Nevergirl's

In Germany, there was a lot of walking. I spent at least four hours a day just walking from Point A to B in the ridiculous cold just because it made no sense to pay cab money. Conversion rates made me feel violated. Every time I had to hand over Euros, I did math in my head. What? PhP 900 for a box of rice with a few strips of beef and vegetables tossed in? PhP 120 for a bottle of water? Php 450 for a cup of hot chocolate? Eventually, I had to strong-arm myself to stop these little mental calculations, if only because my heart could not take any more pain.

Make no mistake: the walking was terrible. It was the coldest winter in recent memory, locals say, and even now, I remember the unrelenting cold. I piled on at least three layers of socks on top of insulating foot pads every day, and yet, I trudge about with feet feeling like they’ve been iced, fingers half dead.

But oh the beauty that surrounded me! Even in winter, with most things around me either dead or in slumber, Germany was beautiful. I remember staying awake throughout the six-hour train ride from Cologne to Hamburg because outside my window, everything looked postcard-perfect.

But oh the cold! Even now, I remember how my gloves chafed my hands, how my fingers felt like they’d fall off. I remember how dry my face felt and how, each time my scarf rubbed against my cheeks, they’d end up scratched and reddened. Sometimes, the cold made me want to stop mid-walk, curl up in the snow, and go to sleep. I heard later on this was how the recklessly young and hopelessly old  died. They go to sleep in the snow, and never wake up.

Surprisingly, though the cold reddened my cheeks and blistered my skin, it never reached my bones. The beauty around me kept me quite toasty, I guess. Looking back, it kept me so warm I could have lit whole towns with the heat.

I remember standing in front of the Kölner Dom, tongue-tied by its grandeur and feeling like the luckiest girl in the world to be standing in front of something so magnificently gothic and beautiful. At that moment, my happiness could have powered rockets straight to the moon.

Guess who’s back from Guimaras? With truckloads of stories to tell?

We walked up and down streets, explored ruins, ate lechon pastry, slept with geckos, swam in the afternoon, biked in the sunset, danced in the bonfire, told wicked stories, talked nonstop, laughed until we hurt, and took endless photos of the sand, sky, sea, and each other. On the third day, we greeted our last morning in Guimaras bleary-eyed but happy and ready to fly back to the homes we had left behind.

I promise to blog about the Cebu-Iloilo-Guimaras adventure but I’m crazy-busy at the moment so for now, let me leave you with this beautiful, beautiful photo by Aileen Siroy. That girl with the blue headband is Tin, and she knows a wild and secret place where grace and laughter grow on trees.

After spending the whole morning and half the afternoon out, this was how we looked while we waited for our ride.

We were so exhausted it escapes me now how we managed to stay awake til we got home. But wait! Aren’t you the slightest bit curious what we did to look this tired?

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Yep, I had way too much time and more – so I dragged the hub to David’s Salon early so we could get a manicure and pedicure. I got bored waiting for my nails to dry so I decided to mess with my hair again. I wanted to do something outlandish; almost asked them to dye my hair violet, truth be told. But the hub was with me and he doesn’t tolerate mad experimentation (not on my hair, anyway) so I had to settle for a haircut, instead of a full hairjob – layers, bangs, violet hue, and all.

Friends, meet my new do. It’s ugly and it reminds me of the bowl cut my mom used to give me back in kindergarten, and no, she didn’t use utility knives at MartorUSA.com. But I refuse to stress over my tresses. It’s just hair – it will grow back. Then, too, I’ve done worse things to my hair so having it cropped this short isn’t really a tragedy of Bush-presidency proportions. And hey, I made Alex laugh with my new do. She thinks it makes me look like a homo. How many haircuts can do that? So yeah, this is me grinning over a botched cut.

Agyness Deyn, you are so paying for my therapy. That, or at least a meditation chair. I have learned my lesson. Each time I see you rockin’ your short do, I will tell myself you’ve been heavily airbrushed because it’s simply not possible for a human being to have her hair cut that short and look that hawt.