Spontaneous decisions can take us to places, like Laguna

"I want to get out of the city," Manong Ralph said.

"Yeah, I'd like that... breathe some fresh air before summer class begins," Kuya John said, bursting with excitement.

And then my brother's bright amazingly brilliant idea: "Let's go to Laguna, John."

The decision was spontaneous; all it took was for two people to decide that they liked and missed the taste of "provincial air" and of course, a couple of text messages sent to some people—their close high school friends mostly. It was a shame Kuya Arbie, Michael and Ate Jenny weren't able to come. Kuya Arbie had to finish his thesis (let's pray for him); Michael had to take an exam at the Japanese embassy; Ate Jenny was simply unavailable. As for Kuya Imnay, he took a gazillion years (this is becoming a favorite expression) to decide whether he was coming or not; in the end, though, he said yes.

So that morning, Manong and Kuya John, both gifted with the uncanny ability to cook food without burning it, decided to prepare curry and adobo for our "trip". And the food, we would say later, actually tasted great. With our meals ready, our bags packed, and our money properly accounted for (thanks to Kuya Imay who can add and subtract without using a scientific calculator), we began commuting all the way to Los Baños at 4:30 in the afternoon.

I had no idea where we were going. Thankfully Manong and Kuya John knew some people there. We were advised to tell the bus driver that we were on our way to "Bayan, sa Los Baños." If we did that there was no way we could get lost. When we were getting near, the bus conductor told us, "Malapit na." The bus stopped, and we hopped out of it. It was about 8 pm.

I said, "Where are we? This is the wilderness." All we could see was the bend, plus a couple of houses whose residents were obviously asleep—at eight o'clock!

We hailed a tricylcle, asked where Lake View was, and when we got there, the guard told us, “Naku, walang tubig ang pool.” So we had to find some place else. It was fun—getting lost and all that, just for the fun of swimming at night. We were directed to find Paciano Rizal’s ancestral home because that was were City of Springs was. We found it and didn’t quite like the place, so we decided to go to Splash Mountain instead.

We were surprised to still see a lot of people there—at night, swimming with their families and friends. Holy Week was over, so we expected fewer people in resorts. We were mistaken, though. Anyway, we checked in, then found a quiet spot beside the pool. It took us a while to process everything: the pool was in front of us, we were supposed to jump in there, but somehow, we were just too tired. So we waited for our body processes to stabilize before we immersed ourselves. My, the water was boiling so hot you could poach eggs in there. Literally. But hot water is supposed to open the skin’s pores, so we didn’t really mind.

We had fun, taking lots of pictures (which I’ll be posting soon), eating to our heart’s delight. At about 3 in the early morning, we said, “Uwi na tayo.”

So we packed everything up, hailed a bus, and slept all the way to QC. We were all dead-asleep when we got back to the apartment, and we didn’t wake up until 9 am. When we eventually snapped out of Dreamland, we were all so amazed at what we did last night.

When Ate Uly asked us where we were last night, we said, “Pumunta kami sa Laguna, tapos bumalik din agad.”

Dear readers, you should try it sometimes. This is the life.