“WE have arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule,” says the flight attendant.
Yay!
It’s only 7 am, barely slept after packing for the trip and waking up at dawn to catch the early-morning flight, so, I’m craving for great news.
Hopefully, the hotel will have a vacant room at 8 am, the estimated time of arrival there if the traffic is not as bad as usual.
But there’s no vacant room yet. So, switch to the other priority: the hotel’s breakfast buffet for the most delish banana chips and yogurt. Before the clock strikes 10 am for the end of the buffet, and while I’m still busy with the two platefuls of banana chips and two bowls of yogurt that I secured earlier, I now have to ask the wait staff to please get more for me.
After having this same breakfast buffet since birth, er, for several vacations now, I’ve adopted a particular sequence on what to eat when I’m on a low-carb diet: bacon, hot dogs, sausages, chorizo, danggit bulad, scrambled eggs, sunny-side-up eggs, sweet ham, ham and cheese omelet, mozzarella, other cheeses. But then, there’s the puto maya, banana chips, and strawberry or blueberry yogurt. From behavin’ to misbehavin’.
It’s at this buffet where I may hear the people at the next table mentioning names of Cagayan de Oro residents: Lim Ket Kai, etc. They’re asking each other about someone’s first name since they already know her maiden and married names. Should I tell them her first name? Eventually, they’re able to guess her complete name and I want to say, Yes! Finally! And then they mention another name, wondering if he’s related to the newly completed name. We have mutual friends without them knowing that we do. Haha.
Meanwhile, another table people are talking about their students, Davao workshops, the UK, that the best writers are not the best in grant applications, the British Council, some Japanese foundations, scholarship applications, BBC, and paid activists. Are they artists, teachers, event organizers?
But the only topic that piques my curiosity is “paid activists.” Since the barangay and Sangguning Kabataan elections are almost here, and the Pinoy can almost touch the peso bills that may soon land on his empty palms, do paid activists also serve as campaigners for political candidates? Hmmm. Let’s not go there. I’d rather talk about food.
A meal while on vacation is always a recipe for a treat day. Despite the carbs’ side effects, I tend to feast on the bagels here, the croissants there, and the cheesecakes everywhere. Keto cheesecakes, that is. But not the sourdough which can be an acquired taste. I didn’t like it during high-carb days, the more I don’t like it now while on low-carb.
There’s this video where the vlogger was eating adobo rice, okra, and talong with ginamos and adobong kangkong with bagoong, then he had cake for dessert, plus orange juice as a beverage. While watching him, all I could think of was, Oh my gosh, carbs and sugar! Not knowing that a few days later, I would be having many high-carb meals, too. Tsk tsk.
