The Best Summer of My life.

I spent the summer I was nineteen going to the University of Hawaii. I took art photography and history. Have you ever had a time in your life where when the time ended, you just knew that nothing like that would ever happen to you again? Where you knew that that kind of moment would never be better? That is how I felt when I said goodbye to Hawaii.

It was the best summer of my life.

I went alone, but from the moment I stepped on the plane, I was never alone the rest of the summer. Other kids were on their way there too. Everyone from snotty SMU girls to good ole boys from Oklahoma.

My luckiest moment came when I was trying to teach myself to surf and a guy who was born and raised in Hawaii took pity on me and offered to help. Not only did I finally get to feel the strength of a wave under my tanned legs, but he showed me the islands in a way no tourist really gets to see.

I saw the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine with colors not yet named. I played tag football on black beaches and slept on orange beaches. I stood on top of a volcano. I saw a waterfall so perfect it seemed like a dream. The lush earth surrounding it made me imagine I had been thrown back to the beginning of time to the Garden of Eden. I jumped off a small cliff into a pool of the bluest water I had ever seen and the water was so deep I never touched the bottom. I came face to face with eels while snorkeling. (it is possible to scream underwater)

I met people from all over the world for the first time. I met teenagers from Australia, England, Brazil, and Japan. We laughed at each other's accent. One boy from Germany told me that my accent sounded like music. I have never forgotten that. It is probably the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.

I watched a rich boy from Dallas, who had decided to just buy a used Volkswagen Beetle while he was in Hawaii instead of renting a car, just hand the keys to a guy on the street (who looked like he could use a car) and tell him the car was his. The boy drove off in a taxi and left the man staring at the keys in his hands. We had to go over and assure him that he could actually have the car. That was one happy guy.

I took pictures of prostitutes for my art photography class, which turned into quite the adventure. (hint: never go to a bad part of town in an open air jeep)

I had dinner with the family of the boy from Hawaii and had food that I can't remember the name of, but won't soon forget the taste. They told me to use an English accent to ask directions. For some reason the locals loved to give the mainlanders wrong directions.

It just so happened that I had just finished a play, "The Importance Of Being Earnest" and I thought I had my English accent down pretty well. The locals bought it, but at a club one evening using my accent for fun, a guy from England came over with a smirk asking which part of England I was from. I was busted.

On the plane home watching Hawaii fade through the clouds, I knew that nothing would ever be as fun as that summer. I was young. I was happy. I had no worries, no children, no lovers, no responsibilities. Nothing would ever be as easy as it was that one summer.

The best summer of my life.