I wasn't attracted to the idea of going out of town for the long summer holiday, i.e. Holy Week. Going out of town was a big part of my job since our Global Fund project started in 2004. My idea of a holiday was to feel rich, lazy, without a care in the world, not putting effort to distances traveled. Maybe that's why we ended up vacationing in a hotel in Manila.
There was actually an earlier plan to go to Donsol, watch and play with the butanding (whale sharks). But planning became too difficult, getting to Bicol being the most difficult of all. Two weeks before Holy Week, every form of comfortable transport was fully booked already. Two other remaining options were the airconditioned train and rent-a-car. Remaining not because they're still available, but because we don't have leads at the moment. Then came news from my staff in Legazpi that Donsol's accommodations were already full, so option was just to make a day trip then head back to Daraga or Legazpi for accommodations. It's beginning to sound like holiday hell, and it hasn't even started yet. Ditch Donsol, I said.
There was the Puerto Galera option always ready and willing for consideration. But for several years now, like since 2003, I've noticed that getting accommodations in Galera had increasingly been harder. The most convenient way of getting accommodations was to check in before Holy Week. We couldn't afford that. Both my hunny and I still had our hands full at work up until Wednesday. Also, I'm not sure which was getting older faster, me or the Galera scene. I didn't experience Galera the way my "lolas" have often fabulously reminisced about it. I first arrived in Galera 1998, on its allegedly sudden boom of holiday tourists. And if you could just imagine being a vacationer wanting some peace and quiet, you won't have it in Galera on Holy Week.
So check in at the Tropicana hotel in Malate I did. We did: ron, eon, rex. It's not actually the richness that one could compare with, say, Shangri-la hotel. But we did the Shangri-la bit earlier, Thursday: we had lunch together, at the lobby's buffet luncheon, after realizing that Glorietta was essentially shut down for the holidays.
Tropicana would do, it's cheap -- er, affordable -- enough to feel rich and lazy, which was the priority tone to be set for this vacation anyway. And of course, the sun and swim. Tropicana had a swimming pool, cozy, discreet and well maintained. Not too many kids stay in this hotel, a big plus in my book. It also helped that ron and rex were with us; they took care of so many details keeping "house." I just had to think of very pressing vacation matters: rest, watch TV, eat, swim, eat again. Eon slept... slept a lot. One dinner also was in T.G.I.Friday's (the only one open at nearby Robinsons Place)... my friend gregg and I once talked about how expensive eating out has gotten lately; at TGIF that night, our bill amounted almost as much as our overnight accommodations at Tropicana.
There was a time I remember that summer uber fabulosity was also measured by how much you've toasted yourself under the sun. So post-Galera, guys would come together, hang out, see and be seen sporting Hawaiian Tropic or Coppertone aided shades of skin color. Last Saturday, eon and I spent a day of loitering and shopping at Glorietta, and we decided to cap our mall adventures with a night of singing at the movies in Greenbelt. We went to see RENT (Eon's first for the movie, my second). Someone saw me, a friend from way back (the earlier days of TLF's community center), who was also about to see the movie. He remarked that I seemed to have a very fulfilling summer vacation. I was nicely bronzed. I didn't go out of town at all, I said, I opted to stay in the city, and results were just fine (and fab, I could've added).
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