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| Look, Ma, I'm in Schiphol. |
I'm here. In The Netherlands. Un-fucking-believable. Groggy from 17± hours of flying (and just the whole surreal run-up to this, you know), I'm mentally pinching, nay, slapping myself -- inhaling and exhaling: this is real, this is not a dream, this is real, this is not a dream, this is real, this is not a dream. I'm being dramatic, yes -- I'm after all not a kid anymore (and I'm a believer of 'emo' expiration dates) -- but only because I'm putting this down in writing. I'm cool, I was cool about it, in real life, really, I was. (This being the first post of my blog spin-off, let it be said that this is basically this online journal's theme: my reflections here, are real sure, but they do not necessarily reflect my actions in real life. For one, I don't talk this much -- out loud -- out there, you get the drift...)
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| With Ate Toni -- first selfie in The Netherlands! (Smiling, never
mind that I was actually in deep shit. Details on next posts...) |
So anyway, I flew with fellow UMD/NFP scholar, Ate Toni, as I had my airline changed as she did from TurkishAir to KLM. Though, we didn't check-in together, we were actually seated only a few rows apart, so it was cool. Oh, and I heard from her that we were traveling with the NDF 'consultants' who's prepping for the second round of the PH-NDF peace talks in Oslo on October 9. Naturally, in-flight, I was looking out for them. And I thought I recognized one of them from TV or somewhere (
Mr. Alan Jazmines! as per Google) and I wanted to like, I don't know, high-five him or something. I know I'm center-left and do not agree with their 'ways' but I totally respect them. Finally, after immigration check, I saw the bigger NDF delegation and wanted to take pictures with them but I was too shy. Oh, and at the baggage carousel, another 'celebrity' was there - Mr. Chito Gascon, Chair of the Commission of Human Rights (CHR).
But I digress. We were told to assemble at this red-and-white-checkered box, a meeting point/ marker of sorts, and there we met fellow UMDers, mostly from Africa. While we were previously told that we'd be taking the train to Rotterdam and the university, a bus was actually waiting to take us to Rotterdam. Which was cool because the train would've been less comfortable considering the luggage that we actually had to lug around. And so another hour or so of traveling is not all that bad...
Beside, I'm here. I've arrived.
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| Windmills - yes, I'm in Holland. |
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| And did I mention that we were greeted with these two beauties? |
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| And that's our stop - the uni! |
