Sin novedades

Desde hace varios meses, tengo la poca deseable costumbre de madrugar un par de días a la semana para correr durante media hora en la zona cerca de mi casa adonde va la gente para hacer footing. A las 4h30 suelo salir de casa a correr. Y ya que ya me encuentro bastante espabilado después de correr como para volver a dormir, lo que normalmente ocurre es que aprovecho para ir a la oficina tempranito. Esta madrugada he hecho footing, son las 7h y llevo una hora en la oficina mirando cositas por internet. Echo un vistazo a mis cuentas de correo electrónico y veo que me han llegado unos cuantos mensajes: un correo spam dirigido a las embarazadas, otro correo sobre las nuevas políticas de couchsurfing, y una serie de novedades sobre mis contactos de facebook. En otras palabras, se está llenando mi email de cosas que me resultan ni fu ni fa y me molesta un montón que no me ha llegado ningún email que me pueda cambiar el mal humor. Estoy al ordenador mirando cositas en la puta pantalla sin mirarlas de verdad y pienso en muchas cosas. Ahora vuelvo a revisar mi correo pero me enterro de lo mismo...nada interesante...qué putada.

Cumpleaños feliz

Hace más de dos semanas mis padres y yo fuimos a comer en un restaurante muy antiguo pero recién abierto. Digo antiguo puesto que el restaurante antes era una casa que se construyó poco después de la segunda guerra mundial, pero que no hace mucho ha sido restaurada y se ha convertido en un restaurante. Se llama "Casa Roces" y era la casa anterior de la familia de Alejandro Roces que, entre otros, fue galardonado por el estado con el importante título de "artista nacional" para la literatura. Se encuentra la casa en el histórico complejo de Malacañang, lo que es el domicilio oficial del presidente de Filipinas.

Por allí están mis padres en la foto...aquel día mi madre cumplió los 71 años y así tiene, más o menos, la misma edad que la Casa Roces.

Cambiar de aires

Me gustaría cambiar de aires y me gustaría que fuera pronto. Ya estoy hecho polvo y me siento agotado por completo. Actualmente me encuentro en una etapa de mi vida laboral en la que ya no me queda fuerza alguna. Por mucho que intente convencerme de que todo esto pasará, no puedo. Desafortunadamente, no.

La verdad es que tengo buen trabajo, llevo dos años en un organismo de cooperación internacional para el desarrollo, y esto me permite ejercer el máster que hice en España hace más de cinco años. Es un buen empleo, claro, lo que pasa es que ese tipo de trabajo te quema. Te quema mucho y bastante rápido.

Lo primero de 2011

Hacía mucho tiempo que no escribía nada en este blog, y eso fue por varios motivos. Para empezar, desde que regresé a mi tierra desde Málaga, he tenido que adoptar un estilo de vida lo suficientemente diferente como para ocasionar que se me quite la costumbre de escribir. Ahora no tengo ordenador en casa, aunque antes sí lo tenía, pero me iba fatal internet así que poco a poco escribir algo en mi blog se ha convertido en una tarea cada vez mayor y poco soportable. Es más, como vivo en Filipinas actualmente y no en el extranjero, de alguna manera considero que todo lo que me pasa en la vida ahora está dentro de lo habitual y no es nada interesante, y por tanto, no es tema sobre el que valga la pena escribir.

Sin embargo, a partir de ahora, pienso intentar actualizar mi blog con frecuencia como antes. Recuerdo que hace más de cinco años, tomé la decisión de darse de alta en el blogspot para poder escribir sobre las cosas bonitas que me pasaban en la vida en aquel tiempo. Ahora quiero escribir sobre las cosas buenas que me pasan en la vida cotidiana, pero también quiero escribir cuando todo me va súper fatal y tengo que sacudirme el mal humor, la desilusión o lo que sea.

A ver si consigo actualizar este blog con frecuencia...

Lo que como toda la semana

No me da ninguna gana ir al trabajo los lunes ya que me tengo que llevar a la oficina una bolsa que pesa bastante y eso me molesta. Los otros días de la semana solo tengo en la mano un ligero bolso cuando salgo de la casa a coger un taxi FX que me llega a mi oficina en Makati, pero los lunes me cuesta mucho más subir al taxi, caminar por la calle y subir la escalera. Lo que hay dentro de la bolsa es lo que como toda la semana - salchicha, rábano y berenjena salados, manzana y naranja. Toda esa comida me la llevo de una vez al principio de la semana para no tener que llevar comida todos los días. Al mediodía suelo comer una salchicha y un poquito de rabano y berenjena salados, y antes de volver a casa ceno una manzana y una naranja, cosa que hace que los compañeros de trabajo me pregunten por qué como tan poco. Les explico que quiero perder peso, eso es verdad, aunque también es verdad que no soporto tener que pensar en qué me apetece comer todos los días. Por eso, me conviene comer la misma cosa de lunes a viernes. Y bueno, hasta ahora ha sido una manera eficaz de perder peso e…

My house hit by Typhoon Ondoy

During the flood...

