Postscript to Day No. 20

Palm trees & ocean breeze

Meanwhile it's Wednesday. I'm back home and hopefully done with the jet lag. My first day at work is also over and was filled with lots of interested questions and comments of my colleagues regarding our Hawai'i trip.😊 If I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that I haven't realized many things yet. Still not. And I didn't know that there are so many Hawaii Five-0 and fans of Alex at my work. Regarding this I only had one thought today: Girls united! 😂

But let me go back to Friday. Pack or unpack the suitcase, it doesn't matter which way. I don't like it. At least we had enough time to do everything without hurry because our flight was only in the evening.🙏 Somehow, I was always running outside while packing and took pictures - as if I could have taken more of it home with me that way. In the late afternoon we said goodbye to our hosts and made our way to the airport. And again everything went smoothly. Car return, check-in, security check and soon we sat at our gate - again with cappuccino in hand. I was sad because I didn't want to leave and my honey tried to comfort me with saying "We'll come back again!" but it didn't really worked. And then something unexpected happened again that changed the whole situation in one go. Kumu Mary! Suddenly Kumu Mary was there and I was really happy! The night before, she had given me her Lei Kukui to say goodbye and stressed that we now belong to her Lāhui (her people). That touched me so much and when she showed up at the airport I gave her a very enthusiastic hug. Within this short time she became truly a meaningful person to me. I knew she would fly that day to LA to visit her son but I didn't expected to meet her at this time. We didn't had much time together but somehow it had been just what I needed to leave the island with a much lighter heart. Mahalo!🙏 

Shortly after, when we flew over Waikiki, I managed to get this photo (on the right) on which you can see Diamond Head. And when I found out that Hawaii Five-0 season 9 was part of Delta's on-board program, everything was fine - at least for the moment.😍

After 6 hours flight time we approached Salt Lake City at dawn. We had a great view but it was freezing cold.⛄ After just a short stay and a quick coffee we soon sat in the next plane and were on our way to Atlanta what took only 3 hours. The Atlanta airport is huge and since we had to change 5 terminals, it was good that we had a long stay of 6 hours. We had plenty of time to eat and finally watched the sun set as we waited at our gate.😎

The last part of our way back to Dusseldorf took again 8 hours. Unfortunately the good service on board was not able to offset the cold in the aircraft. Despite jacket and 2 blankets, I froze for 8 hours and of course didn't sleep. We also had a lot of turbulence and when we finally landed in Dusseldorf the next morning, I was done.

First thing I did when we reached my honey's place was to take a hot bath to warm up again. 🔥Altogether everything has worked out good. No missed flights, no lost luggage, everything in time - except for the cold nothing to complain about. Okay, it took me Monday and Tuesday to get rid of the jet lag but I was expecting that. 

In the last few days, I have often looked at my photos. One of them maybe a little more often than the others.😉 I was in Hawai'i, I was dancing Hula (okay, starting to learn), I've seen a lot of places I've seen on TV before (Amy, you're awesome!), I jumped with a NavySEAL (not at the same time, of course! Thank you, Steve!) out of a helicopter into the sea (video footage is coming soon, thanks to Trident Adventures) and I met Alex when I did not believe it would happen anymore. 🙏 

We met so many warm and impressive people. We've seen a lot and done a lot, and yet my list hasn't actually gotten shorter. I will definitely be back. Back for more. For much more.💗

Aloha! 🌴🌺🙏

⤇  Thanks for reading! Comments & thoughts appreciated. ⤆