Flight Attendants aren’t normal. In fact I would go so far to compare us to unicorns because really… how crazy is it that my friends and I flew from all different parts of the United States to Honolulu for free. 

Our first day of vacay, I stepped out of the shower excited at a day filled with sunbathing ahead. I could hear Jamie and Justin in the other room as I picked up the sunscreen and began applying liberally because well… I’m the type of redhead that gets burned by just thinking about the sun.

I started with my toes and worked my way up, ran around the bathroom a little bit to dry and then slipped into my bikini and didn’t give a second thought to my skin for the rest of the day.

This is the point where you take note of the fact that it’s impossible to apply sunscreen to your own back and remember this fact for the rest of the story 😉

I had also applied self tanner in an effort to not blind people with the ghostliness of my legs (lol) so there we were. Laying on the beaches of Hawaii next to the most beautiful crystal blue waters I had ever seen. When you have tanner on you can’t really tell when you start to burn so I was just blissfully reading my magazines for 3 hours in the full noon day sun.

We returned back to our beachside condo and I hopped in the shower.. I noticed the water was stinging a little bit, but just assumed perhaps I had gotten a little sun, but I’d be fine. So we decided we’d go hike “Diamond Head Crater” quickly before the sun set.

By quickly I mean, Google said it would take about 45 minutes, We made it to the top in 17 minutes flat. Some of us were leaping from rock to rock like gazelles… JUSTIN! Others were clinging to the railing wishing to die… Me!

We got home and I was about to get into the shower when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Remember when I told you it’s impossible to apply sunscreen to your back… and the time I told y’all I laid in full sun for 3 hours reading trash magazines?

Y’all!

The picture doesn’t do it justice. You can count the squares the bikini pattern left on my skin. I literally looked like I had a bathing suit still on me. I emerged/waddled out of the bathroom to Jamie and Justin getting ready for dinner and turned around and pointed to my back. Friends might gasp and say how sorry they were for you… True friends dissolve into laughter to the point tears were coming out of Justin’s eyes.

“Well really you don’t need to wear anything to dinner since it looks like you still have your bikini on” Justin giggled.

I should have also mentioned I seemed to have not only forgotten to apply sunscreen to my back but to any part of my butt/back of legs region which meant sitting was quite literally impossible.

The best I could do was lean back onto the part of my body that wasn’t burnt and try to lift my legs so that none of the burnt-to-a crisp-parts were touching the seat. Hence, riding through Honolulu with my legs out the window. Honestly though, those are my favorite shoes so I can’t say I wouldn’t have ridden like that anyways.

I don’t really need to go into the details of what a harness for parasailing feels like on fried skin or how flying 10 hours home next to a giant hawaiian man that needed a seat belt extension hurts your body and soul.

But I will go into detail on how awesome this trip was irregardless of the fact that I got burnt to a crisp. I’m currently struggling to sleep through the night because of the agonizing pain when any and everything touches me but it was more than worth it to be able to spend time with two of my favorite people.

To dance to “Despacito” in Honolulu singing the lyrics at the top of your lungs which are, “Descpacito, burrito, BURR…ITO” for anyone wondering.

To parasail over the pacific ocean and watch the sun set over Pearl Harbor from the top of Diamond Head.

To fly off into the sunset knowing that I must be dreaming to have a life like this!

XOXO,

Christena