One of the biggest sources of stress throughout this move has been the giant question mark of where we would be living. I’m happy to announce we found an amazing A-frame cottage to rent! In a short period of time, we looked at a lot of places and nothing compared to this place so we were anxious to get the final word that we were approved. Like many elements of this move, we have benefited from perseverance and a good dose of luck.

The main house, along with our little guest house, was built in the late 70s by our landlord’s sister and her husband and apparently it’s a somewhat legendary house in the neighborhood. Her husband was a gifted pianist and a tennis instructor, hence the two regulation tennis courts and viewing area. Rumor has it that this home was always filled with visitors from all over the world who came to play tennis and party. Just take a moment to imagine how insanely awesome a party in the 70s or 80s would be at a house in Maui with a piano and two tennis courts. Hairy men with thick mustaches darting around in excessively short white tennis shorts, chasing women wearing flowing kaftans and big hair-dos. Maria Muldar’s “Midnight at the Oasis” never stopped spinning on the turntable, the bar was fully stocked, the tables were covered in hors d’oeuvres featuring cocktail wieners and cottage cheese, nobody got hangovers and the world was perfect. At least that’s how I imagine it.

Our cottage with the main house behind it.

From the front. The wall of palms in the front make for a very private setting in an already quiet neighborhood.

The front “yard.” Perfect!

Tennis anyone?

Bud and Darlene discuss Bud’s technique for keeping the palms looking beautiful.

Standing in the living room looking back towards the second bedroom / office. Darlene is excited that the kitchen features her all-time favorite kind of ceiling lamp!

Another view of the main rooms(s) from the entrance to the master bedroom.

The bedroom has a really pretty view of all the palms.

Oh yeah, then there’s this. This is a “centipede spear.” You know, to kill the 6 inch long centipedes. Bud explained that the procedure is simple really. When you see one of these prehistoric monsters racing across your floor, grab the spear and slam it down on their disgusting bodies. Then, pick up the carcass with some pliers (not included). So there’s that.

“How’s it brah?”

A few days ago our mailman asked us that very question. A few days ago, we may have honestly answered with tears. We both agree that a few days has made all the difference with adjusting to life here.

Take today for example: in one day we made five great contacts, went to a yard sale, went to the tourist areas, spent a day at the beach, and even anchored ourselves a great first apartment in Maui Meadows. Yeah, and we even saw a rainbow peeking out of the mountains on the way home. What makes it all feel the most like home is doing the mundane things – going to the grocery store, getting around without relying on Google Maps, and going to the beach with nothing but some towels.

Today we went to an awesome yard sale. To our surprise, there were about 15 earlybird cars when we arrived, which was exactly at 8am, the advertised start time. It was a feeding frenzy! We were able to score a great bamboo side table, a teapot, and foot stool and folding solid wood kitchen chairs.  Someone even proclaimed at the sale, “This is the BEST yard sale I have ever been to!” Since it was our first on the island, we felt pretty lucky to be there.

Next we stopped at a little  farmers market where some packaging caught Kent’s eye. It was this great local hot sauce and pickling company, so we stopped by to chat. The owner is from NYC and decided to leave the big city for the Maui way of life. We found it very fitting that we were able to meet a guy that basically is living the life we want to live. It was inspiring to meet him. We bought some hot sauce made from Hawaiian hot peppers and are excited to try it. Plus, we will probably be getting together with him and his wife soon to have a drink or two. We made a friend!

Next, we went to Green Garage, a second-hand/consignment store opened by a couple that moved here in 2003. The owner, Matthew, was very nice and gave us a lot of great info about life here.

Then we decided to have a tourist day in Lahaina/Ka’anapali. We spent a few hours at the beach, first in Ka’anapali. There were very few people on the beach, which made it very quiet and relaxing. Kent took a video that made me realize I really need to work out before he’s taking videos of me in the ocean. It actually felt really good to tread water, I felt like I had a workout (sort of.)

We ended the day in Lahaina, the area known as the touristy area of Maui. We actually really liked it. We met some artists at the art walk under the banyan tree – some of whom were from Illinois. I find it really interesting to learn what brought everyone here. So far, everyone has been incredibly helpful and welcoming. We met a girl that works at the Four Seasons, and she gave me the “in” on where they list job opportunities. Great! We had lunch at Aloha Mixed Plate, where we experienced the traditional plate lunch, usually consisting of rice, some Asian or Hawaiian influenced food, macaroni salad, poi…and, well, it can a bunch of things actually. There are no rules. Usually macaroni salad is involved somehow though. It was great. We even became best friends with some of the birds (especially Scraggly McNubbs.)

We are both starting to feel very optimistic about starting a life here and less stressed about the adjustment process. We are already feeling at home a little. We heard a few times this week that the islands will either embrace you or chew you up and spit you out. Right now we are feeling embraced.

This is the beginning of our 3rd full day in Hawaii and slowly our temporary house is beginning to feel more like home, although we can only “move in” so much because we will be moving again at the end of September to our more permanent place. So for now we are kind of still living out of suitcases. We are dropping off an application this morning for a very cool rental cottage, I really hope we get it!

So here’s where we will be living for the next month.

Every morning we are treated to this view from our lanai.

This little gecko was crawling around inside, which is a good thing because they eat bugs.

Looking down the driveway. We are tucked away on the right.

Our little house.

It’s common to have your laundry outdoors.

Our lanai overlooks Maui’s Central Valley and the ocean.

The side of the house, outside our bedroom window.

Looking behind the house.

Looking up the driveway.

Looking south down our road.

Looking north on our road.

Wow, it feels so surreal to actually be here after a year’s worth of planning. We are definitely a little shell-shocked by it all. I don’t think either one of us expected to feel so homesick on our first day but we both felt it pretty hard. Any move makes you feel displaced for a while so all it will take is a little time for Maui to feel like home.

The day we landed was a whirlwind. We were picked up from the airport by the local car rental company and driven into Kihei to pick up our sweet 2003 Nissan Sentra. It was our first chance to get a glance at the area we were planning on living in… more on that later. Our car is what locals refer to as a “cruiser” but you might know it by it’s mainland name “piece of crap.” When the rental agent took a walk around the car with me to go over the existing damage he said something like “as you can see, this is a terrible car.” His little drawing of the car with circles indicating damage was comical. There is a scratch, ding and missing paint literally every inch. It’s perfect and we love it!

We got the car and drove up into the Maui mountains to our house. Wow, these mountains are MUCH bigger than we expected. Our house for the next month is a typical Maui house for this price range and has 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, a living room and a kitchen. It has an incredible view of the Central Valley and the ocean from the Lanai. Every morning we are woken up by a beautiful sunrise and a chorus of frogs. I’ll put some photos of the house up soon.

After getting settled in at the house, we drove to the downtown area of our town, Wailuku, deposited our rent check and had lunch at the coffee and sandwich shop the people we are subletting from own. After that we took a drive around the island to check out some potential areas to live. Thanks to all the research we have done, there weren’t too many surprises, however we did discover two areas we really like called Maui Meadows and Wailea. They are near Kihei on the southern part of the Island where some of the best beaches are. Affordable housing is not all that easy to find in these neighborhoods but we looked at a couple and one feels very promising.

Anyway, after driving around for a couple hours we went to Kmart and Costco to get some stuff. Surprisingly, many of the prices were actually better than in Chicago. It felt strange to be doing routine shopping in Hawaii, it made us feel local.

Today is all about finding an apartment. I think we will be OK but apartment hunting is always a stressful event.