa a short time later, we see a few tents, but
not a single house. Mischko asks the windsurfers where we might find accommodation around here. One of them tells us the first hotel lies on the other side of the island. There are absolutely no private accommodations available on Maui. We immediately drive to the other side
of the island. When we find the hotel, the first thing we want to know is what the night costs. The clerk tells us: $240. We go up to see the rooms first because we want to know what we are paying this money for. The hotel looked dilapidated and quite old, in desperate need of renovation—
I can practically smell the cockroaches. I don’t like it. We want to keep looking. Since we had seen in the catalogs back in Berlin that a hotel on the Kaanapali Coast in northwest Maui charged $470 for just one night, we both agree: we aren’t going to pay that.
So we drive south. While driving—for forty-five minutes —we come across a resort. Completely filled with Japanese tourists. Room rate: $400. At the next resort, exactly the same. What now? We are desperate. We drive inland. Through the sugarcane fields.
Not a house in the distance, nothing. The plants are over a meter (three feet) high. Blue sky. The sun is beating down from above into the car’s interior. I stop the car at the first intersection in the middle of nowhere, open the door and step out because I don’t know what to do next. I am desperate. I look around. Everything around me is just green, as if we are surrounded by tall grass. It’s simply wilderness. Just nature.
Above my head is nothing but the blue sky. The sun is beating down directly on my forehead. I am dissatisfied. Even though I haven’t been outside for a minute, I’m already too hot, and I start to sweat. Then I think of the beautiful hotel on Oahu that we left just a few hours ago.
Then the thought hits me that Mischko talked me into coming to this desolate island. In that moment, I become even more dissatisfied. I
start working myself up, getting angrier and angrier inside, beginning to boil, the more I think about the beautiful bed on Oahu.
I say out loud to myself: “How stupid am I for listening to you, as if you were the one who wanted to windsurf on Maui!” Barely have I said this when, instinctively—trying to release the stress—I slam my right fist with full force into the bright red car.
The first punch lands on the fender, almost right on the edge above the tire. After the punch, I mutter a few more sentences to myself. Suddenly I hear: “If you want, we can drive back to the airport and ask if we can fly back to Oahu today!”
CHAPTER XXIII – I DAMAGE A NEW CAR 125 Miles on the Odometer
When I turn my head toward her, I see that she is also standing outside by the open door—with a guilty look on her face. “Oh, so now all of a sudden I can fly back!” I reply. Because I become even angrier in that same moment, and my brain wants to discharge the internal stress lightning-fast,
I slam my fist a second time into the innocent, brand-new car that has barely two hundred miles on the odometer. This time, the punch was uncontrolled. I hit dead center on the hood of the bright red car with full force. Because I knew that this punch was even harder than
my first, I want to see what I’ve just done, and I lift my fist off the hood. This time, I can clearly and distinctly see the imprint of my fist on the new, fully comprehensively insured car. A proper dent. In this moment, I’m not afraid because I damaged the
car (it’s fully insured, after all), but I feel guilty. What did the car have to do with my anger? That wasn’t necessary, crosses my mind. I need to cool down now. As I focus on the damage and stare at the deep dent from my fist,
the anger slowly dissipates from my brain. Two hundred miles… crosses my mind. The interior still smells like the car is on the production line, barely having seen the road. I can’t believe what I’ve just done. I had actually gotten out of the car because I didn’t want to fight with her inside it.
That was the reason I stepped out. If she hadn’t gotten out too, I think a minute later, I wouldn’t have been able to stand in the heat under the blazing sun much longer. Then I would have gotten back in and, without asking her, driven straight to the airport.
We had no other choice. Because she too would surely want a roof over her head tonight in a strange place. She opened the door and stepped out because she realized it had been a mistake. That’s why she came out—and in that moment, it was just bad luck for the car. After this second punch and staring at the dent for a long time, my stress seemed to be resolved. (I once saw on TV how therapists give their patients something foam-like to punch with all their rage; that relieves the stress!) It seemed this punch had triggered something similar in me. I have a clear head now, and slowly one thing becomes obvious: Who do I have to thank for even being allowed to be here in
Hawaii? My wife. Because she is the one who makes the big money in our household, not me. She is the one who looks after the money, not me. If it had been up to me, we would never have had a savings account, and I would have gambled my money away at a casino long ago. Since I love my wife more than
myself… and since she now wanted to return to the Turtle Bay Hilton too, that suited me perfectly. “Ok, let’s drive to the airport!” came out of my mouth. When we peacefully reach the airport and get inside, Mischko asks first when the next flight to Oahu leaves. The clerk says:
“Around nine o’clock tonight.” Mischko turns to me happily and says: “We can fly back at nine tonight.” We book two seats for ourselves on the nearly empty plane and pay. We receive the tickets immediately. Then Mischko calls the hotel on the North Shore on
Oahu. The operator says that our room, which we left this morning, is still available. Thus, we had our return flight on the same day and even secured the exact same room. Once we have everything sorted out, we realize that we have gotten very hungry in the meantime.
Spotting a fast-food restaurant at the airport, we grab a quick bite to eat and then immediately drive back to Ho’okipa.
CHAPTER XXIV – HO’OKIPA
When we return from the airport after about a twenty-minute drive, I unpack my gear. Meanwhile, Mischko asks one of the windsurfers again where they plan to sleep tonight. After talking to him for a short time and coming back, she tells me that they plan to sleep here in the tents,
right on the beach—which, naturally, is the cheapest option. When unpacking the board, I am much faster this time than four days ago when we arrived at the airport in Honolulu. This time, I had packed the scissors in our white Adidas bag this morning. Once I
rigged my pink five-square-meter sail onto the mast and am ready to hit the water with the board, all I have to do is put on my wetsuit. As soon as I’m ready, I look at the waves outside—with only a few windsurfers. There is no simple sandy beach here like in Venice, LA.
