It's not a goodbye - it's a see you soon!

It's now almost one week since I am back in Germany. I have to admit that it hit me really hard: the cold, icy weather, the German language and just being back to normal. It's so cold, I barely want to leave the bed. Yesterday it was sunny which was great but today it is just simply grey grey grey and awful!

But back to my last day in Hawaii on the big island. I went to an organic coffee farm to see how they grow, harvest and produce coffee! The smell when we arrived with our car was insane - coffee overload! We walked through the growing plants before testing some coffee which was great but super expensive. A pound was around 40$ which I thought was too much. I bought chocolate covered beans and a coffee-coconut peeling from a local brand which I tried and I really loved it!

Then the flying began: we flew around one hour from the big island back to Honolulu. There we had to wait around 5 hours to get to our next flight which brought us back to LA. That flight was overnight which means from 11pm to 5am. I barely got some sleep but I was pretty awake the next day. Gerardo came all the way from SF to spend my 11 hours layover in LA with me. We went to Venice beach and to a really cool place called "Wurstküche" in LA. It's a hot dog restaurant with an own butcher and the funny thing was that they had Bratwürste and Bockwürste - couldn't get more German ;-) At 5pm we returned to the airport and my 13 hour flight to Istanbul started. It was a good flight, I ordered a vegetarian meal but I always got 2 meals, the veggie and the normal one because the flight attended was a nice one ;-) The seat next to me was empty - lucky me! With a 2 hour layover in Istanbul and everyone in their suit and ties staring at me as if i was a homeless person: well excuse me guys I flew a lot - and this is why I wear sweatpants!! I was glad when I arrived because I couldn't sit anymore. In total I flew 22 hours in 2 days with a 11 hour time difference and a 11 hour layover - my parents picked me up with a cool Aloha Ines sign ;-) I had around 60kg luggage - so thanks again to my parents for picking me up and I didn't had to take the train - hahaaa ;-)

Goodbye shorts until summer in Germany...

The "Wurstküche" in LA. One of the most "yelped" places in the US.

It was a great time. Sometimes I already forget where I've been because we went to a lot of places. I already will miss being abroad a lot. I started this blog because I thought some people may be interested but my coworker said that he thinks no one will read it ;-) well Matthias, I guess I proved you wrong! I got almost 11.000 clicks! Thanks a lot for reading and be sure: in the future - the best is yet to come! Aloha, Ines.

Distance on a bike: 10 miles
Distance on an airplane: 22830 miles
Distance rode on a bus: 234 miles
Distance in a car: 5214 miles
Time spent on a bike: 7 hours
Time on airplanes: 53 hours
Time on a bus: 6 hours
Time spent in a car: 109 hours
Time spent on the pool so far: 30 hours
Time spent on the beach: was too busy with chilling to count
Amount being called sweetie until now by woman: 5
Amount payed for parking: 65 $

Hapuna Beach

Today was our last full day on Hawaii. Therefore we did one thing: chillmode hardcore! We stayed at the beach from 10am to 4pm and I got a tan - wuhuuu! The beach was really nice! And we saved a 5$ parking ticket because an old couple gave us theirs for free ;-) Woopwoop!

It got super hot, so I grabbed some shave ice with coconut and blue rasberry. It's super sweet so you think you may need to go to a dentist after eating, but it's so worth it!!

For dinner we tried Poke, a dish with raw fish. It was really good! And they had Canady Dry with Ginger Ale which is my favorite drink lately ;-)

Tomorrow we are leaving... so that means packing... urgh!

From Hilo to Kona with some coconut

Yesterday we drove all the way from Hilo to Kona. The drive took us two hours and we took the saddle road which basically goes straight through the country! We said goodbye to our Airbnb hosts but our host said she couldn't let us go until we haven't made a tour around her property and haven't eaten even fresh coconut!! So yeah we did that ;-) We got coconut flesh for the ride and fruits - best Airbnb everrr!

When we arrived in Kona, we checked in into our new Airbnb which is really great! Our host is super relaxed and has a great house. We went to the beach around our place which is called Kamoa beach where we accidently met our friends from Maui ;-) We chilled there and went to Kona in the evening to buy some souvenirs and go for indian food.

Today we went south to Ho'Okena Beach Park which was beautiful! Really relaxed with a lot of locals and we stayed there until 3pm. Our German friends arrived and together we went to two-steps which is a snorkeling paradise. I snorkeled with 2 huge turtels and they basically looked into my eyes, they were not even 3 feet away!! That was fun! But the water was pretty cold... We had burgers for dinner which were great. Tomorrow is our last full day here on Hawaii :-(

Halema'uma'u Crater

Today we drove to the Hawaii Volcanes National Park which is around 50 miles away from our house. When we started it was super hot, but during the drive it started to rain and the volcano is at 13,000 feet altitude so yeah when we got out of car at the visitor center we changed from shorts to long jeans! You have to ask at the visitor center which parts of the crater rim are open and which are closed. "Pele" - that's how natives call the volcano, is pretty active and there is a lot of steam and dangerous oxids and therfore parts are closed. We did a part of the crater rim first, which lead us to the Jaggar Museum from where you have a great look over the whole volcano. There is still steam coming out of it and it's pretty impressive!!

We continued to the steam tubs out of which hot steam is coming out.

The lava tubes were next...

The devastation trail was pretty cool! The landscape was pretty impressive and totally dry!

 My shirt matches the nature... Not!

Our next stop was really close to the sea at Holei Sea Arch, where you could see that the lava once was going into the ocean.

The Pu'u Loa Petroglyphs weren't really worth going, but it was a great hike over the lava rocks.

With a stop at an overlook we drove to the Kileau Iki Trail.

The trail was amazing! It was a 4 mile hike which goes directly into the crater. There is steam coming out of some lava rocks and the landscape is breathtaking. Kind of feels like a landing on Mars ;-)

It was a pretty exhausting day, because of the driving and the hikes we did. Tomorrow we are leaving our nature paradise and are going to Kona for some more beach days!