Grounded

To be able to give priority to my most pressing task, the adviser and I decided to suspend my volunteer services (inc... haha ) until further notice.

Bye, my L-O-V-E, 'til we meet again...

A refreshing take on poetry

A series of fortunate events

Getting my scales wet for my first fieldwork for 2013!

I am once again on the road to my next fieldwork site to do a reconnaissance. This is actually not a project of mine but a volunteer work for another group. But I'm always happy to be of assistance since nothing makes me high than exploring new places and meeting new people.

This time fieldwork is close to home. Bato is a little town 3hrs away from Tacloban, Leyte. We took a passenger van from the downtown area and travelled through sleepy towns and the mountains to arrive at our destination.

The series of fortunate events started when we asked a lady who was in the van with us about Bato and where we can get good accommodations in the area. It so happened that another passenger overheard us and he said that he was a resident and he also knew about Dawahon Island, which is our study site. We got off at the town center and proceeded to the Municipal Hall. Since the mayor was out of the country, we talked to the people left in charge and we got almost all the information we needed! They recommended us a good place to stay and they gave us contact numbers of the boats for hire.

After resting a bit, we went to the port to look for more boats that can be used for the field survey. On the way we saw the man, the resident, who was with us in the van. We asked if he knew any boatman that can be hired for Dawahon. And again, just our luck, his friend was a boatman and was from Dawahon. We went to talk to him and arranged for a trip for the next day. On our way to check out his boat we saw a lady who was busy texting and fortunately it was the boat contact that the staff at the municipal hall gave us so we also saw and took pictures of the boats that they had. We parted ways and  my officemate and I realized that we forgot to ask something from the boat lady. We decided that we will just call her through the phone and arrange for another meeting.

We then went back to the port to take pictures of the sunset. At the port, due to another stroke of luck, we saw the lady who was renting out the boats and talked to her about the plans for our fieldwork. We were almost done with our reconnaissance save for the visit at Dawahon which we visited the next day. And the series of fortunate events continued.

Sunset  at the sea port (Bato, Leyte : 31 Jan 2013)

Over a bottle of wine

but more likely 2 bottles of Spanish wine...

Bonding with my housmates over wine, cheese, ube and a handful of conversation about finding our mr. right and marriage. We are at that age where we are already looking for (but not quite ready to settle yet) a partner, preferrably in the 40s (this is a new category that came up from watching korean novelas and sir chief), who is mature and wealthy enough to take care of a family. We talked about friends and friends of friends who has the luck of getting hordes of these men without even looking. Sigh. When will our time come? Will Mr Right just pop out of nowhere or do we have to struggle hard to look for them... But, for the mean time we'll just have to enjoy neverland while keeping an eye for who ever 'he' may be.

Gracias!

Snapshots

Since I still can't find time to write full blown accounts of my trip to Europe, let me show you a couple of collages to give you a hint :)

Surprise me. 2013

After a million years (haha), I finally got back to writing again. It's 2013 and I have a lot of things on my mind. Looking at this blog I realized I haven't finished writing about my trip to Europe and a lot of my travels but oh well maybe I'll just find another time to tick these off the list. It's 2013 and what should be on my mind? My thesis! I have decided that this year would be my thesis' year! Oh yes! Hopefully I'll get the right mindset and the will to finally close this chapter. I'm looking forward to a lot of things for this year but I'm expecting to be surprised whatever those may be.

2012 also proved to be a boxful of surprises. I got to visit new places and experience different cultures :)

In my itinerary: Vienna, Austria

Part 1 

After a 5-hour flight from Doha, I finally arrived in Vienna! Stepping out of the plane and into the airport I still couldn't believe that I was in Europe. Yes, I travelled alone to the other side of the world. I was feeling giddy and excited for the adventures that awaited.

I met this fellow Filipina during the flight and we talked about why we were traveling to Vienna. Apparently, it was her 6th time in Europe and was going to meet up with her beau. We waited for our luggages together and then went on our separate ways. Since Raphlin was running a bit late, I waited for a couple of minutes in the airport and soaked in the moment that I was in a foreign country halfway around the world. Then Raph arrived and went out of the airport and it was soooo cold outside, well, at least for me, since I came from the tropics. It was supposed to be summer in Europe but because of some changes happening to our climate, that day was a cold one.

After arriving at Raph's place, she showed me the main platz (Stephansplatz) where the tourists were. I drank in the sights, sounds, smell of the place and took a lot of pictures. Good thing I brought a light and efficient point and shoot digicam.   I think, with a limited time on my hands, it's better to see the place with my own senses than worry about taking pictures and then forgetting about the experience. But it's really nice to have some good ones though. But if you can do both, good for you.

Since the weather was a bit cold, the trees were already starting to show their autumn colors. I was really amazed to see them for the first time. There's just something about fall that just makes me sigh. Haaaaay :) . The park, in front of the Parlament, was lovely and the air was a bit nippy but I loved it. Watching the bikes, the trams and the people going about their day felt good.

Let it be known that the first time that I crashed on a wedding reception was in Vienna. Raphlin was supposed to attend the wedding of a family friend but since I was in town she opted to tour me around. But after some convincing by her parents she agreed to go and I went along. It was a Filipino wedding and served Filipino food. And I was like "Yey kanin at ulam!".

Back at Raph's apartment, I met her nice housemates Odysseus, who was leaving the next day, Jay and Noelia. We packed our things for a 10-day European tour. We slept and hopped on the train to Munich the next day.