The entry at Ho’okipa is challenging, just like on the rocky island of Hvar in my homeland. Because I am familiar with rocks, difficult water access, and large waves, getting into the water shouldn’t be a problem for me here either. I see the lava rock, framed by sand.
There is only a small section of sand and a wide, sharp-edged rock wall. When I want to get in, I will jump into the water with the board and the sail under my arm exactly as I am used to doing back home directly into deeper water.
Since I can’t stand for long in the knee-deep, rocky area, I know I must immediately put my foot in the strap, pull the sail out of the water, and take off with the wind in the sail before the next wave breaks. I understand this clearly. Returning to land logically requires perfect timing to glide over the reef with the wave, jump directly from the board into the water, and grab the gear immediately
before it is thrown onto the rocks by the waves. On the right side, downwind, I use the entry point to the water just like the other windsurfers. As in my homeland, I have to watch the wave sets here to jump into the water at the right moment during a calmer phase.
While I walk over with my bare feet (which is not recommended) and see this black color beneath my feet, the first image that forms in my brain is that of death. Probably because that’s how people dress at funerals.
I can’t explain my brain’s reaction any other way. The waves that I saw on television about six months ago seemed much bigger to me. It probably depends on wind strength and wind direction here too, just like back home. While I am out there, I can’t help but think of my
homeland and the waves I surfed in February during the winter. They were at least two to three meters (six to ten feet) higher. Furthermore, back home, I am the only windsurfer out there. Every single wave out there belongs only to me; I don’t have to watch out for other windsurfers and any rules.
Here, I have to follow the rules, and I don’t even know them myself. The only thing I do: I keep far away from the only two other windsurfers having fun out here. While surfing, I ask myself internally if it was worth flying this far.
I ask myself this as I glide over these waves. Even as I write this now, I wonder: If we had found an overnight stay on this island today, I’m still not sure to this day if it would really have been worth it. Traveling should be fun for both of us. Out there,
where she waits for me in the car all day, there is nothing to eat. What would we have eaten, and where? It is the year 1991. Swimming would have been absolutely no fun for her here because she doesn’t like the surf. Had she anticipated and known about these swimming conditions at Ho’okipa yesterday—when I told her
I wanted to stay at our hotel on Oahu—she would have agreed immediately. After barely two hours—because the beach faces north, the sun doesn’t sink directly into the water in front of the beach—I see the sky slowly painting itself in breathtaking colors.
What I don’t know: in the early evening, protected turtles come to the beach to rest for the night. Since we already knew that it would be pitch dark no later than forty-five minutes after sunset, and I see the sun going down, I know I have to get out if I don’t want to pack up the board
in total darkness. As I am the last one out of the water, a few boards already lie on the beach attached to sails—they belong to the diehards spending the night here in the tents.
While I pack my things onto the car, these windsurfers are preparing their dinner. After two hours of windsurfing and half an hour of packing, we set off in almost total darkness for the airport, which isn’t far from Ho’okipa. Once I have unloaded the gear in the airport terminal,
I double-check to make sure I packed everything correctly in the twilight, since it had been almost completely dark. Because the flight wasn’t that long, I trusted that the airport employees on Maui would treat the packed board fairly and not throw it around. After dropping our things off, we want to eat the same thing we had eaten earlier today.
There was nothing else at this village-like airport on Maui: a fast-food restaurant. With a half-empty plane and after a short flight, we land safely in Honolulu.
When we return to our hotel around midnight, which we had just left this morning, the same bellman named Mike, who had welcomed us four nights ago, is surprised and curious about where we spent the entire day with our things.
Since it isn’t busy at midnight and Mike has plenty of time, Mischko tells him the whole story. When he hears that I was mad at Mischko, he just grins, then smiles and asks: “How long do you plan to stay?” Mischko says: “A full four weeks!” Mike smiles, amazed, and says:
“Welcome back to Turtle Bay Hilton.” Because we already know Mike, we just leave all our stuff in the car. He gives Mischko the ticket with the number for car retrieval when she calls in the morning. At the reception, the lone manager finds Mischko’s reservation number.
When she asks: “How long do you want to stay?”, Mischko replies: “Four weeks!” The manager thinks she misheard and asks again: “How many days in total?” Mischko: “28 nights!” Manager: “I’m sorry, I thought I misheard you.” “We have never had a reservation for that long in this hotel.” “Most guests come for one, two, or three days.”
What the manager told us that night was confirmed to us over the next few days by the waitstaff in the restaurant at breakfast themselves— without us having told them what the manager had said during our new reservation.
What the manager and the restaurant staff said would also be confirmed to us in two weeks by Eric Carlson—our first friend in Hawaii, the Mormon student, when we are at his house.
When he invited us, he told us we couldn’t tell anyone we were at his house, or he would lose his job.
Just as promised on the phone, when we arrive from Maui this evening, we are given the exact same room we left this morning. Fifteen minutes later, when we are upstairs in our same room, Mike arrives and brings our luggage inside. After Mischko hands him the tip, we say goodbye with an Aloha greeting and “Good Night.” The first thing I have to do is open the suitcases again, then wash off the stench of my wetsuit and the saltwater from my body. Once Mischko is also finished showering, we peacefully get into bed, without either of us ever saying another word about this fourth day in Hawaii for the rest of our lives.