~ * ROAD TRIP! *~

Congratulations to my college friends Aga & Jovan -- brand new mom & dad to baby boy Keith Xander! :)

Got a text from Aga yesterday that she just gave birth to a bouncing baby boy last Feb 10 at St. Luke's. I texted my other friends She and Rose and asked them when we' re gonna go visit Aga. We decided to visit her after office hours. And so, that started our mini ala-Amazing Race road trip last night...

5:30 PM - 7:10PM: San Pedro, Laguna to Pasay Road, Makati. Since I was on vacation leave yesterday, I came all the way from our house to the central busines district.

7:10PM- 7:30PM: Pasay Rd. to Enterprise Bldg. in Paseo de Roxas. Being a Friday, traffic was (as usual) of epic proportions and taxi cabs were to kill for. Thus, I decided that I would get to Rose's office in The Enterprise way faster travelling by foot than by wheels (which one would manage to get after 10 years of waiting at the curb). So: hello walkway! So basically, I walked from EDSA to Paseo de Roxas via the walkway.

7:30PM-9:45PM: Paseo de Roxas, Makati to St. Luke's Hospital in QC. Around 8ish, we were still pretty much stuck in Makati traffic. We stopped for awhile so that She could switch seats with Rose. So from then on, it was She who drove Rose's car. We avoided EDSA like the plague and traveled through the inner streets of i-don't-know-where. Our objective was to go to Wilson St. in Greenhills wherein, from there, She knows pretty much which way to go to St. Luke's. Suffice it to say that we got lost along the way somewhere in Kalentong. We kept popping up in Shaw Blvd. after driving for a coupla minutes. There we were: She who was half-hungry (coz she snacked a bit when she got to Makati), Rose who was trying real hard to read the map and navigate, and me (at the backseat) who was absolutely famished coz my last meal was an 11am lunch. Good thing Rose had some Pringles left for me to stave off my hunger.

After some time, Rose quit on the yey-girl-power-we-can-read-maps idea. We stopped about 3 to 4 times to ask for directions. (Yes. When us women get lost, we know it is more sensible to ask for directions instead of driving around aimlessly feeling macho and pretending you actually know where you're going. hehe.) There's this cool manong (Manong, you're THA MAN!) who managed to give us detailed and really helpful directions. But still, after some point, we got sorta lost again. teehee.

See, with all that driving around, we came to realize why people in the Amazing Race bite off each other's head when they're navigating. And we came to accept the fact that it's just darn hard to read that stupid unhelpful map! *LOL* We managed to realize some of the benefits of our little comedy of errors:

1. We brushed up our people-skills! Ya see, all that stopping and rolling down of windows to ask strangers for directions sure put our lovely people-skills to test.
2. We exercised our mental faculties! Figuring out where we were by looking for clues like the jeepney sign boards, store signages, green street signs, arches and marquees... deciding whether to go straight, left, right or back... chatting while driving... our senses were on full-gear!
3. Patience is a virtue! Despite finding ourselves lost, we never lost our cool. We were cracking jokes and laughing at our predicament the entire time. Totally fun road trip talaga!
4. We learned how to survive! We were three pretty hungry gals inside the car. We only got to eat dinner at 11PM AFTER we visited Aga in St. Luke's.

9:45PM-10:30PM: St. Luke's Hospital. Finally! Just when Aga started wondering where we were, we arrived at St. Luke's. We watched the digital vid of her baby from the moment it came out into the world (naaaks!) until it was in Aga's arms all cleaned up and umbilical cord-free. Geez. It made me all terrified about giving birth. And whoa, we realized that we are indeed getting old! Yikes! Some of my friends are already married/pregnant/with kids! Can I just let out a little *eeeek!*? hehehe. I wonder IF and WHEN I'll ever get to that stage in my life... hmm.

10:30PM-10:45PM: St. Luke's to Thai in a Box at Tomas Morato/E. Rod (I dunno basta somewhere there!) Ahhh. At last! We peed (excuse me) and ordered our food when we got there. (Abbie: I suddenly missed our TIB days in Makati!!!)

11:45PM-1:AM: QC to Makati. We lingered for about an hour in Makati as we hopped from Dusit to Intercon to make an unscheduled stop. *secret!*

1AM-1:30AM: Makati to San Pedro, Laguna. Because, syempre, my friends love me *hehe* they brought me all the way home even if Rose lived in Las Pinas and She lived in Sucat. Geez, Rose probably got home around2:30AM.


So there--our little city road trip after not having seen each other for more than seven (or more?) months! These college friends of mine aren't that into cam-whoring though so even if I brought my digicam, they did not want me to take any pics! hehe, camera shy!;-)