Water level in relation to the first floor ceiling...

After the flood... (my mom pointing to the floodline on the wall)

Back to some old habit

After giving up my mountain bike to an uncle who needs to practice regular cycling following his mild stroke, I finally decided to replace that 10-year-old mountain bike (purchased in 1997) with a new one. Last Easter Sunday, Joy and I braved the harsh summer heat and headed to Raon, Quiapo where there's a line of bicycle shops where one can supposedly find the cheapest bikes, parts and accessories. An hour of haggling with the rather cunning shop attendant saw me opting for this hunky and clever-looking mountain bike you see on the picture above. The good thing about buying in Raon was that you could simply choose one of the bikes on display, and tell them to upgrade some bike parts as you wish. I did ask them to change a couple of the original parts, so mine turned out about double the original price, but I still believe it was a good buy.

My first mountain bike was silver-painted and had an armrest that resembled the bending horns of a bull, and it was my companion whenever I hit the roads at night from my house in Sta. Mesa to places as far as UP Diliman, White Plains, Greenhills and Roxas Boulevard.

My new bike is now almost a month-old, and it does feel good to be back to some old habits.

DELE Superior

After about four months since the test, Instituto Cervantes has finally released the results of the DELE which I took last November. It's a test meant to measure your proficiency in Spanish, much like its counterparts such as TOEFL, IELTS, JLPT, etc. Upon checking their website last week, I found out that I passed nivel superior, the highest level there is, and now it's time to wait for the diploma to arrive from Spain perhaps in 6 months' time.

I would have been happier if it were the quinto EOI diploma (had to drop my quinto class when I left Spain) but really, news of my passing the DELE kind of fed my need for good news these days...I'm happy!

What's a good title for a newsletter?

There are plenty of things capable of inducing a heart attack but this is the one that almost killed me. We're currently conceptualizing a newsletter on the topic of disability and one of the first things that we need is a title for it. I asked this person who's supposed to work with me on this for a suggestion, and while I was expecting her to come up with "normal" titles such as the quarterly update, herald, the times or something, she surprised me with two very complex suggestions:

1. Self-Presentational Explanations of Behavior for each colleagues
2. Disability Handmaids thru Individuals

What the $#%@?

Deep. Profound...

Fortune plant

A few days before year-end, my father excitedly asked me one morning whether my digicam had some battery power left. I did not understand the question at first because he would normally have nothing to do with the digicam. But as I would find out at that very moment, the Fortune plant standing right outside our house had started to bear some flowers so he wanted me to photograph it. He believes that the flowers are a sign of luck because Fortune plants are not known to bear flowers, and if they ever do, it would have taken them many years to produce the tiniest sprout. In fact, in our case, we had to wait for at least 18 years.

Apart from my father, our Chinese neighbor was quick to point out with a knowing smile spread all over her face that the flowers indeed could mean good luck. If she and my father are both correct, then the fact that my father got three out of six numbers right in yesterday's lottery (he would usually get none of them right) and that he won P1,000 for himself was the start of this so-called "good" luck. So now, elated over the lottery results, he seems more confident than ever to continue betting in the lottery until the day that he bags the jackpot.

I'm not exactly superstitious but I have something in my heart that I truly desire. The Plant knows what it is.

A quiet day

The only reminder that today is my birthday, aside from my having to buy a Goldilocks cake before coming to work this morning, is the slew of greetings I've been receiving in my mobile. It all started on New Year's eve, when a friend of mine in the neighborhood got drunk and announced in his booming voice on the videoke microphone that the store owner who lives on our street had set up outside his house, that hey everybody, January 2 is Tony's birthday! Some 12 hours after that, when the clock was a few minutes away from January 2, another neighbor followed suit by messaging me happy birthday, apparently wanting to be the first one to send me her greetings. Some four minutes after the clock had struck 12 midnight, my mobile beeped again with a message from another friend asking for a birthday treat.

