Johoooo, just trying this out a little while I watch the Inauguration.

Our “official” wedding pictures are at http://gallery.mac.com/derdoc and

our own pictures are at http://www.lorenz-meyer.de/gal.

Enjoy!

First we wanted to finally do our trip to the vulcano up the mountain or at least drive around the island some more.. but I still didn’t feel well enough, and neither did Tania, so we decided to just go to Lahaina again and hang out for a while until our dinner reservation at 1700h kicks in. The nice persuasive lady again had persuaded us to go to the “Big Mamma’s Fishouse” near the airport which is supposed to be almost worth the trip alone.

To Lahaina we went, walked around the little park downtown, which we hadn’t been to before and discovered that they were having a little community art sale event of the Lahaina art society under the big tree in the park. It was basically couple little nice thingies that we already knew from the hotel, like some porcellain plates, little paintings and – of course – a lot of people with nice pictures.. which seems to be the art-du-jour. Most of them were actually really nice, one has to admit.

So we bought two Xmas presents – but Psst!! I won’t uncover more here.. – looked interested at printed-on-canvas pictures of conspiciously naked women with rays in the sea and generally had a good time. There was even your of-the-shelf spiritual didgeridoo, mandalai or-whatever-weird-instrument-they-play-these-days strange guy playing one of the aforementioned devices to etherical singing and music. Pretty cool!

Tania slept a little on my lap and I lazily eyed a guy on the next bench selling little glass pearls or the like to people coming by from his little box – until one of the ladies with the tables full of higher-class artwork came and informed him that he needed a certificate to be allowed to sell art in this park and obviously he didnt have one. Because only the Lahaina art society has one, to which she sharply deduced he didn’t belong, so she suggested that he’d better get lost now, or somebody will call somebody who has more physical jurisdiction over the place than her. He looked kinda hurt but nonetheless started packing up, allthewhile the lady lingered around and again offered the advice that he had better get lost _right now_, or else. So he packed up and another – more friendly – lady came by, telling him about the society and how he could join and stuff.. being more trained in the diplomatic arts, it seemed.

We had a lil sandwich thingy and shake in a small local burger place right there next to the park and hung out at the place a lil’ more… went to the beach to watch the surfers and slowly went back to the car to drive to the main town. It takes about 45mins and is a really nice drive on the shore. We were there a lil early so decided to drive around a lil, but the town wasn’t at all that interesting, no real downtown to see, just a big mall that we ended up turning around at.

We remembered the persuasive lady saying that the restaurant (big mama’s fish house) is near the airport, so we drove around the neighborhood a little bit, but couldn’t find it.. so I went into a surfshop to ask, and turns out it is like 20 min away. We drove in that direction a while, but then decided to turn around since we weren’t really hungry anyway, and return to the mall. So we did. Walked around there, had some really good sushi in a very japanese sushi bar - obviously the asian influence is big there… and then returned to the airport.

We turned in the car – no problem there – then went to the main terminal to stand in line, which was the wrong at first, since we didnt know which airline we were taking, so we went to the right line – after getting thru the agricultural screening for the US mainland first – Tania got stopped for trying to go under the little barrier bands, because you obviously dont do that, got checked for the right tickets, the agricult. screening and her passport and everything else like 5x by like really un-nice ladies, and finally we made it into the main security zone. I had a starbucks and we waited for the flight.

Once in LAX – 6h later – we had to make it to the gate pretty fast, and took the next plane to Denver. In Denver we discovered that our flight to ELP had been canceled and it turned out that it had been snowing in ELP a couple centimeters, following which the whole city panics and shuts down every airport, major highway, outlet and company. Anyway, there where two more flights for ELP scheduled that day, which were overbooked already of course, and had a really long waiting list. The impatient german couple right next to us decided to get mad and scream at the help desk attendend – which of course wasnt helping them at all – and we took the motel overnight and a couple meal vouchers.

We waited for our bags to come out for like an hour, Tania wrote some mails to her profs that she cant make it to class and off we went to find the shuttle. There it was, with some more people already waiting, and it took us to the hotel. Everything was paid we went up to the room to sleep. It was pretty cold in Denver – around 0/C – and of course we hadnt brought any warm clothes.

Later that day after we woke up, we decided to take the little shuttle to go to the mall (Northfield Stapleton) right around the corner to buy some to eat for later, and go to the movies to see hitman. It was going to start about 40 mins from when we arrived, so we got some little thing to eat, Tania got Subway and I went to a Mexican Grill place to get some really good chicken quesadillas, we ate and went to the movie…

It wasn’t at all that good… oh well.. so after we had some more time till the shuttle arrived, so we strolled over to target – which had all kinds of groceries BTW, like fresh fruits – bought some munchies for later to eat in front of the TV and went back to wait in front of the cinema. The other two women who went to the movies with us to see Beowolf were there too, waiting.. turned out they were flight attendants, obviously since Denver is a hub for United they all have layovers there, or just wait around for their next flight… Captains and other airline personal, too.. and they all stay in these hotels.. and obviously thats the reason for the shuttles…

We watched a lil TV but got tired really fast.. and just went to sleep. Woke up early, had some breakfast of our vouchers again… and back to the airport it was. There we used the vouchers again to get some lunch – Tania at McDonalds and me to get a coffee again at Caribou – and we waited for the flight again.

