Traveluoges: Washington D.C. (Day 1)

 (Photos at http://aneshka.multiply.com/photos/album/16, I was supposed to post photos here but I can’t extract the photos from multiply, viewed the source code and the link of the photos are per session, anybody out there knows how to hack it?)

 This is 3 weeks delayed. Last holy week, Yiek and I went to Washington D.C. for their so-called Cherry Blossoms Festival. It was a spur-of-a-moment decision, I wasn’t planning on taking a vacation leave but then I was the only one who have Friday as a working day (Holidays are rare in my company as we follow banking days) so I took a day off to have a long weekend. We were suppose to go with Yiek’s officemates on some tour package but we were too late in booking so we opted to just go there by ourselves. We figured that we’d prefer going on our own than some rush iterinary.

I asked for some tips from Brenditz on how to blind bid for a hotel at priceline and I won the bid for $78 (inc. tax) not bad for a 3 star hotel that is in Washington and its their peakest season at that! I’m one very satisfied customer (more on that later) and  I would definitely book all my hotels from their website from now on.

We woke up at an ungodly hour, 5:30-6:00 am, oh I know its not that early but we are used to waking up at 8:00 am, even on working days. All trace of sleepiness were washed away due to our excitement. It’s going to be our first ever road trip and with no definite iterinary at that! All I had were some listing of the tourist spots and our trusty GPS navigator. We bought breakfast meals from dunkin donuts and we were on our way.

I was amazed that there were service stations to stop when your thirsty, hungry or feel the need to wiwi. Their service stations were so unlike the ones back home, carenderia-like style, serving hotdog and lucky me instant noodles, theirs was like a mini food court with shops such as starbucks, cinnabon, sbarro shops and of course a gas station.
 
Do you how much money we wasted paying toll fees? We paid $15 bucks! We paid $3 just to pass some freakin’ bridge. Tsk! Finally we arrived at 10:30 am and my gulay, traffic. The roads are soo confusing and their drivers were at par with the drivers back home. Street names are confusing i.e. they have 1st Street NE and another 1st NW, it would have been better if the numbering were in order but its 1st street, bayani street, 2nd street, and there are so many roundabouts that even with the GPS we got lost.Yiek was grumbling all the time. It took us an hour to find a decent parking space. We resorted to paid parking because there’s just no vacant street parking and I was desperate I need to spill out my fluids. I hesitantly paid $18 for valet parking, there’s just no other way.

It was a cold day and I forgot to bring my coat. I was shivering the whole day! Tsk! Tsk! Washington is all about walking, walking and walking. Never did I walk that much in my entire life! Ok, I’m exaggerating but I must have walked 10 miles!

Washington is all about picturesque infrastructures and museums, the city is clean too! We hopped from one place to another, looking for a place to eat, I thought that there were going to be restos outside the musuem, boy Was I wrong, it took us 2 hours to find a any restaurant but since we were at the NAtional mall there’s just no restos, so we decided to go back to the Musuem of Natural History to eat with the dinasaours. Food is expensive in Washington, heck everything is expensive in Washington. Gas is 20 cents/gallon higher, and my jaw almost drop when I paid our food bill, $5 for one slice of pizza, $4 for a small mac & cheese and $8 for chicken strips.

We met Bio and Ernie on the Lincoln Memorial park. Being movie buffs, I immediately related the Lincoln statue to “Planet of Apes” while Yiek related the Reflecting Pool to Forrest Gump.
We then proceeded to the much-talked cherry blossoms, which was a big dissapointment,there were not that many blossoms because of the sudden cold front. Tsk! Bad timing. I saw one at some botanical park here, in full bloom and its beautiful, will come back there tomorrow to take pictures of the lonesome tree.

WE then went to the popular WHITE House. Bahay lang pala eh. para lang mansion mas nakakita pa ako na mas malaki na bahay dito, dami nga lang security cameras.

My feet were hurting by this time and we were again hungry from all the walking, so we ate at some Vietnamese resto, ordered grilled pork belly and some soup. sarap! parang liempo sa pinas, mahal nga lang, we spent $20 each for the said meal.

When we checked in at our hotel, we were told that we were overbooked and they would transfer us at their sister hotel. Fine! So we got directions and circled the roudabout uhmm 5 times, because we couldn’t locate the hotel. Kaya pala, under renovation, di obvious ang name nya ano ba. Good thing, libre na ang parking pag gabi and weekend kundi magra-rally ako! The hotel was nice and very spacious. Didn’t like the bed that much though, it was too firm but nonetheless we were satisfied with what we got, a fully equipped kitchen, tv and spacious bathroom.

