(ramblings)
Toronto is a nice place for people who are alone. I wish i wasn't too tired to do anything, but i am and changing from my underclothes into something warmer takes so much effort, add to that the going down all the way from the 8th floor. It just takes so much effort. This time, looking by my window is satisfying enough, and i can probably stave off the hunger with the soy milk and the strawberries in the fridge.
My appetite is missing the Filipino meals and I want so much to eat a plate of steaming rice with fried fish and a bowl of boiled mix-match backyard vegetables. It is 10 pm, the sun just set and already I am craving for Filipino lunch.
all I've been getting the past couple of days are scattered sleep. I can't even calculate if I've been here three or two because it feels like I've been on sleepless days since forever. Tomorrow, i hope to get better at getting the winks so I can stay awake for most of the days and learn to enjoy Toronto, or at least be able to get out of my hotel at daytime. I don't and can't do clubbing and waking up at midnight leaves me with nothing to do but stalk people on Facebook. The tim horton's near my hotel closes at 11 pm and even if it stayed open until forever, i am also not supposed to be drinking coffee. Recovering jetlaggers aren't supposed to be drinking coffee at 12 midnight.
But all of this is gone. The initial impression that this stay will be long and that I will eventually overstay my welcome barely gave me time to think about my aloneness.
The very long plane ride was enough to let me know I am really back and just when i thought i would have to deal with a much terrible post-time travel lag, it turned out to be nothing. Waking up at 12 midnight, stalking people in Facebook in the apartment I shared with my husband and my son was a different energy all in all. Despite waking up 6 hours ahead of everybody, there was still enough energy left to go out and walk the three blocks to get the fresh hot morning pan de sal ni Pa-a. On the first few days since I've been gone for almost three weeks (which feels like nothing; it seems i never left at all) I brought back with me the things I like about being in the city of few people, and even fewer people who cared about other people. I walk out of the house without brushing my hair, with only a hooded light jacket to hide my swelling pregnant boobs.
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****(recalling, these were the inflight food served:
on the way to vancouver:
1. hard bread (with walnuts -- only ate the walnuts) and loads of juice
2. chicken stuff with overcooked vegetables, apparently irradiated by the plane microwave plus very bland macaroni salad, panacotta something more hard bread (this time i ate only the walnuts again) and then juice all you want. and wine--which i didn't get.
the "next" day
1. burger, i think. shitty ones. unlimited juice (apple or orange), water, coke, coffee, tea, milk (i am bloating and i am in the middle row. shit, i'd like to drink a lot of liquids but i don;t want to hassle my seatmate with having to ask him to get up so i can get through to go to the washroom)
2. milkfish shit. with button mushrooms and scrambled eggs. by this time i barely have the appetite so i only ate the mushroom, the lychees and almost jelly dessert, more hard bread with walnut (i put aside all the hard walnut breads) and liquids all you want.
(i noticed it was always bright. it was morning all the time.)
PAL in flight food is terrible, i think.or maybe it's just me****
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It's true. I've tried and tested it several times. Dawn and dusk are the best part of the day. I guess it is true for everyone who are secretly introverts. I guess that is the reason why I love abandoned architecture, deserted places, urban ex, edward hopper.
At the pandesal shop a line is slowly forming. By the doorway stand a handful of pandesal retailers with their omnipresent styro boxes (to keep the pandesal hot). Inside, people who either have just woken up or have just finished their daily morning runs are also lining up. I'm just there, to represent people with disheveled, highlighted hair.
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on the way back to the philippines, this is what i got:
1. i think it was pork hamonado or something. with dessert and side dish and unlimited liquids. i ate half of it. plus the ever present hard walnut bread/roll.
then i slept.
when i woke up it was still night. it was always dark on the way back. it was always nighttime.
2. bread with meat filling and coffee, tea, milk, soda, orange juice, apple juice, all the juice in the world that you want, piss, water. i didn't eat it. i put it aside. maybe i'll eat it at the lay over in manila.
3. breakfast. longganisa and rice and scrambled eggs and button mushrooms!!!!! this must have been the best food ever. i ate almost all of it. i forgot what the desserts were but longganisa tasted like childhood. (i used to be a big longganisa/chorizo eater until my dad got sick and we all got rid of cancer foods at home)
again, it was always dark. the nighttime felt like forever.
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Inside the jeepney today, 2 days after i was back i thought of a scene. Maybe i should write it but i lost the whole idea after i got off. I saw a spit on the sidewalk and was so disgusted I suddenly changed the scene to nuclear bombing the whole city and rebuilding it all over again. Sometimes i get into thinking that cities with people who don't take care of her deserve nuclear annihilation. That is probably why i found Liam Neeson's character in the Dark Knight (the 1st installment) something very relatable, and why i find V for Vendetta one movie I would love for my son to see and understand someday. Judging his demeanor now, i feel everyone would think he is more destined to be a politician or a lawyer than a revolutionary. I won't mind if he becomes the latter. somebody has to pass the torch to someone and i was just not courageous enough to accept it. so maybe he will. he will be.
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And, the reason why i was so scared taking pictures is because i am very embarrassed to be called a "crazy tourist". I'm that shallow. Because i laugh at all other Filipinos who love to proudly pose (and tries so hard) by the first world land marks so that "everyone would know they have been there." I'm so embarrassed by those kinds of Filipinos. (i'm a victim of thinkers are doers. i don't wanna do it because i'm afraid to be laughed at.) All Filipinos except my friends in alfredogs (because bobong is such a comic character posing all the time). I know. that's my secret.
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FIN.
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