Hi there!
Before anything else I'm just gonna warn you that I'm writing this fast and brief. I got like an hour to write this and I'm just so tired right now to extract some quality vocabs from my mind palace.
So today was my flight to Manila. You know, for review and board.
So what actually happened today? You see, Michael Sy and I were supposed to be on the same flight today. But about two days ago, he called me and informed me that he had rebooked his flight which, needless to say, left me terrified because God knows what might happen to me in Manila ALONE considering that I have no sense of direction at all and that I don't really know the ways and loops around this great metropolis. But I couldn't really blame him for doing so because today was also his grandma's burial and he just had to be there which I truly understand.
I woke up 6am and had nothing else to do because I was already done packing my stuff about two days earlier. I was escorted by my mother and father and two cousins to the airport as we caught up to my 10:10am flight. I never truly understood that emotional parting-moment-in-the-airport-because-someone's-got-to-go-abroad-for-the-greener-pasture UNTIL now. When I was about to go to the waiting area and step on the escalator and leave my parents behind, I just felt my heart twinge. Char. Hahaha. But seriously, the one thing that was really irking me that time was my 2-kilo excess baggage for which I had to pay P400.
And so I waited. We boarded on the plane and I had to actually sit beside these two siblings who were busy doing some selfies which I really didn't care about. I didn't turn my phone off. I just turned the 'airplane mode' (my first time to use this feature of my phone) on because I wanted to just listen to Ariana Grande's Problem along with some of the new songs in my new playlist.
I arrived at NAIA about 45 minutes past 11 and had to swarm my way through many people to find my luggage. The airport terminal fuss wasn't entirely new to me but what was new to me was to catch a cab all by myself and ultimately reach my destination alone. I had the address memorized in my head so it wasn't actually my fault that we got lost around Sampaloc and had to spend almost 30 minutes finding our way to my dorm. I gotta blame the driver for not having memorized Metro Manila's map. Char. Haha.
The dorm. Marysville. Ooooh. How... hot. Arriving at the place around 2pm definitely added to the heat's intensity. It was sweltering as hell as I had to climb up to the fifth floor where our rooms were. Apparently, our rooms are still under some renovations but are nevertheless already habitable. So, yeah. I had to pull out some of my Tagalog from my small repertoire of Filipino words as I was conversing with Kuya Edgar, the housekeeper. I checked on the rooms, the bathroom, everything and they weren't actually what I was imagining them to be. Haha. But the place is quite decent still. :) The only thing that I don't like about the dorm is that there are no plugs in our rooms so we had to go to the ground floor to charge our phones and laptops, as well as to iron our clothes. Charges: Php 4/hour - phone charging; Php 8/hour - laptop charging; and to top it all off, Php 8/PIECE of clothing for ironing. Sooooo ridiculously smart of them. Hahaha.
After the dorm tour, I decided to buy some toiletries. I asked Kuya Edgar what and where the nearest SM is and he said that it was SM San Lazaro and God knows where SM San Lazaro is so I immediately disregarded the thought of going there. haha. Fortunately, there is this 'Liana's Grocery Store' he talked about which is thankfully just a walking distance from the dorm. So I went there. As soon as I caught a view of Liana's, I also saw that across it are two churches so I decided to go there first. I prayed of course for the enlightenment and inspiration for my review. And when I finished praying, I suddenly had this urge to go to Quiapo church to pray as well. So I asked the sidewalk vendor about how far Quiapo is from where I was. Hahaha. The random in me. So, yeah. I went back to the dorm and afterwards tried to catch a glimpse of what CPAR looks like so I passed that way going to UST where I waited for and caught a jeepney to take me to Quiapo church. The place is humongous. I wanted to buy Sampaguita but then decided not to so I just went inside and prayed. O:) When I got outside, I decided to look at the many stuff the peddlers are selling. I was even tempted to had my fortune unveiled to me by some of the alleged fortunetellers that are just strewn outside Quiapo.
On my way back, I finally decided to go to SM San Lazaro and so I asked some random person what jeepney I should catch. She said I had to wait for a jeepney bound for Blumintritt which I did patiently. However, after almost half an hour of waiting I became frustrated because the jeepneys don't seem to want to stop at the spot where I was. hahaha. So I just decided then to go back to my dorm and hitch a jeepney bound for Espanya. I got back and decided to have dinner. I bought a topper (rice and viand in one cup) at a minimart just beside our dorm. I ate it inside my room when suddenly someone knocked on the door. Apparently he was a reviewee too (for May board exam) and he just wanted to check on the newcomer. He introduced himself as Mark and his roommate as Ted. Thank heavens for the friendly people! For the timid and introverted person that I am, I really thought I wouldn't make friends easily. Haha. So there.
I went downstairs to the ground floor to charge my phone and have some chitchat with the keepers of the dorm. I asked some questions about the dorm's policy and they just answered them warmly. It was then while we were chatting that I learned that Kuya Edgar is Bisaya too. Hahaha.
I'm definitely learning my way around here. New environment. New faces. New places. I just pray that this last leg of my quest to becoming a CPA will be a memorable one. Charsss hahaha
Ciao!
Cookies and cream,
Herald
P.S.: I can't wait for my other friends to come here already. T__T
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