Just our luck – it was delayed again because of technical problems, and the captain decided to switch planes, so we had to go to another gate, board the plane and get off the ground like 1 hour late.. Finally 1,5h later we were in ELP, Cecy picked us up.. and it was actually pretty cold still…

Thanks to the bad weather, sleepless nighs and lots of stress my minor ear infection of the previous days turned to a major one… and I had to start to take antibiotics.. and got all scared that I was going to have another nightmare like one year ago. But thankfully it didn’t.

But first we had to wake up early and survive a 1.5h presentation about Westin Vacation ownership with a tour around their facilities. At least they give you free breakfast and $100 off your room bill… better than nothing – and of course the reason why we did it It turned out taking a little longer than anticipated – we were our by 1100h – and they were very persuasive, almost had us there to spent $50.000 on share of a vacation home from Starwood on Maui, but we were stronger…

After that interesting detour we slept a little more, Tania worked on her school stuff, we started packing our bags.. and slowly got ready for the Luau.

At about 1715h we went downstairs to the little outdoor stage, but of course it was going to start not until 1730h, so we waited around and looked at the small local artists that were there showing their stuff. And one of them was actually carving his wooden Totems out right there…

So we were almost the first there, and in the end the last in the line… because we didn’t fell like standing in the line the whole time.. and everybody who came after us just joined the line. Well, didn’t take too long, we signed in, got a Mai Tai, got our picture taken – one with and one without a nicely Hawaiin-clad couple and we were off to the tables which were pretty full already. But we were kinda lucky because there were still two places right in front of the stage, unfortunately with our backs to the stage – oh well!

It was nice anyway… although we had to turn around for all the dances and music and stuff. They started with a shell call above the waterfall, then a guy climbed a coconut tree
- which seems to be stuff they do all the time around here in Maui, at least according to the host. And then some more music and dancing from local islands all around us, Hawaii, New Zealand, Fillipines etc.

The Food was 4 courses including desert, and had a little bit of everything local. They had a large rotating plate on each table, and there were mostly just enough of everything for everyone on our table, i.e. 8 steaks for 8 people on our table. In between there was more dancing and music and some more history to go along.

After the last desert course, the show ended with a magnificient chief (he was playing music before) doing a fire-knife show, and the other 5 guys joining in – really giving their best for the end.

Then we went up, Tania watched Bourne supremacy on-demand and I almost fell asleep aside here, because I had already watched it.

The weather kept being pretty windy and rainy like the day before so we returned 
to our room after that and I decided it would be the perfect time for a little visit to the Spa.
  Downstairs in the Ono Grille they had conjured up a luxurious TG Dinner Buffet and a lot of 
people were there, but we didnt feel like eating turkey and stuff that night.

The afternoon we basically spent in our room working and then just slouching in front of the TV – we watched Bourne supremacy and finished the little Pizza that we had left and munched on some Ruffles that we had bought.

0552h – waking up with a start. 10 Minutes to get dressed, ready – fortunately we had packed everything we needed the day before – get the car, I got it, because Tania went back for my jacket, and off we went to Lahaina.

0615h -  Leaving the hotel and speading to Lahaina, because we were supposed to be at the loading dock at about 0600: possible $50 in speeding tickets.

0620h -  Parking the car in one of the public parking spots and realizing that we only brought one 20$ bill, the parking is $12 for 6 hours and the machine doesn’t give change: $20.

0630h - Almost missing the sail boat by being at the loading dock just in time when the passenger loading of the Trilogy IV starts: 392$.

0700h - Enjoying almost surely one of the best sunrises over Maui in our entire life on a sail boat in the middle of the pacific on the way to Lanaii with homemade warm cinnemon rolls, hot coffee and fresh fruits: priceless!!

0730h - We landed in a small harbour at the island of Lanaii. 
This island is the birtplace of the Dole Pineapple company and always almost 
entirely belonged to that company.

Now it belongs to 98% to a guy named Daniel Murdoch who bought the company. There are 3300 inhabitants on that island, 2200 of which work for the company – either in the fields or for one of the two 4-star resorts on the island. One is on the beach, the other one next to the small town, with its own golf course – both leased to Four Seasons hotels.

We spent most of the day on this beautiful beach next to the four seasons resort, 
toasting in the sun and snorkeling. I havent really snorkeled at all in my life and 
Tania didnt remember, so we did and it was really, really cool.

