>>photos taken by mara ticzon, me<<

so last sunday…

manila > abu dhabi > jfk airport, ny > blue van > my aunt’s place

the plane ride (etihad airlines) was FUN. i got a surprise, collated a whole new playlist, ate plane food which is DAH BEST, watched ‘alice in wonderland’ again in between taking care of this sweet little abu dhabi-an kid next to me. unbelievably, i fell asleep at the landing point. anyhow, i made it through the airport + eventually made it to my tita’s (that’s aunt in tagalog) apartment, the first face that greeted me was my sister’s – Toni ♥ (Hah! i was so relieved i actually got the right building + apartment.) after we hugged + lost mouth-and-ear coordination telling each other this was ‘Too Surreal,’ (i hadn’t seen her in 2 years – i hear the workload at risd is Intense) we called home base to let them know i was OK. it was an Epic night, Toe took me to this 24/7 diner, we ordered, + had several convos about all the details regarding the philippines, home, extended peeps, risd, ny, webster hall + certain Awesome people…each convo burning down to ‘I can’t believe’s‘ + ‘this is so surreal’s‘ to the point of toni losing her voice..we left around 1.30 am + slept at 2.30 am…and i woke up to another  ‘this is so surreal.’

xxx