When I arrived in the office this morning, I was expecting today to be an ordinary day, quiet, calm and without unnecessary fuss, because for a long time I'd been celebrating this occasion in a sort of low-profile way. That's probably because celebrating your birthday at the tail-end of the holidays is an anti-climax. And so today has been rather quiet, just as I wanted, with only a small cake to somehow mark the occasion in the office, except that my mobile has been getting quite a lot of birthday greetings. In Spain, I would receive about three or four greetings in my email or mobile. But since this morning, messages have been coming in even from people I did not expect would mark this date on their calendars. That's actually great and something to be thankful for.

It reminds you, for better or for worse, that you are in your country.

Dark beauty

Some three weeks ago we spent a couple of nights in Legaspi City to organize the culminating activity of a disaster project of ours in Bicol in response to the damages caused by typhoon Reming in the last quarter of 2006. There was a tour that took our team together with some local partners and donor organizations to the evacuation centers, avalanche-hit areas, community hospitals, relocation sites and to the famous Mount Mayon which is said to be the volcano with the "most perfect" cone. The volcano was majestic and the sight of it commands your attention even as your plane lands on the airport. It was so pretty it made me forget for a while that I despised everything around me at that time...and that's just priceless!

Overworked

I've been calling in sick for the past three days because of a bad flu accompanied by a fever and I still consider it a blessing in disguise even if I'm about to consume all my leave credits for the next nine months in just one week. Why? Because for the past two months or so I've been behaving like a workaholic Japanese salaryman. I juggle two jobs at the same time in such a way that I have no rest day during the week. I have a regular day job at a Frech NGO where I work full-time from Monday to Friday, but aside from that I do graveyard shifts on weekends as a part-time Spanish-speaking agent for the booming call center industry in Makati.

So it feels good to be just at home and taking a rest, even if my body feels damp all the time and even if just yesterday my stomach would not admit any substance apart from fruits and hot tea. I swear I could vomit just at the thought of sinigang, nilaga and other oily soup stuff your elders, if you were born in the Philippines, would give you in order to supposedly make you feel better. I don't exactly like having to live with my parents but when I'm feeling sick as hell, that's one of the moments I'm truly grateful that they're here to take care of me.

Chasing deadlines

And so it's been roughly 1.5 months since I left Spain and came home to Manila, and now I find myself in front of my laptop in a room very much different from the one I had in Málaga. It's a room I had lived in practically my whole life but now I must get used to it over again. Since the day I arrived, I have been quite busy catching up with family and friends I didn't realize I hadn't produced any writing until now. So, it's taking me some time to finally write this project document. There's now a half-filled page on the computer screen with some occasional scattered notes at the bottom. If I were in Spain, I would probably finish this assignment in a flash because all the information and supporting documents that I need for it are all in. However, there seems to be a harsh spell of hibernation wreaked upon my person that I can't help it at all. To my suprise, I even forgot that the deadline for the document was Tuesday. Somehow, I mistakenly lost track of the passing of the days I thought that February 20 was still Thursday. That gave me some justification to put off the task and go to a friend's house yesterday night for some beer and pizza. Ufff...had I known, had I known!!

Happy birthday to me

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to me. I've just turned 28 today and it feels quite odd because I'm leaving Spain tomorrow to go back to the Philippines for good. For the past two weeks I've been very busy meeting up with friends to say goodbye, packing up my stuff, closing bank accounts, paying last-minute bills and simply trying to get over with a thousand things that one normally has to finish when leaving a country. Once I arrive in Manila, numerous lunch/dinner dates will be arranged to meet up with old friends that I haven't seen for a long while, and surely most of these people will ask me: Why did you come back? Shouldn't you have stuck it out in Spain, considering that you already made it there? And I wouldn't be surprised if some of them would think that I was stupid for making this move. Truth be known, it was a hard decision to leave Spain, and Europe for that matter, because I will be leaving behind wonderful people, places and a lifestyle that I've grown increasingly attached to over the past two years. However, I thought hard about it and no matter from what perspective I looked at it, reason wouldn't have me stay much longer. Why? Because I felt that if I did, this country -- and my personal circumstances here -- would shape me into someone that I don't want to be professionally. And I can't live with that. Thus, I finally decided to put an end to this chapter of my life and start a new one in Manila. So...goodbye Spain!...but...to all my friends in the Philippines, see you soon!

Goodbye home sweet home 2

What's for Christmas eve dinner?

Ajo colorado (patatas con pimientos)

Chuleta de buey a la bilbaína and some good company...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Stuck in Stockholm

First things first: anakngsinampalukangmanokputangina!