..next Travelogues: Washington D.C. Day 2

P.S.

You know why I’m so happy with the hotel we booked? They returned our money and we almost got the hotel free. Almost because I lost the confirmation/charge page and their tax charge was lower than what priceline charged us. We got a 3-star hotel for $8, woohoo! We joked that we’ll definitely check-in late again so we’ll be charge for free. harhar!
 

Help the youth today

Youth today have bad image models, just look at Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton, attention grabbers and cocaine-junkies. I’m almost afraid to raise our child in this modern age, knowing how easy it is to get drugs and no matter how much I protect them, there will always be hawkers out there willing to pounce. If you know someone who is addicted to drugs please tell them about this drug rehab. Their program does not use drugs to treat drug addiction, rather they use vitamins, minerals, healthy diet, exercise and sauna detox to aid in removing toxins and eliminate cravings.

When will the time come?

I’ve always thought that if we just hump on the right time then it would be easy to make little claires and little yieks brad pitts. If we let all those swimmers swim across some pinkish moist hole then it would suddenly find the lonesome pretty egg, an egg who have put on some make up and stilettos to impress the passing swimmers.

Well, two months of trying has rendered ZERO results, I know it will come if its destined to be. I change my mind every so often, I’m ready, I’m not ready, I’m ready, I’m not ready, you get my drift. Well, as of this writing, I’m ready ask me tonight and I’ll answer differently.

I only get one chance a month, combined with the age factor and stress, I’m getting 20-30% chance of getting an egg fertilized. This month’s menstrual cycle was the weirdest one that I’ve had so far, I usually have light bleeding every middle of cycle (which means that an egg is prettying itself up) but for this cycle I had continuous very very light bleeding for 4 days and stomach cramps akin to dysmenorrhia (a week before ETP *estimated time of period*) which I’ve never experienced in my entire life , so I was 60% sure that I was on my way to babyland. Too excited, I pee-peed on some stick only for it to turn negative. Sigh! I was actually disappointed.

It will come, in God’s time, its only the waiting that’s killing me along with fears of maybe there is something wrong inside of me (why the bleeding and cramps?) and my mother sides history of ovarian problems i.e. cyst and myoma, so maybe I have one too. NO, don’t tell me to go to a doctor, I don’t have the nerve to do so yet. I don’t think I can just lie there while some doctor is examining my you-know-what.

For the mean time, I’ll just tell my egg to not be too picky, gusto ata ni eggnut (my nickname na ako haha!) ng macho at gwapo na swimmer. Aasa ka pa ba eggnut, tingnan mo naman si daddy kapayat-payat and di naman gwapo.  Kaya naman huwag ka nang mag inarte please lang, at sana eggnut and piliin mo is yung “Y” ha, para naman pair XY at sana naman hindi dalawang swimmer ang tatangapin mo, di kaya ni Mommy nang dalawa. Isa lang ha.

Coming Prepared

Last year, I took the Microsoft .NET Certification, it was free from my company and on top of that, I get another 3k increase. It took me 3 months to review the exam, as every time I open my review materials, my eyes would suddenly shut off (technical books are natural inducer of sleep LOLZ). 3 weeks before the dreaded exam, I was panicking because I wasn’t even halfway so I bid holy week vacation  goodbye and seriously exhausted my brains out (poor Yiek, he was sleeping all the time because I was too busy reviewing).

Come examination day,  I was surprised that the questions were easy and it seems I came prepared because I got a 98/100. Wow! 

Small steps

Success!!! I pestered Yiek to let me drive alone going to the laundry while he’s playing billiards.

Park Brake off check.

Headlights on check.

While reversing the car… check front mirror, turn head.

Going outside the street, check oncoming cars, then go.

Good! There’s not much people doing parallel parking, park.

Repeat process going home. My parking was impeccable, straight wheels and straight car.

I’m patting myself on the back, whew! I hope I can drive the dreaded route 80 (super highway) soon. Feels great!

Say no to drugs

Have you heard the news? Some Korean student killed 33 students in random. Sick. I tell you there are a lot of sick people in this world, more-so here.