Very clear waters, lots of fishies made a very nice snorkeling experience and we had lots of fun. After doing that for a while we took the little bus again for a tour of the island and the little town by a local. Her name was Bridget and she was pretty nice and funny. There wasn’t really a lot to see except a couple houses, 3 or 4 stores and the resort, so it didnt last long.

Back on the beach we roasted in the sun some more - actually Tania did - and I went to 
the little rock point only 10 minutes away to take some pictures.

After about another hour, around 1230h they took us back to the harbour and 
served us some delicious food, with teriyaki chicken, asian stir fry and some green beans, 
all freshly made. We enjoyed our food opposite a really nice young couple, that we found out was also on honeymoon in the Westin and had been there for almost 2 weeks.

We spent most of the afternoon talking to them and ran into them a couple times over the next days. We actually liked them a lot, so we left our address with them in the hope they’ll contact us.

Anyway, after the nice lunch the captains horded their flock again, made for the ships and sailed back to 
Maui with us onboard. It got a lil’ windy during the day, so the ride was a little more bumpy but nonetheless very nice. By about 1530h he had us back in Lahaina Harbour safe and sound. Since we weren’t feeling at all that well thanks to our colds and wanted to go the toilet we haded back to the hotel, and after a little while took the car again to the Mall in Lahaina to buy some medicines for me and went back to the hotel to get something to eat at the Ono Grill.

In the afternoon we got ready and took the car to the little town bout 5km south of here – Lahaina, the old whaler’s port.

We walked around, shopped for stuff and got a bite at a nice Pizzaria -”Chigaco’s Pizza”, they have really reallygood pizza, so good we had to take the leftovers.

The only shops they seem to love around here are either nice Photographs – that is art – clothing or jewelry. Another interesting fact is that they seem to be really big on Glocks here… excuse me, that was the “Klusch” speaking – I meant “Crocs”.

The waves where very wild again, so after too much wind and a little bit of sand on the beach we decided to move to the hotel pool, where we stayed the rest of the afternoon enjoying our piña colada rip-offs – called volcano slides – and the calmer athmorpshere and less-saltier pool-water.

Around 4 we went up to the room to get showered and changed and then went to one of the two nice restaurants next door at the beach-side of whaler’s village to enjoy a nice dinner and not-so-spectacular sunset.

On the way back through our hotel, we as always enjoyed the local waterfall a little and took a picture of us…

We came home early in time for hero at 8 and after that totally died on the bed.

Most notably its the EA Sports Maui Invitational 2007, which is obviously a college basketball Championship here in Maui.

A very big thing, with like 8 colleges attending – and most of the players and their whole families, as well as the team people and coaches and everyone stays here in the Westin.

At the same time they are doing a little Sand Sculpture for the International Hawaii Sand Sculpturing event here in our lobby, which says EA Sports, Maui, Westin and has all the mascots of the teams – pretty cool – you can actually see it being done.

And of course its also Thanksgiving, which means its pretty full of people anyway…

Today we started the day kinda early with a marvelous breakfast at the hotel’s bf buffet. It sports a great variety of foods, from Japanese style things like Miso soup and the like to pancake, belgian waffles and fruit and cereal, made-in-front-of-your-eyes omelettes and more.

Then we went back to sleep for a little nap and around 14.00h got back up more rested and decided to take a little walk around the neighborhood to get to know it, and look at the shops next door.

On our way out we went to the concierge, which turned out to be a really persuasive lady, to book some trips, and we left her with a massage appointment at the Spa, 2 dinner reservations and a full day sailing and snorkeling trip.

Then we strolled around the beach with the sea being pretty wild because of the coming fall winds looking at the other hotels in our surrounding.

Right next to our Resort there is the Whaler village, a little shopping and food center, which shops for your daily needs like Tiffany&Co, Versace and Bulgari, but also food like McDonald’s Express , some Pizza and of course – the asian stuff — oh and Häagen-Dasz.

I got a small bowl of some-or-the-other Dazzler, dulce-de-leche-icecream, warm caramel, whipped cream and bananas! It was sooooo good.

Tania got some fries and with a full stomach we went back to the hotel and watched a little TV, until our massage appointment at 18.00h at the Heavenly Spa.

Around 17.30 we went to the Spa to hang out a little around the Spa to relax, go to the sauna and generally hang out before.

The massage was really welcomed and relaxing, although it always manages to hurt a little.. After that we agreed on half an hour in our respective changing rooms with included sauna, steam-room and hot-tub.

There I met a really nice Mauian guy who comes to the Spa every once in a while and works as a waiter – like everyone here – and I promised to come by one of the next to days.

I hang out in the steam-room, the hot-tub and took a nice warm shower, shaved and used all the amenities of the trade…

After we came to our room, we changed and went then went to our dinner appointment to the tropica – the local westin restaurant directly at the beach – and had a fabulous dinner, complete with tomato-mozarella, chicken and chocolate-tart & espresso.