My 14-hour TRIP

Being away from your family for a couple of days is... well, tolerable.
Being away from them for weeks?
It sucks!

I was missing Ika so badly that a day after the exams, I urged Erbe to take the day trip.
All the good buses had left so we had to settle with Raymond Bus.
Erbe said it's air conditioned, so it'll do.

I grumbled but I was SERIOUSLY having second thoughts.
Raymond bus? Bah!

I shouldn't have give in.
I knew I should not have.
We left at 12 pm.
But, 3 hours after, at Tiaong, Quezon ---

BAAAAAAM!

I banged my head on the chair in front of me.
We hit a truck that hit another bus in front of us.

What happened?
The freakin' driver was busy eating lanzones. He didn't noticed that the bus ahead of us had stopped. He was busy though blaming the other bus driver.

Later on, we got stuck in that small place, watching Van Damme shoot everyone in the bus' dvd while waiting for another bus to pick us up. Oh yeah, that one was just about to leave Manila. Imagine?!

So I twiddled my thumb until even Van Damme and his muscles got interesting.
God forbid!
I began to even worry that the other bus would come before I finished the Van Damme flick.

Finally, our stupid bus driver thought of driving back to Manila to meet the other Raymond bus.
So, there I found myself watching Van Damme as we rode back to Manila, which if you remember I was very much eager to leave. By that time, it was already about 7 in the evening.

Finally, the bus stopped and the bus driver told us to get off and to wait along the road to jump on the rescue bus. We had a lot of freakin' baggage that I had to fight off the crowd alone to get in the other stupid, stupid bus while Erbe transfers our baggages. Seriously!

And yes, there's no more chivalry today. All the men got in first.
While we, the women, had to squeeze against each other trying to get a seat.
The men reserved seats for the women they were already eying. Stupid.
The poor married couple with their eight month baby had to stay behind.
Because the Raymond bus that was supposed to rescue us took its own passengers!

Erbe and I got stuck in the cramped back with an old geezer hitting on an 18-year-old.

And we arrived at Naga only at 2 o'clock in the morning.
14 hours after we left Manila.