I'm sitting in my upstairs office in the new house. There are 4 neighbors whose houses are in close proximity -- I can hear activity in all 4. All day long I've had to listen to the shitty Hawaiian versions of Christmas carols coming from the radio of the people who live behind us, with occasional 20 minute bouts of their shitty little dog yipping. I can hear my neighbor next door blowing his nose in the shower. I can hear kids playing in the yard on the other side of us. Only in Hawaii can you spend almost half a million dollars on a house and still feel like you're living in a tenement.
Wow, you seem really bitter about Hawaii! I've lived in 4 different countries and 8 different states. Everything is what you make of it. I lived better on $30,000 in Oklahoma City than I do on $85,000 here in Kauai, but that's the price for paradise. Will I retire here? No, but I'm grateful for every day I have and that my children get to see a side of life they would have never seen if I had been "normal" and stayed within 50 miles of where I was born my whole life.
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ReplyDeleteNot to engage in one-up-manship, and I'm sure you don't mean anything by it, but I don't need a lesson in adaptability. I was born overseas, lived in 6 different countries and 5 different states, and went to 8 schools by the time I graduated from high school in India. And I loved every minute of it. I always knew that I would be fine in a new country because if I made the effort to be friendly and put myself out there, the effort would be returned. But unfortunately, I'm finding Hawaii to be provincial, anti-intellectual, and not particularly welcoming to outsiders. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve in terms of meeting new people and getting adjusted, but having just given birth, it's been hard to get out as much as I'd like. But in any event, I am making an effort, but have not found a great abundance of the aloha spirit that Hawaiians are so quick to brag about.
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