'Relativity' of travel
LOS ANGELES, California – Travel, in the ultimate sense, is less about places than about people. And for us Filipinos, about family, and friends too.
Abroad, we seek relations ahead of directions. Most often, the former even providing the latter.
Have relatives and friends will travel.
So it was the wife’s sister Agnes Fuentes that moved mountains to let this current journey happen and once it did, took us under her aegis – fetching us from the Philadelphia airport on our arrival and taking us back for our departure, providing us with everything for our stay. Our most enjoyable sojourns to New York, Niagara and Washington D.C. we all owed to her.
In New York an instant call to boyhood friend Tom Batac produced the finest in Italian and French cuisine. And some other most valuable in-puts.
It was in the Big Apple too that the long-sought reunion of the wife and her best friend, Mary Jo Palencia, came to realization.
Our appreciation of the Humanities was greatly enhanced with visits to gardens and the museums – Longwood, Sculpture Ground, Rodin and the Philadelphia Museums – courtesy of Debbie Seva, friend of the wife’s family too.
In Washington, D.C., conflict in schedules constrained contacts with seminary brother Marlon De Ausen to phone conversations. Too bad we were not able to meet as I could have met too Marlon’s elder sister, Edna David, former board member and acting governor who’s vacationing in Maryland.
Most pleasant surprise is meeting some Filipinos with ties back home as I did in Niagara with brothers Jun and John Henson, younger siblings of good friend Rosve, once provincial board member and acting vice governor to Ninang Edna.
Coming to California, no face was more pleasant than the smiling, welcoming countenance of Ed Fuentes, the wife’s cousin, who took us to his Altadena home on board his Lexus SUV.
Bing Fuentes-Flores, another cousin, drove us up to Universal Studios, on a day tour that took us from Jurassic Park to Waterworld and Back to the Future. In between, there was Ah’nold’s Terminator 2 in 3-D, wonderfully funny Shrek in 4-D, the horrifying world of Van Helsing, the amazing animal actors, thrillingly fiery Backdraft, spectacular effects, the rockin’ and rollin’ Blues Brothers, and of course, the studio tour through the sets and effects of just about every movie Universal ever made, notably Spartacus, Psycho, Jaws, the Grinch, Bruce Almighty, and King Kong, in all its versions.
Ed’s wife Jessie it was that took us on a whirlwind tour of central LA and the pueblo-inspired, awe-inspiring Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels where we offered a high-noon Mass, visited the resting place of Gregory Peck at its crypt and met with my uncle Vic Bondoc.
Home to me in LA has always been the Bondoc residence in Carson City where lives Apu Soleng, my maternal grandaunt and last of her generation of the Canlas clan of Sto. Tomas, Pampanga. More than a chance of renewal of family ties, coming to the Bondocs is nothing short of a pilgrimage every time I come to the US.
Aunt Josie Bondoc, nee Bundalian, and Aunt Baby Bondoc took us to Sea World in San Diego where we had our close encounter with Shamu, the gentle, gentle killer whale and all sorts of marine life, not the least of which were the performing seals, dolphins, and walruses. As I write this piece, the wife is on a ladies’ day-out at the mall with Aunt Josie and some other friends.
From the City by the Bay, already nagging me to come are seminary classmate Perry Rodriguez, a sales executive for Mercedes Benz, and Don Robert David, uprooted from San Fernando to be hailed as “master artist” by the City Council of San Francisco for his parol exhibitions.
And yes, I have a date too with once newsman, now ex-man Sotero Chandler Ramas III, organizer par excellence in the US labor movement.
Indeed, have relatives and friends can travel. They are far more dependable – and superiorly enjoyable – than a gold Visa or even a platinum Mastercard. Take it from this traveler. Dirt poor in finances, but enormously rich in relatives and friends, this one has gone to America a number of times and to some other near and far reaches of the globe.
Abroad, we seek relations ahead of directions. Most often, the former even providing the latter.
Have relatives and friends will travel.
So it was the wife’s sister Agnes Fuentes that moved mountains to let this current journey happen and once it did, took us under her aegis – fetching us from the Philadelphia airport on our arrival and taking us back for our departure, providing us with everything for our stay. Our most enjoyable sojourns to New York, Niagara and Washington D.C. we all owed to her.
In New York an instant call to boyhood friend Tom Batac produced the finest in Italian and French cuisine. And some other most valuable in-puts.
It was in the Big Apple too that the long-sought reunion of the wife and her best friend, Mary Jo Palencia, came to realization.
Our appreciation of the Humanities was greatly enhanced with visits to gardens and the museums – Longwood, Sculpture Ground, Rodin and the Philadelphia Museums – courtesy of Debbie Seva, friend of the wife’s family too.
In Washington, D.C., conflict in schedules constrained contacts with seminary brother Marlon De Ausen to phone conversations. Too bad we were not able to meet as I could have met too Marlon’s elder sister, Edna David, former board member and acting governor who’s vacationing in Maryland.
Most pleasant surprise is meeting some Filipinos with ties back home as I did in Niagara with brothers Jun and John Henson, younger siblings of good friend Rosve, once provincial board member and acting vice governor to Ninang Edna.
Coming to California, no face was more pleasant than the smiling, welcoming countenance of Ed Fuentes, the wife’s cousin, who took us to his Altadena home on board his Lexus SUV.
Bing Fuentes-Flores, another cousin, drove us up to Universal Studios, on a day tour that took us from Jurassic Park to Waterworld and Back to the Future. In between, there was Ah’nold’s Terminator 2 in 3-D, wonderfully funny Shrek in 4-D, the horrifying world of Van Helsing, the amazing animal actors, thrillingly fiery Backdraft, spectacular effects, the rockin’ and rollin’ Blues Brothers, and of course, the studio tour through the sets and effects of just about every movie Universal ever made, notably Spartacus, Psycho, Jaws, the Grinch, Bruce Almighty, and King Kong, in all its versions.
Ed’s wife Jessie it was that took us on a whirlwind tour of central LA and the pueblo-inspired, awe-inspiring Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels where we offered a high-noon Mass, visited the resting place of Gregory Peck at its crypt and met with my uncle Vic Bondoc.
Home to me in LA has always been the Bondoc residence in Carson City where lives Apu Soleng, my maternal grandaunt and last of her generation of the Canlas clan of Sto. Tomas, Pampanga. More than a chance of renewal of family ties, coming to the Bondocs is nothing short of a pilgrimage every time I come to the US.
Aunt Josie Bondoc, nee Bundalian, and Aunt Baby Bondoc took us to Sea World in San Diego where we had our close encounter with Shamu, the gentle, gentle killer whale and all sorts of marine life, not the least of which were the performing seals, dolphins, and walruses. As I write this piece, the wife is on a ladies’ day-out at the mall with Aunt Josie and some other friends.
From the City by the Bay, already nagging me to come are seminary classmate Perry Rodriguez, a sales executive for Mercedes Benz, and Don Robert David, uprooted from San Fernando to be hailed as “master artist” by the City Council of San Francisco for his parol exhibitions.
And yes, I have a date too with once newsman, now ex-man Sotero Chandler Ramas III, organizer par excellence in the US labor movement.
Indeed, have relatives and friends can travel. They are far more dependable – and superiorly enjoyable – than a gold Visa or even a platinum Mastercard. Take it from this traveler. Dirt poor in finances, but enormously rich in relatives and friends, this one has gone to America a number of times and to some other near and far reaches of the globe.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 12:11 PM
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