Conquishoedores

Who would I be quoting if I said, “we came, we saw, we conquered?” While Face, Marshall, my bf and I hiked Koko Head in Honolulu, I wore my teal and pink Puma H streets; they informed me that the quote was the translation of Julius Caesar’s latin quote, “Venimus, Vidimus, Vicimus.” We completed the Koko Head hike by climbing up (and going down) the old military railroad tracks consisting of 1048 “steps” (which I didn’t attempt to count), straight up the hillside to the top of the peak, which overlooks a spectacular view of Hanauma Bay. The hike; however, was not a walk in the park. From the parking lot, we heard shots firing (from the nearby gun range), but we pressed on in the mid-day Hawaiian sun and started up nature’s stairclimber to began our exploration. The first half of the hike to the top was a moderate incline; the second half, a steeper ascent. As I climbed the “stairs”, my shoes kept telling me, “one step at a time, we’ll get there.” When we finally reached the top, the view was unbelievable. It was a sight to savor, which we did while we caught our breathe (from the hike and view, both of which can take one’s breathe away). The descent, in my opinion, was even harder than the ascent. While my Pumas are super light and easy to pack, they don’t have very much traction on the sole and I slipped once doing down, so I had to take caution. My shoes; however, brought up the Conquistatores (Conquerors), who were soldiers, explorers, and adventurers for the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. While my H streets were brought on the trip for running on the hotel treadmill (done earlier that day) and light walking, they accomplished the task of conquering the regular Hawaiian tradition of Koko Head and were truly Conquishoedores.

Perfect Sitshoeation

What could be better than spending time with some of my favorite people in the whole world in one of my favorite places to visit in the whole world? Not much. I wore my Chanel espadrilles in our travels to Honolulu Hawaii, where my bf and I will be spending the next 5 days with my dearest friends: Dreams, Face and their guys celebrating my, my bestie’s and my boyfriend’s birthdays and celebrating life.

The day started off with me putting on my perfect for traveling and walking shoes and running out the door to the car service waiting to take us to the airport and a driver who informed that we would most likely be missing our 8am flight. We sat in the car as it poured ran in traffic from Pasadena to LAX. My BF called Travelocity, the site where we booked our flights, and an agent informed that to get confirmed seats on the next flight, it would cost us four times what we paid originally for the fare difference plus change fee, which was ridulous and therefore not an option. I then called the airline, to check if there was a flight delay, which there was none, so I proceeded to ask about our options after missing our flight. There is a $75 change fee to get on another flight after missing one; however, there were no seats available that day in order to even get confirmed seats. So we headed to the American Airline counter after arriving at LAX to seek advice about what do to do next. We were put on the stand-by list on the 1030 flight, which was oversold by 6 and already had 5 people in front of us already on stand-by, which could also be pushed back further for priority AA members, etc. The next flight was in the afternoon (also oversold), and after that, our next best option was to try the next day. We waited at Gate 47, where AA agents were offering vouchers to people on our flight since they oversold the plane and people with confirmed seats didn’t even have one. It wasn’t looking good, and my shoes did not want to walk me back home sulking. Fifteen minutes before departure, and to our relief, the ticketing counter called both our names and we traded our stand-by tickets to boarding passes. It took a perfect storm of people missing their flight, people on stand-by leaving because they didn’t think they would make it, and people getting moved to first class, which were the only open seats, to be able to get the last two seats on the plane. We didn’t pay a dime extra in fees and they even took one of our bags that we carried on and checked it in without charging the normal bag fee. We were given the last middle seats, piggy-backed in rows 31 and 32, but we really couldn’t complain, we were just happy to have made it on the flight. Luckily, there was a family of 8 sitting in those two rows, who were nice enough to make accommodations so we could sit together by the window. Things were falling nicely into place, I kicked of my espadrilles and I thanked the powers that be. On the plane, I read Heads in Bed, by Jacob Tomsky, which is a very entertaining memoir of an author (who freely dropped f-bombs throughout the book like you wouldn’t believe) and his experience in the hotel and hospitality industry. I learned a trick or two about the life of working in a hotel, and when we arrived at the Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki Beach, we used what I had learned and took care of our front desk agent, who happily upgraded our basic room with garden view (which was supposedly the only room type available in its class while making reservations over the phone and constantly checking in to see if anything opened up prior to our arrival) to a junior suite with ocean view and who sent a birthday cake to our room for my boyfriend and I to enjoy (Thank you Jacob Tomsky for the heads up and thank you hotel agent for saving us over a thousand dollars in upgrades and phenomenal customer service). We finally settled into our spacious room, and while looking down at my shoes, they told me that we were pretty damn luckily that everything worked out in the most perfect way imaginable considering how the day started. Instead of sitting at home during a rainy weekend, we are in a perfect sitshoeation on an island in the sun.