Interesting Weekend

Last Friday was my first time to go out on a Friday night since I got chickenpox. I got a call from Kayeh, a friend from Ateneo de Zamboanga and she told me to meet her for dinner, so I went to her hotel (the Bayview in Roxas Blvd) where she and some members of the Beacon (Ateneo's school paper) are staying for a seminar. I still have fresh scars on my face but I braved the panicky stares of strangers because I am so bored for staying at home for almost two weeks already, and I want to eat a real dinner too, not another slab of liempo from Andok's or another cup of ramen (which what I basically subsisted to the whole week).

So we (Kayeh, Henry and two other freshies from Beacon) ate dinner at Dencio's at CCP complex (I like what they did to the place, by the way), and then I treated them for dessert at Iceberg. Afterward we met up with an old acquaintance, Patrick, who introduced to us a friend of his, Heather. She is a Louisiana native (probably descended from one of those old landed French gentry, as her surname is Dubois) who is here to work with conflict resolution activities of some NGOs. We spent most of the evening talking and exploring Baywalk and had coffee for night cap.

On Saturday we again met up near the hotel to go to MV Doulos, the traveling bookstore anchored at South Harbor. The selection of books there were a bit disappointing, and I only was able to buy a French grammar book. After that we parted ways and I took Kayeh and company home, as they would be staying at my place for a night. We spent the rest of the day malling, starting our shopping trek from Gateway all the way to Greenbelt 4.

My weekend was not finished after the Beacon people left for Zamboanga, as I met Heather again today. She told me she wanted to explore Intramuros and I offered to accompany her. After coffee at Starbucks we began exploring the Spanish-era ruins of the fort, visiting lots of historical places - the San Agustin Church, the Manila Cathedral, Fort Santiago, the Ayutamiento - and we even had lunch in Binondo! It was already late in the afternoon when I took her home to the YMCA in Makati.

Interesting weekend, indeed.