Returning to Antique, onward to Cebu

Before really setting out on our big travelling adventure, we returned one last time to San Jose, Antique - Lora's old PC site. San Jose is the capital of Antique and about 2.5 hours west of Iloilo City, where we had been working. We kept Lora's nipa hut during our 2 month job because Lora couldn't part with it yet and we thought it would be nice to get away from the big city life every once in a while. We spent one week in San Jose packing, studying for the GRE and saying goodbye. Actually there wasn't much packing to be done, Lora only had to go through her boxes and tins and strategically place the items into disheveled mounds which would be picked through by her neighbors after she left. KC was amazing, as usual and didn't complain, not even once! even though this was his second stint in the "I'm leaving forever" PC phase. After lots of packing and visiting with friends, some videoke and crying, we set off on the overnight boat to Cebu.

After so much reminiscing, we decided to post the album of "KC's highlights in the Philippines with Lora in the background."

Our purpose in Cebu was to take the GRE test because we both feel that in the near future (hopefully within the next 5 years, since that's how long the GRE is good for), we would like to return to school to get our master's degree. Since we had so much time on our hands during our teaching job, we had plenty of time to study. As the date neared, our heads filled with visions of a GRE gone awry with nightmares of brownouts and sticky keys but, the test was surprisingly uneventful and we both came away with scores higher than expected.

In Cebu, we found the cheapest meals in the world! At a little "turo-turo" (point-point) near our pension both KC and Lora managed to eat for 25 pisos total!! For those of you not accustomed to the conversion rate that is $0.50 for 2 people! The best thing about the meals were that they were completely vegetarian, something that is practically unheard of in restaurants.

The original plan was to head to Cebu the day before the test, take the test then leave on the overnight boat to Mindanao. This plan would have worked, if it were not for the phone call from the Post Service Unit at PC Lora received a few days before leaving SJ who informed her that there were some medical issues that needed to be resolved and PC will only pay for it for the next 3 months or she's outta luck. You gotta love bureaucracy when it takes 3 months to tell you that the cup you peed in shows signs that you MAY be sick, but you'll need further testing for confirmation. So, we spent an extra night and loads of extra money before really setting out on our grand adventure.