2 July, 1997

Aloha! I arrived in Hawai'i late in the afternoon today. Dr. David Karl, my mentoring scientist who is the Professor of Oceanography at University of Hawai'i, greeted me with a beautiful flower lei. as we drove toward the university campus, the skies also greeted me with a vivid rainbow. (The football team is called the "Rainbow Warriors" so perhaps the rainbow wasn't JUST for me.)

The air is so fragrant here and plumeria blossoms litter the sidewalks like so many fall leaves in mainland USA. The campus has koi ponds and a tea house to give a bit of tranquility (hard to achieve with tropical birds calling out constantly). Trees with every imaginable blossom size, color, and shape grace each lawn area. Birds that I have only seen in zoos or pet stores go hooping about as if they were nothing special while the zoo sports cages marked "Robin" and "Blue jay!"