I’d be bold to say that its because of the way they were brought up, I’ve seen a lot of spoiled kids here. Do you know spanking a child is prohibited? Even children would threaten his parents “If you’ll lay a hand on me, I’ll report you to child services”. I grew up being lightly spanked because I was a bad girl and I grew up alright, not spoiled and very respectful to my elders. I hope I will know how to raise my children, respectful to their elders.

Kids nowadays resort to drugs and cigarettes. Just look at kid’s idol right now i.e. Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, all of these are doing drugs and the media isn’t helping either, its making a sensation right now of Britney’s adolescent drug treatment. Someone has to make this world right and I’m doing so by saying NO to drugs, NO to anything harmful to my health.

Going home is hard to do

I’m gritting my teeth, you know how expensive it is to buy roundtrip tickets to the Philippines nowadays? The cheapest that I can find is 1450++ that is what? 68150 pesos ($1=47). Fact: Europe fares are 40% or more cheaper than roundtrip fares to the Philippines. 1 rt to the Philippines = 2 rt to europe, ’tis the truth.

Its just money right? I wanted Yiek to come home this June as it will be the wedding of his one and only sister. There are just moments that even money can’t buy. Although my heart really aches for spending that much (internationl airfare + domestic airfare + pasalubong (will also cost big time) + his pocket money), moments like that, only happens once in a lifetime, Money will always be available. Heck! if it were my sister I would definitely pack my bags and rush to the nearest airport, unya ako siya galgalon nganong ning sugot ang lalaki nga minyo-an siya nga ka maldita niya haha!

Hay, masakit lang talaga, ilang shoes na yun, ilang damit, ilang bags, papano nang Europe plans namin. Pera lang yan Claire, huwang magmakasarili, isipin mo naman ang “moments”, eka nga sa mastercard PRICELESS, mababawi mo rin yan, isak-sak mo dyan sa kukuti mo. ok!

P.S.

hay naku, Ri! kung marami lang sana akong pera. uuwi din ako sa wedding mo. Sayang ako lang ang wala dun huhuhuhu kainis talaga!!! Georgia, next year ka na ha Dec. 2008, hintayin mong may pera na ako. kaya nga nagpa-paid blogging ako eh, para may pamasahe ako papuntang pinas charing! 1400 na lang na paid blogging kulang ko pwede na akong makauwi *as if!*.

Detoxing

Nowadays, we don’t get to eat healthy foods that much anymore. With the proliferation of Burger Joints, Potato Chips and other ready-to-cook food, its no wonder that the average lifespan has lowered. I, for one am a fast-food junkie, with my busy schedule, I don’t have time to plan my meals to be healthier. Fast-food became a quick fix to appease hunger pangs.

I know, I need to eat healthier and I need to detoxify all the chemicals/preservatives that I’ve ingested. I’m planning to try Dual Action Cleanse, it promises to clean my organs, making it toxin free. I hope to lessen bloating therefore, making my stomach lighter *hopefully*.

Promise to thy self

1. Get serious with money money online by blogging, at least one post a day. So, if you see some what-the-hell-is-she-posting-about post, I am making some money from that, you can either just scan the post for interesting stuff or just regard it as, she-is-crazy post. Motto: make more money so you can buy more shoes and clothes *mwehehe*.

 2. One coffee a week. I am getting there, promise.

Just two muna, para ma achieve ko naman

Eyesight woes

I think I’m going to be blind years from now. Do you know how quickly my grade went up in a span of 2 years? Last 2005, my grade was just 125 on both eyes. I had an eyeglass but it became too cumbersome to wear, it gets foggy when there is a sudden change of temperature and since I don’t really have that great of a nose, my glasses would keep falling and if I need to find something on the floor, my glasses gets in the way, so I discarded my glasses like a piece of garbage. After a year, I had an eye check up again and my grade shoot up to 175, still I would rarely use my glasses. In a span of 6 months my grade became 225. I had no choice, I had to wear something to correct my vision. So, I opted to wear focus dailies contact lens. The inconvenience of glasses solved. I initially had a hard time putting on the contacts, I’d spend 10 minutes per eye! The contact lens were very comfortable and I don’t even feel that there’s some UFOs (unidentified floating object) on my eyes. I don’t even need to put any eyedrops, so I feel like I have a brand new set of eyes.

P.S.

My grade went up to 325, I am now officially blind without contact lens  *sniff sniff*.