Friday, June 16, 2006

a trip to the Philippine Consulate

Friday at last! Yey! Couldn’t be more grateful for the weekend.

I had to take the morning off today so that I could go to the Philippines Consulate and get my passport renewed. JR and Miguel came with me and I practically had to drag them out of bed just so we could leave the house early. I’m just as guilty… I had to force myself up this morning at 7:15 am (yes, I set my alarm to ring at 7 am but I snoozed it…LOL) I slept late last night since I went out with jerry yesterday and we ended up talking till late at Pickle Barrel. We completely lost track of time and couldn’t believe it when we looked at our watches and it was already 10:30 pm! After dinner, we made our way to the subway opting to take a walk along Yonge Street (since it was so nice outside) instead of passing through Eaton Centre. I was exhausted when I got home but I didn’t sleep until around 1 am. Jerry went straight to bed when he got home but called to say goodnight first. I love spending time with him.

I forgot to mention we had been walking around earlier and I happened to be wearing heels. My feet started to hurt really bad and I was forced to buy a pair of low sandals to replace them. I thought I’d sneak it in here. LOL

It was so warm today that I decided to wear capris to work. One thing that I do love about work is that we get to wear whatever we want. We only dress up when we have clients coming over but most of the time we dress casually. JR, Miguel and I got lost trying to find the Philippine Consulate. We had the address but the way the buildings were numbered just did not make sense. It wasn’t very intuitive. We saw building number 160 and right beside it building number 164. On the opposite side of the road was building number 117 (or something like it). Well, where the hell is 161? I had to call their office to find out and it turns out you had to walk further East until you get to the intersection. Yup, makes perfect sense…right!!

We got three application forms (one for each of us – which I ended filling up for all three of us since we kept messing it up and asking for new ones. In the end, we had a total of 5 forms, 2 of which we had to throw out). Then we find out we couldn’t use our debit cards because they only accept cash, money order or cheques! Yup, very useful information… might have been helpful if mentioned right from the beginning! JR and I ended up looking for an ATM machine to get cash while Miguel waited. Thankfully there was a convenience store close by that had an ATM machine so we didn’t have to go very far. We paid and were told we had to come back to claim it. Very typical. Nakakainis pa naman yung girl sa counter… hello?! Customer service! Ring a bell?? I found it funny when I overheard a few people in line before me saying, “Ano ba naman yan, pilipinas na pilipinas talaga… pati ba naman dito?!” I couldn’t help but laugh… I couldn’t blame them, I mean everywhere you go here, it is pretty organized and convenient to do things and get everything done quickly. It guess it is expected somehow the Philippine Consulate would adopt the same methodology. I guess not then.

It was a relief though to be there and be around Filipinos and everyone’s speaking Tagalog. It gives you that same familiar feeling and you can pretend you’re in the Philippines. I know, I keep repeating sentiments about the Philippines and just everything about home. Proves how much I miss it.

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