I had a great week at home. Spending time with family and friends. Celebrating a wonderful wedding with all of my best girlfriends and getting that one day at the lake.
I was a little bit more excited and anxious to come back to Manila for work. I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me and was worried about REALLY taking this leap of faith with a move clear across the world for a couple months. One wonderful thing was that I found out that another Fargo Team Member was going to be in Manila for some time. When I got back to the office, I met up with this Team Member named Megan. She was staying at the same hotel, was excited to do touristy things on the weekend, and was going to be in Manila for about the same time. I think some relief came off both of our shoulders knowing that we would not be alone and could take mini trips together on the weekends to different areas.
After a few long days at work, we were given a wonderful invitation to go to the Company Picnic with the a majority of the Manila employees. We went to a resort called La Trinidad Resort in Zambales. It is a Northern Province and was a long 6-7 hour drive.
Once we got there it was like Paradise. The sand was volcanic, the breeze made being outside bearable and the water was picturesque. We quickly changed and took a small boat to an Island Getaway called Potipot. It has no resorts on it, but is a place for people to put up tents, sit in huts, and play in the water. Filipinos do not sit in the sun and actually prefer looking lighter then darker. Needless to say, the Americans were the only ones laying out in the sun. Megan and I walked the entire island, which took about 15 minutes and got to know each other a little better.
When we went back to the main island, Megan and I got to know some of the Manila employees, had our first taste of Filipino Beer called Dark Horse. It cost less than a dollar for a 500 ML bottle! Then it became time for the games. The teams played games like huma pyramid, tug of war, had a sack race, and played a game called magic carpet where they were all very close. It was so fun to watch them and take pictures of the teams. The Filipino's are very friendly, very accommodating, and fascinated by our culture. They are natural observers, which will take some getting used to. One thing that Filipino's LOVE to do is sing karoake/videoke. They started singing around 8pm and didn't stop until about 4am. The songs they sing the most are love ballads and they sing them at the top of their lungs. It was so fascinating and I was so grateful to have experienced the weekend beach trip with the group.
Now it is back to a full week of work and hopefully getting to a normal sleeping, eating, and yoga schedule.
I will post pictures on Facebook because I can't seem to get the photo galleries to work.
Hope you are all having a Wonderful Memorial Weekend!!
