Alan is making we write this tonight even though I'm too sad. Alan will agree with everything I say in green
How can it possibly be time to come home? We only just got here. I am feeling really sad about having to leave this beautiful paradise but there are four reasons to come home, our four fluffy girls. We have missed them so much.
We were up at a reasonable hour this morning as we were to be picked up for the Arizona Memorial tour at 9.25am. We went down to breakfast and instead of taking 6 fruit salads like we did yesterday, we took 22. We had to. Tomorrow morning we are being picked up at 5.45am for our flight and breakfast doesn't start until 6.30am. We needed to get our money's worth.
We were looking forward to the Arizona Memorial, that was until we arrived and discovered we had to wait almost two hours. We would have thought, going through an actual tour organisation, we would have received some priority. That wasn't the case. I'm not exactly sure what we paid for considering the Memorial is free. It was very hot and humid and not much around to do to fill that amount of time. There's a museum and stuff like that which I found very interesting but it still didn't come close to filling all our spare time. Finally we were let into the theatre to view a 30 minute film and then we were on the shuttle out to the Memorial. It is actually quite moving although you really can't comprehend what it must have been like that morning on 7 December 1941. The USS Arizona still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbour where it sank, with the viewing platform built over the top of it. A few pieces of the warship just poke out of the waters surface.
In all, 21 American warships were damaged or sunk when Japan launched their surprise attack on the Naval base at Pearl Harbour that day. 2390 Americans died, of which 1177 were on the Arizona. Most of the bodies of the Arizona dead are still entombed in the sunken ship.
We returned to the hotel and had some of our fruit salad and then hit the lagoon for a swim. The roads were fairly busy coming back from the Memorial and we thought the beach would be too. However, it was quieter than it had been the last few days. When we made mention of this to a security person who was in our lift, he suggested that everyone was watching "the big game". Hawaii were playing San Jose in some sort of football. It was a college football game.
After our last holiday swim we returned to the room and showered. Before heading out to dinner we were treated to a fireworks display. It was nice of the people of Hawaii to give us a great send off. We walked about four blocks to a mexican restaurant. The food was nice but, as always, there was far too much of it. We didn't appreciate the waitress giving us a lecture on the art of tipping, including telling us how much to tip her. On reviewing the bill we discovered she had charged for us a salad which actually came with the meal. There went her tip. I think it's a bit rude telling customers how much they should tip you.
We are now back in our room, looking very sad at each other. 12 hours from now we will be on our way back to Australia and will be home in less than 24 hours.
There will be one more holiday blog, a bit of a summation so to say, so stay tuned. It may not be tomorrow or the next day but definitely it will be posted by Wednesday. Once we get back home, over our jet lag and out of holiday mode.
Thanks to everyone for tuning in and sharing our holiday stories, photos and especially our wedding. We love you all.
Trivia for the day: 66 years on and oil still leaks from the engines of the USS Arizona into Pearl Harbour at a rate of about 2 litres per day.
Here is a video of Alan playing in the water.
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