First Days in Hawaii

     We are starting to get settled in Hawaii now. Yesterday we spent almost the whole day at the beach. The water here is so warm that the kids can spend hours in the water and not get cold. The beach we were at has good waves for body surfing. We did lots of jumping into waves and letting them push us. The waves kick up lots of sand so we all have sand in our hair and boy is it hard to get out! I scrubbed my head for nearlynhalf an hour yesterday evening and I still have sand coming out today. I will just have to get used to having sand everywhere.
    After a busy day on the beach we went to Target to get shoesnfor the kids. We found summer shoes and pratical shoes for everyone! Mission acomplished! I was happy to be back at Target again. I love that Targets have a predictible lay out.
    When I was at au pair link orientation they gave us a talk about reverse culture shock. I remember thinking about how silly they were but now I understand. I had forgotten how big everything is here. Yesterday we got coffees and I oredered a 16oz cause that's what I've akways gotten. It was so big compared to NZ coffees. I still laugh at the NZ small coffee because it is only two sips but the American medium coffee is really huge. Its bigger than then NZ large coffee! I was super shocked at how large it was. There are other things that I find odd now; like not having on/off switches on outlets, no cafes, the paper toilet seat covers. It is funny how many things I didn't realize were different until I saw them again. I'm sure that at one point I noticed but I've been in NZ so long I got used to it.
    One of my favorite culture shock things that happen was Tally trying to figure out how to flush the toilets here. Mostof the toilets in NZ have two buttons. She was looking all over for the second button. She came out and asked me to teach her how to flush the toilet. Jack was surprised by our eggs. At home we always get the free range eggs but that wasn't an option here so we got the white ones. He asked why they were shiny on the outside and not oragne enough on the in side. Speaking of orange what is the deal with all the American food being dyed orange? Orange cheese is of special interest to our family. The kids are so intrigued by why Americans dye our cheese. The tipping thing is anothernbig difference. I have a hard time figuring out who to tip some times. Trying to explain it to people that haven't been exposed to it has been difficult and tested my knowledge. We couldn't figure out whether or not to tip our shuttle driver because she helped with our bags. Another cultural difference is four way stops. Tanya had never been through one before. In NZ we have round abouts and not four way stops. In fact there are very few stop signs in Auckland. I kenw that there weren't many stops in NZ but it hadn't occured to me that other people. I am really happy that I have gotten the chance to travel the states with people who don't know the culture. It is very enlightening.