Let me repeat myself: anakngsinampalukangmanokputanginatalaga!

For those of you who are not from the Philippines, I just said a very bad word in my native tongue. The reason behind my ire (and near insanity) is a very unfortunate incident that happened this morning. I'm supposed to be back home in Malaga and enjoying a full night's rest in the privacy of my flat and yet I find myself typing these words at Arlanda airport in Sweden. Have you guessed why? Because I MISSED my fucking flight!

Yes, that one thing I thought would never happen in this lifetime finally materialized. My flight left at 6.45 am today and I had stayed up all night for fear of oversleeping and missing the first airport shuttle at 4 am. I didn't miss the shuttle and yet the next thing I knew was that airport staff was informing me that I was sure to miss my flight. Why? Because I was at the wrong airport!

So right now, at 21.36, I'm still here in Stockholm and pissed off on what is supposed to be the worst day of my life. Pardon the word pun in the title but I couldn't think of a better one to describe the situation. All I want to do now is get home.

Apparently, Stockholm has more than one airport. By "more than one," I don't mean two or three but FOUR fucking airports. It so happened that I took the wrong shuttle at Central Station and I was transported to the wrong airport, which was, by some strange twist of fate, TWO hours by bus from the right one.

Truth to tell, apart from my constant and strong gut feeling that something terrible would occur on the last of day of the tour (of all days mind you!), there had been some signs that something would go wrong:

1. The shuttle driver announced that the trip to the airport would take an hour and 25 minutes. When I first arrived, the trip from the airport to Central Station had only been 40 minutes. However, I kind of ignored this detail because I thought that the shuttle would simply do more stops than during the first trip.

2. I was supposed to fly from Arlanda airport. When we were nearing our destination, I kept on seeing road signs that said: Stockholm Skavsta Airport. I mistook Skavsta for the Swedish word for airport because in some countries they DO use the local word. In Norway, for example, there are signs that say: Oslo Lufthavn, and the latter word means airport. I didn't realize that Skavsta was the NAME of the airport that we were going to, and it's located in the outskirts of Stockholm in the middle of fucking nowhere.

3. Upon entering Skavsta airport, nowhere in the huge monitor that displayed all departing flights could I find Malaga.

4. At Skavsta airport, the system is different because everybody, regardless of flights, gets to check in at the same counters. I joined the queue and thus wasted some precious time. When my turn came, the check-in person couldn't locate my booking number in their database and so advised me to approach a counter at the back end of the lobby. Right there I sensed something was wrong and yet I kept my cool. The lady said she didn't believe it was a big problem.

And so there. The next thing I knew was that the lady at information was breaking to me the news, rather gently, that I had come to the wrong airport. There was no way I would make it on time because it was barely over an hour before departure and Arlanda airport was two hours away, even by taxi. I didn't realize the gravity of the situation until much later in the day; I would later get increasingly pissed off, and finally, mad like hell.

Of course, the first person to blame for this incident was myself. I had read about Stockholm's having several airports and did not pay enough attention. I KNEW that my airport was Arlanda. But unfortunately, it's not enough to know which airport your flight is departing from, you should also note which airport it is NOT departing from. Perhaps I should have slept last night so that my mind was more alert and this would have not happened.

Apart from myself, who else was there to blame? Who could have known that I was headed for Skavsta airport? Well, the answer is... the shuttle driver! The ticket that I presented to him before boarding the bus had "Arlanda" written all over it. And there's a different fare for every airport destination. He should have read my ticket carefully and not simply punch holes in it.

In any case, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, within half an hour since that painful realization that I wouldn't go home as planned, I was able to book the same flight for tomorrow. My original ticket didn't include a rebooking insurance, so I had to pay the whole fucking amount again, which was heartbreaking. Throughout the trip, I had been scrimping in order not to exhaust my budget limit. I knew that upon returning to Malaga, I would have other expenses. But all that I'd saved during the past 10 days just went to waste!

After a heavy breakfast at Skavsta airport (I ate a lot with a heavy heart!), I headed back to Central Station. I dropped by the supermarket to buy some food for the day because I knew that at Arlanda, where I had decided to stay until departure tomorrow, everything was ridiculously expensive. So I bought two liters of orange juice, one liter of mineral water, a pre-packed cold pasta dish, a sandwich, some donuts and pastries, like I was going on an excursion. Then I headed with my stupid grocery store plastic bag in hand towards the shuttle stop and this time I boarded the shuttle for ARLANDA.

