Take home

When I'm in Singapore, home is husband, house, work and routine. But the moment I touch down in Manila, home is my friends, my mom and my mad, unbelievable city. Every trip becomes a search for and rediscovery of pieces of myself to take back with me, so that I never really leave home... and home ends up being wherever I am.

And so after a week and a half back home, this is what I have brought home with me.

Triple-certified birth and marriage certificates for our Dutch work visas. The main purpose of our trip was to get our NSO-certified documents authenticated by the DFA, then legalized by the Dutch embassy, before submitting them to the relocation agency, who will be applying for our visas in the Netherlands.

I must say the process was a lot less painful than I thought it would be! I was really impressed with the DFA; I went in my grottiest outfit, ready to sweat it out for at least half a day, but both our visits (to submit and to pick up the documents) lasted for no longer than half an hour. Progress at last!

New clothes. Thanks to the miracle that is foreign exchange, Manila always means cheap shopping for me now. (Oh the days when Landmark was the pinnacle of my consumer ambitions!) I scored a dress from Cecile Van Straten's new collection for Heather Miss Grey, a jewel-print tee from the Ramon Valera collection at Freeway, plus a funky cat-print blouse from one of the small stores at Anthropology in Rockwell. 

A whopping crush on Akihiro Sato. On Friday night in Bantayan, I flipped on the TV while getting ready to go out to dinner. Big mistake. Survivor Philippines: Celebrity Showdown was on, and it kept us glued to the boob tube for a full hour. That must have been the most telegenic final four on Survivor, ever. I'd seen Aki before but with the full grizzly beard... rawr! Kume-Keanu Reeves ito!

New books for my already tall pile of unread tomes. After cheap clothes, cheap books are always a great buy. I found Beauty and Spindle's End by Robin McKinley (highly recommended by Gutsy, the YA lit expert), The Fashion File (a book on the style of Mad Men, by its costume designer Janie Bryant), and Nina Garcia's Little Black Book of Style, each for less than I'd pay for a taxi ride in Singapore. By far, though, the best book buy of the trip was Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholomew.

I've never sat through an entire PBA game in my life, but I was astounded at how many memories this book dug up for me, how many names rang so many bells. Everything people have told me about this book—that you can't put it down, you'll laugh out loud, you'll love it even if you don't like basketball—is absolutely true.

A few new pounds. I managed to check off quite a few items on the list of my favorite comfort foods on this trip. Chocolate chip pancakes at Pancake House, a Regular Yum with Cheese at Jollibee, coffee pie at Cafe 1771, and pritong saging na saba at my mom's were just a few of the highlights. And of course, danggit and Cebu mangoes every day in Bantayan!

Freckles and a tan. Thanks to four days of sun and surf in Bantayan (plus two more beach trips scheduled for December), I am now well on my way to being the envy of all the Dutch with their pasty midwinter complexions!

A papier-mache and resin horse. How random is that? About two years ago, a hundred different Filipino artists took part in an auction that had them apply their own artistic touch to a taka, or a traditional papier-mache figure from Paete, Laguna. I got wind of it online and ended up buying a taka by sculptor Juan Sajid Imao, son of National Artist Abdulmari Imao and perhaps best known to us Ateneans as the maker of the crucifix at the Church of the Gesu.

I bought it sight unseen and it turned out to be huge! So the taka got stuck at my mom's for a while, and eventually it had to be repaired. I sent it back to Sajid, who was gracious enough to repair it, fortify it with a hardier structure and pack it for transit. 

We took it on the plane back to Singapore with us, and we get to bring it with us to Amsterdam with no shipping costs involved. It was also awesome to meet Sajid and his wife, who are such a warm and gracious couple.

Food for the heart and soul. Friends, family, music, and laughter... all the stuff that home is about.

I also ended up taking home a whopper of a flu that leveled me for four days after I got back. But considering how ragged I got running around and zipping back and forth to get this huge bounty of take-home goodies, maybe I should've expected it!

A case of the woollies

Literally.

The number of packed suitcases parked in Marlon's and my already cluttered bedroom speaks volumes about how our lives are going to go for the next few months. The aforementioned case of the woollies was the first to come into existence: we quite literally filled a suitcase with woolly, warm winter wear the weekend Marlon decided that he would take the job in Amsterdam. 

Buying winter wear was one of the things we were both so excited to do; we unleashed our pent-up consumer lust upon Timberland for boots, Uniqlo for unbelievably cheap but otherwise excellent quality cashmere, angora and wool tops, plus down jackets and Heattech innerwear, Zara and Winter Time for a few sweaters and a long coat for Marlon, and Muji for a few basics for me. 

One suitcase multiplied into two as we started dredging up all our existing cold-weather wear, although I am still in need of good woolen trousers, maybe a new pair of jeans, at least one more pair of closed flats and a coat. I just have to be careful that in my excitement to be fashionable (as Jonathan puts it, the "pang-mayaman" look), I buy things that will actually keep me warm.

The other suitcase is packed with clothes for an emergency trip home to Manila, which we hastily booked when we found out from the relocation agency (very, very late in the game—obviously they don't know what it's like to relocate Filipinos) about the requirements for our Dutch work permits. 

That suitcase holds grotty clothes for the day when Marlon and I have to line up to get our NSO-certified birth and marriage certificates authenticated at the Department of Foreign Affairs (I fault Singapore for many things, but the fact na pwede kang umoutfit habang naglalakad ng papeles is not one of them) and a nice dress for the day when we have to take those NSO-certified then DFA-authenticated papers to the Dutch embassy for legalization. Don't you just love being a Philippine passport holder?

Thank goodness we booked a beach getaway to Bantayan, Cebu over a month ago. That trip gives us something to do to decompress from the stress of engaging with all that bureaucracy, and while waiting for all the papers to be stamped, legalized, processed and whatever else. And that's what suitcase number four is for.

Decisions, decisions

The other evening, Marlon called in to his company's headquarters in the States for his exit interview with HR. Occasionally bits and pieces of his conversation would drift over to me, and this is one of the bits I'll always remember.

Actually, no. Compensation was not a factor in this decision... Ultimately I decided on what kind of life I wanted and let the job follow that decision, rather than decide on a job and mold my life around it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many, many reasons why marrying this man was the best decision I ever made.

Going Dutch

I am happy and tipsy and the company of old friends.

We are drinking and celebrating and one of the things we are drinking to and celebrating is a brand new start for the new year... when Marlon and I move to Amsterdam.

We broke out the bubbly and reminisced about the days when we college buddies would drink together at one in the afternoon, and it seems so much like those times now except we can afford better alcohol, there are no parents to hide from, we don't have to sober up and run to class, I'm married to one of those college buddies and the house we're drinking in is my own.

In the background stands the pieces that make up a home that Marlon and I made and loved and that we will leave in two months' time. People are coming to take away those pieces one by one (we have takers for the bookshelves, the couch and the floor lamp) and all I feel is gratitude and excitement.

 Life is good :)