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i usually make it a point to visit the church when i am in a new place. its a kind of thanksgiving for having been able to reach/visit the place.
so, aug 31, being a sunday, i went along with the other Filipino ISS scholars to the Church of Our Savior. i was not disappointed. i felt the mass was well celebrated. most of the people shook each other's hands during the "peace" part. i joined in. i also sang the mass songs. i knew them back in high school at the Holy Spirit School. i felt a genuine feeling of thanksgiving. the whole church was also a multitude of cultures and i saw a good number of Filipino-looking fellows. judging from their smiles and congenial gestures, i think they also were pleased to find us there. after church, we went through the back of the church and walked to the grocery store, C1000.
another pinay student, adel, was kind enough to accompany us to shop for some food stuff and bare essentials we need to get us through the week. palamuot na experience. the stuff were probably not so expensive in euros but we kept doing conversions in pesos everytime we picked a product so it was like, aahhh...kamahal. a 4.5 kilo of rice, for example, cost 3.99 euros. this went on as we hopped from one grocery store to another, looking for cheaper goods. C1000 to Xenos to Amazing Oriental to Albert Heijn. i found it interesting that the large grocery bags are not for free so our kind sister Adel, who had the proper sense to bring along extra grocery bags, let us borrow.
we had to walk most of the time. it was supposedly cool as most of the people just walk around here or go on bikes but really... the groceries for the week weighed almost like a sack of rice so again, i could not appreciate the walking part just right there. dili pareha sa ato nga naay tricycle anytime or bagger or porter. people were out in the streets by the time we were doing panic buying. you know those that you see in the movies, hanging out in the side streets, drinking coffee, relaxing with friends while we had another round of backbreaking and ungodly postures.
haay... so much for pacute-cute.
but the shops were really cute...quaint... they don't have a mall but really malls could not have compensated for that feeling of intimacy , quaintness and classy-ness of the place... i promised myself that i should go back here and do walking..paseo.. without the loads of commodities in my hands and back... soon...soon...
right after i slumped down in one of the large chairs in my room, i had to immediately go to the ISS, for registration. there were sliding doors (murag door sa MetroCentre Hotel sa lobby bitaw:), kanang mo-open ra inig duol na ka) we met Ms. Cynthia Recto-Carreon, a Filipina who has long been working at ISS. her presence is very comforting. registration was a breeze. everything was arranged. the student affairs office people welcomed us warmly. there were free coffee, tea, apples and raisin bread to while us during the wait for our turn in the registration. we each were given kits and the key to our pigeonhole, sort of our mailbox at ISS. we had our picture-taking for our IDs in a flash.
It was a weird feeling. i left manila at 10:45AM, the sun shining brightly and arrived at the Schiphol airport the sun still up. As soon as the plane touched down, I thought the scenery was familiar. Verdant fields, only more organized in a "planned" kind of way. Contrary to the Manila Airport, Schiphol was less noisy and less populated. There were seven of us NFP scholars in the same plane. We congregated at the luggage claim with our there gargantuan bags. A year's provision. Some of us stopped by the money exchange service available at the airport right in front of the luggage claim. we went out to the waiting area with our bags. My calvario has just started. the backbreaking drag-pull-lift exercise had to be and i had no choice. A student volunteer from ISS was there to guide us to the school. This has been a tradition among Filipino scholars here. attend to new students as they arrive and help them settle in. We each had to take out 7.30 euros for the train ticket but as we only have bills, Mike had to pay for us for the moment. We went down the train station and waited for our turn. Not all of us could get in the train at once so some of us, including me, had to wait for the next ride to Den Haag Central Station. There is a 30 minute interval per train stop. At the bus station, we had to buy bus tickets to take us to Mortenstraat (am not so sure if i got this right, basta the nearest stop to ISS, our school). This is where we had to buy a strip for trams and buses. 6.90 euros. patatakan lang kada sakay. The bus looked cute. It was real long with an accordion-type of something in the middle. perhaps to make it easy to turn around curves and bends. Another bitad-bitad sa mga bags. makawa jud poise. And another final bitad-bitad from the bus to ISS. But no! My dorm, Dorus Rijkersplein, was located still in the next building and my room was in the 5th floor... and mother of God---the elevator was stuck. huhu Buti na lang may kind enough pinoy student who helped me bring up my luggage to my room. haayyy. and my room was biigg with a large window overlooking the courtyard...hehe
my first trip abroad. netherlands. from the malate pensionne, i taxied to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport with more than 30 kilos of luggage. KLM economy class has a 20-kilo limit so I had to squeeze in more than a year of clothes and study materials within the limit. good thing they still have a 12-kilo limit for hand baggages so there. i have not started problematizing the weight of my luggage. my husband ryan had been there to see me off. therefore, i get free porterage as yet.:) all i had to do was pray i would not exceed. excess baggage costs 30 euros per kilo. save for a few dollar bills and what is left of my Philippine money (barely P2000), i only have 200 euros as baon in case of delay of my student stipend. whew.but god is good and i passed thru without excess. at the immigration, the immigration officer wondered why there were quite a number of us students off to netherlands. hmmm... perhaps the netherlands fellowship is quite generous with scholarships this year. my passport holds a Schengen visa... i have only an inkling of what this implies at the moment.:) the whole plane ride took about 12-14 hours. food was good and the dutch steward/stewardess were genuinely nice and attentive. i stood up quite a few times in the plane, trying to check out which part of the world have we passed by. one also has to do this to ease up your legs. contra-binhod.hehe at the backend portion of the plane, i chatted with other passengers while filling a plastic glass with juice. my sinuses felt a bit heavy with mucus or something. must be the altitude. overflowing juice, coffee and water. was even able to grab a chocolate in the counter too.:) i thought i saw the Gobi desert and the Ural mountains. i was in a different plane... level...not quite nirvanic though. back on the seat, i made it to about 3-4 movies: Kung Fu Panda, a Helent Hunt movie, and another two i could'nt remember. and yes, global music also in the radio station while reading "A Year in the World" by Francis Mayes. good one for travelling, thanks to liza m.:) i kept checking the temperature outside and how far are we from Amsterdam. KLM has this cool guide map and electronic data on distance, altitude, time (both in manila and amsterdam), & outside temperature. i relaxed as soon as i saw the outside temperature register at around 20something. i thought, kaya ra ni. mura ra'g aircon.:)
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