As soon as we were at the airport, another equally terrible incident almost took place as if the gods were really conspiring against me. Upon entering the vicinity, the driver announced that the shuttle would stop at Terminal 2, 3, 4 and 5. What the fuck? So it's not simply Arlanda airport, but it's even more complicated. I checked my flight booking in search of the terminal number but it was not indicated, so I didn't know where to get off. When the shuttle stopped at Terminal 2, virtually everybody got off so I asked the shuttle driver if that was the terminal for Sterling airlines. As soon as he said yes, I stepped out and made for the baggage compartment to retrieve my backpack. However, I noticed that the shuttle door almost immediately closed and the tires were beginning to turn. The shuttle was leaving with my baggage in it! I lost my cool and ran as mightily as I could towards the front door (it was a looong shuttle) and banged with extreme force on the windows like the Malagueños do, to keep it from leaving. Astounded by the banging, the driver stepped on the brakes immediately and I signalled to him with a hey-you look on my face that my baggage was still in the compartment.

He didn't seem too happy about the banging but hell, I wasn't about to allow another misfortune to befall me. Two incidents on the same day would have been too much for my heart! It's not like I just missed a bus or something, I missed my fucking flight!

And so I arrived in Arlanda Terminal 2 at 12 pm. I think I asked five different people if that was the right terminal for my flight just to be sure and not commit any oversight this time. I pulled a baggage cart and dumped all my stuff into it and then began the long wait for my flight back home.

What did I intend to do to while away 18 hours inside an airport? Well, a lot of things... a lot of pathetic things like stroll around with my baggage cart, frequent the toilet, eat lunch and dinner in a damn corner of the lobby, smoke a lot, whine endlessly and read. I fucking finished a 450-page Spanish novel that I had taken with me for the trip, and it was only 21:00 when I reached the last page.

Towards late afternoon, I got really frustrated and mad about the situation that I felt the need to destroy. I went inside a restroom and broke the flush handle of the toilet seat and flung it into the waste can. I went back to the lobby and realized that it felt extremely good to break the flush handle. So a few moments later, I went to another restroom, took a pee and left the faucet open. Oh, how good it all felt!

It's 00:15 now and I've got nothing else to do for the next five hours before check-in starts. What a lesson I learned today. If you happen to be reading this, make sure the same thing doesn't happen to you! Check your flight details! Otherwise, you'll have to pay a high price for your negligence.

As for me, I will make sure that I'm the first person in line at check-in later this morning. Puchanggala, di na talaga mauulit ito!

Wide awake in Kungsholmen

It's 1.05 in the morning and I can't go to sleep as of yet. I took a nap a short while ago but I decided I would get up around midnight so I can be sure not to miss my flight early today. It is cold here. And nice. Kungsholmen is lovely and it is my last stop in this backpacking tour which started 10 days ago. Later at 3 am I will have to check out of the hostel. It is so cold I have to wear my gloves as I walk two kilometers from here to Central Station where I'm taking the shuttle that goes to the airport. Or else my fingers would freeze and the joints would lock up like they did yesterday morning.

It's a good thing this hostel has free Internet access. The lobby is virtually deserted at this hour of the morning, it's just I and the wavy-haired hostel receptionist, and some light pop music playing in the background.

A short while ago one female guest in her early twenties just walked into the lobby and suddenly broke into tears at reception. It looked like she was raped or had just gone through something equally horrible. She just stood there for a few seconds in front of the receptionist whose facial expression gave a rather baffled but sympathetic look. It was quite a scene. Then suddenly the guy seated beside me at the computer terminal stood up and approached reception. The crying girl fled as soon as she saw him, because it turns out that the guy was her boyfriend. The still-baffled hostel receptionist is now playing psychologist to the guy, and I'm overhearing stuff like a lover's fight, engagement rings, and a huge sum of money that the guy dished out for a whole bucket of beer that the girl spilled in a bar last week. Then the receptionist asks the guy -- have you been seeing someone else while you're on tour, so that your girl might be angry or jealous? Hmmmmm... weird stories... weird stuff happening in the wee hours the morning.

I'm so sleepy, and my head is spinning...

Adventure starts tomorrow

I haven't travelled alone for quite sometime so tomorrow's trip will somewhat be a challenge. I have to admit that I've been quite stubborn because both travel literature and my travel buddy had discouraged me quite strongly from going to that place and yet in the end I chose to heed nobody's advice but my own. All I knew is that I wanted to be there! About this place, Lonely Planet warns: "Travel in _____________ from November to January is a pretty cold, dark and miserable option."

Well, we shall see...