I always hate the feeling in trying to make your new place feel like home. I remember when I moved to Bloomington…I hated it. It never felt like home, then about the time when I was comfortable with it and starting to really enjoy living on my own I decided to move to NYC. It took me about a year to fall in love with NY. At first I hated it…I was scared to drive, I was scared to do anything really. The apartment was so small. The lifestyle was just different. I missed my family and my friends and wanted to move back. Now after being here for about 4 months I feel like I barely know Chicago. I miss ny. It’s like some days I just crave it. It makes me wonder what Chicago holds.
All posts by Andi
Philippines Trip-Lolo’s Birthday
Today we woke up and walked around the University. Then we walked around Los Banos and we got foot massages.
Later in the day we went to Tito Boni’s church and house and to celebrate Lolo’s birthday. It was his 94th birthday. Both of his sons, Boni and Rom, also celebrate a birthday soon. Here are some pictures from the party.
Tonight is our last night. We are going home with Don’s dad and then early in the morning he will take us to the airport to go back to the states.
This has been an amazing trip. It was awesome to be able to meet Don’s family and help his grandpa celebrate his 94th birthday. We are also leaving this trip engaged! Can’t wait to tell all of our friends and family.
Philippines Trip-Los Banos
Today we got to Los Banos. We are staying in a dorm that is part of the University of the Philippines. It is kind of weird…but cheap!
Philippines-Playa Tropical Resort Hotel
Today we woke up and had breakfast then came back to the room because it was raining and we really didn’t know the plans. We packed our stuff to go to the new hotel and good thing we did because soon a hotel worker came and said he was there so we could check out. He wanted to take our bags to the van. So we went out to the van and got in.
We went to Don’s grandfather’s place where he grew up called Pigdig…I think that’s how you spell it. Basically just drove around and he got to see some old neighbors and family. Then we took pictures of a church. Mostly just drove around all morning. Then went to a restaurant for lunch.
Luckily this restaurant had some normal foods haha. I’m just getting kinda tired of Filipino food. So I ordered a grilled cheese and fries…except they said the grilled cheese will just be a cheese sandwich, not grilled. Carol, from Australia also got this. The sandwich turned out to be not so great…it had mayo on it and some cheese like velveeta. The fries were okay though. I also ate some of the other stuff they ordered I just wanted some comfort food haha.
I’ve pretty much noticed though, here, any food I would normally eat in the US is never cooked the way you would expect it. It always ends up having some weird sauce on it or just not tasting right at all haha. I like Filipino dishes but I miss the food I always have haha. And I miss my Dr. Pepper, there is none here.
After lunch the sun came out! We started to head towards the new resort. As soon as we got here we swam. I had some Pineapple juice with Vodka. We were in the pool all afternoon. It was great. Then we came back to our room to get cleaned up for dinner. We took a lot of pictures while swimming with our underwater camera…here’s a few.
Some people wanted to go out for dinner but some people didn’t. No one could agree really and I didn’t see why we couldn’t just eat at the hotel. So Don, Jonathon, Regan and I decided to stay here. We ordered food from the hotel restaurant and were able to eat it in one of the little huts. Surrounding the huts is a pond with fish in it and when we were done eating we starting throwing rice at the fish. They were eating it like crazy. There were tons of fish at the surface waiting for food. We fed them pretty much all the food we didn’t eat. Rice, bread and meats hahaha. These fish were going crazy.
After dinner we decided to swim again so we came back to our room to change. Our power in our room would not work, nothing would work so we had to switch rooms. Then we went to swim with Jonathon, Jonas, and Eunice. Reagon found a crab by the side of the pool and it grabbed onto his flip flops and he brought it over to show us. When he sat the flip flop down the crab got off and just ran into the pool. Jonathon was the closest to it. We got kinda freaked out cause now there’s a crab in the pool. So we got goggles and started hunting it to get it out. It took a long time but finally we got it cornered and used part of folding chair to lift it out. It was also pouring down raining when we did this. When we flipped the crab out of the water Jonas saw where it went but then seconds later we couldn’t find it. So who knows where it went. Hopefully it’s ok.
Since it was pouring we were getting kinda cold so we came back to the room and changed. Then Don decided to go play poker with his cousins. Hopefully he doesn’t lose.
Philippines Trip-Laoag
Today we woke up and had breakfast..rice, eggs, and bacon. Every meal has rice. It was raining so we were not sure if we should go to the beach. By the time breakfast was over though it had stopped and people decided we should go to the beach. So we all piled in the 2 vans and rode about an hour to the beach. It was like a public beach behind a resort and the resort was awesome. It had an awesome pool with a view of the sea. We looked at the rooms and decided we will stay there tomorrow night instead of this other hotel we are in. So we can check in tomorrow at 2.
But anyway we paid to swim in their pool today and then we also swam in the beach. The beach water was soooo warm. I’ve never felt water that warm before. The beach was okay…not as nice as Boracay but good.
It had a lot of little hut like things you can sit under for a picnic. We swam for about 2 hours then it started raining.
I guess some people had went to get some food and wanted to eat it at the beach but it was raining so hard so we all got in the vans and went to Tita Nitz’s house.
After eating we just came back to our hotel and showered and relaxed for a bit. Then we decided we wanted to go walk around and take pictures…but somehow that turned into EVERYONE wanting to come…at first it was just going to be like me and Don’s cousins.
So we decided to just walk around and we got empanadas. By this time one of the vans came up to us and said it was just the people we originally planned to go with so we got in the van and went to Laoag City. We walked around and took pictures.
After a little sight seeing we went back to the hotel and had dinner because Don’s mom invited some of her old classmates for dinner. After dinner we just went to bed.