I arrived in Honolulu to find a disturbing lack of humidity awaiting me. Perhaps Hawai'i was not quite the same as I'd remembered it? I breezed through immigration, picked up my bike and bags, and wandered outside. The bike -- shipped for $65 each way -- was for use during the second half of my ten-day romp through the islands. It would become my new home in a few days when I rambled around the island of Kaua'i. Until then, however, it was little more than an awkward bundle of steel and rubber enclosed in a big plastic airline bag.

I had instructions to call Petra (yes, the same Petra from the introduction to my Amazing Bike Trip) as soon as I arrived in Honolulu, but I found a taxi before I found a pay phone. I loaded up and we drove off into the late afternoon sun.

Like most people who have to deal with tourists all day every day, the taxi driver had a lot of stock answers to my attempts at conversation. For example:

"So, how do you like living in Hawai'i?"

"Hawai'ian, born and raised. Never lived anywhere else."

The driver spoke with a heavy accent that I couldn't place. His words ran together into a deep jungle and it took me a few moments to hack through the undergrowth every time he spoke. I asked him about riding my bicycle around Waikiki.

"Bad idea. Get stolen. Don't ride your bike down there, 'kay."

He ended with most of his sentences with a clipped "okay" for punctuation. I asked him about camping on Kaua'i -- locations, permits, and stuff.

"Don't know. You need to ask the office over there. Make sure you call them, 'kay."

We arrived at the University of Hawai'i around 5:00 pm and unloaded my baggage on the sidewalk. I set about looking for a payphone and realized that I'd left the one piece of paper with all my addresses, phone numbers, and other useful contact info on the floor of the cab. Fortunately, the guy at the residence office connected me to Petra's apartment. She wasn't home, and her roommate Katie hadn't been told to expect me. Unphased, she invited me up.

Petra's apartment was on the third floor of a crowded college residence. The furnishing were sparse and brown, prominently decorated with two surfboards and several surfing posters. Several guys were gathered around a TV next door and every few minutes they'd yell and cheer as someone showed extraordinary skill with the video game they were playing.

Katie was packing for a trip back to her parent's place for Thanksgiving, so she left me to my own devices. I turned on the TV and watched the local news.

The news issues were pretty much the same as back home but the surf forecast made for a refreshing change. What struck me as incredibly odd, however, was that the pair of newscasters had absolutely no tan. They looked like they'd just stepped off the plane from the mainland. If it wasn't for the surf report, I'd have thought I was watching Seattle TV.

Katie eventually left, leaving me -- a complete stranger -- alone in her apartment. The hours slowly ticked by with no word from Petra. Her tennis practice was supposed to end around 5:30 but 6, and then 7, and then 8 arrived with no Petra. At 8:30 she finally stumbled into the door -- she'd been playing a match, not practicing, and it had gone late. We were both starving so she gathered together a few friends and we walked out to Magoo's for some pizza.

I'd been developing a sneaking suspicion that people come to the University of Hawai'i more for the surfing than for the curriculum. Judging from the number of hardbodies in the pizza place, I probably wasn't far off. In an attempt to confirm my theory, I'd been asking the people I met why they chose the University of Hawai'i.

Katie: "My family lives here." Well, I guess that's a pretty good reason. She also says that UH has one of the best architecture programs in the USA.

Vickie, one of Petra's tennis teammates and an unofficial roommate: "I like the weather." I thought I had some evidence, but it turns out she's studying to be a meteorologist so that answer is more intelligent than you'd think.

Dominic, a South African and another member of the tennis team, had this to offer: "I'm just here to get my degree, you know? I don't go to the beach. I hate the heat. I just stay in my room mostly." Once he gets his paper he wants to find a job as a tennis coach. Petra and her friends confirmed his teaching potential.

We eventually made it back to Petra's apartment, and then next door to watch a video. I was feeling rather jet-lagged, though, so I soon called it a night. I unrolled my thermarest on the living room floor and tried to sleep while the rest of Petra's building noisily celebrated the upcoming long weekend until the wee hours of the morning.