Nakaraan.

Hindi ko malaman pero parang sakit ko nang mag-stalk ng facebook, twitter, tumblr at blogspot ng taong mahal ko. Hindi naman ako particular na may hinahanap pero parang gusto ko lang malaman kung ano ang buhay niya noon, nung hindi pa nya ko kilala at wala pa ko sa mundong iniikutan niya,

Pero napagtanto ko, sa paggawa ko nun, parang hinuhukay ko na pala ang sarili kong libingan. Bakit? Dahil hindi ko maiwasan na mapadaan, at mamalagi sa mga post o kaya litrato ng mga dati niyang nagustuhan. Kahit na dati pa yun, masakit din pala noh? Grabe! Parang kinukurot yung puso ko sa mga nababasa ko. Natutuwa at napapangiti pa nga ako nung una, dahil sabi ko sa sarili ko,  "napakacorny" naman ng taong ito.

Pero masokista nga siguro akong tunay, at talagang nagbasa pa ko ng nang nagbasa hanggang sa hindi ko na kaya. Yung tipong maiiiyak na ko at halos wala na akong lakas para pindutin pa yung Exit button sa dulong kanan ng monitor ko. Ganun nga siya kasakit.


Kung tutuusin, hindi ko na dapat yun iniisip hindi ba? Dahil ako na yung mahal nya ngayon at malaki ang bragging rights ko dahil ako ang una niyang naging girlfriend.. Pero, kailangan ko bang ipagmayabang yun? Na ako ang una? Wala akong pakialam sa kung sino ang nauna, ang mahalaga para sa akin ay kung sino ang huli...


Maraming beses man umiyak dahil sa'yo,
Ikaw parin naman ang hina-hanap ko. 
Kahit sa akin ay madaling mainis at magalit,
Pag naman ako'y nilambing, talagang sulit!

Hindi ka man madalas sweet sa akin,
Ok lang, alam ko namang di na yan kayang baguhin.
Basta ang alam ko, mahal natin ang isa't isa.
Marahil yun lamang ay sapat na. 

Hindi naman ako magaling gumawa ng tula,
Pero dahil sayo, kamay ko'y naging parang pluma.
Salamat sa pagmamahal at pag-aalaga,
Maging sa mga luha at saya. 

Hindi ka man ang una kong minahal,
Tandaan mo, ikaw naman ang magiging pinakamatagal.
Salamat sinta, ako'y mahal mo,
Wag kang mag-alala, ganyan din ako sa'yo. 

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Kape.

"We started over coffee." Sabi nga sa kanta. Parang nakarelate ako. Dun din tayo nagsimula diba? Sa pa-kape kape. Tanda ko pa noon, sa kape lang na libre sa pantry ng opisina ang afford nating inumin. Sabay lang magtitimpla, tapos kwentuhan habang hinahalo ang kape, creamer at asukal. Pagkatapos nun, punta na sa kanya-kanyang area. Pero naglaon, naging Starbucks na! Hindi naman talaga ako ang dapat na ilibre mo ng Starbucks ng araw na yun e. Pero siguro dahil talent ko ang pagpapalibre, napilit kitang ilibre ako. 

Tanda ko pa ung una nating Starbucks e. Take-out lang kasi nahihiya pa tayo sa isa't-isa. Pero di naglaon, ang "to go" naging "for here". Nagkwentuhan na tayo na kung ano-ano. Lumalabas na tayo ng starbucks na walang dalang cup dahil naubos na natin sa loob. Inaabot pa tayo ng lagpas isang oras sa pagkukwentuhan. Ang nakakatawa dito, wala namang kwenta yung mga pinagkukwentuhan natin. Inuubos nating dalawa yung inorder natin, tanda mo? Para pagbalik natin ng opisina, hindi tayo tuksuhin. Ang saya lang balikan, kasi lahat ata ng bisita natin sa Starbucks, sagot mo. Kaya msarap balikan, kasi wala akong gastos. Biro lang, ikaw naman! Eh diba alam mo naman ang motto natin dati, sagot mo ang kape, sagot ang kwento. Eh kasi hindi ka madaldal. Tahimik ka lang. Di ko nga alam kung bakit napagtyagaan mo kong pakinggan sa mga walang kwenta kong kwento. .Pero salamat sa kape ha! at salamat sa kwentuhan. 

Maraming salamat sa ilang Dark Mocha ng Starbucks, naging malalim ang samahan natin. Kape pag nanalo sa pustahan. Kape pag malungkot ako at gusto mo akong pangitiin. Kape pag puyat. Kape pag gusto lang makapgsolo at magusap. Kape pag masama ang pakiramdam ko. Tanda mo non, masama pakiramdam ko, tapos bigla mong sinabi. "Tara libre kita coffee" biglaang nagliwanag ang mundo ko at nakarinig ako ng halleluja! Sa halos lahat ng bagay, kasama nating dalawa ang kape. Di naglaon, dumami narin ang coffee brands na tinry natin. Dati Starbucks lang, ngayon, Figaro at Seattles Best kasama na sa listahan. 

Kung tutuusin, marami kayong similarities ng kape e. Una, dati ayoko sa kape pero di naglaon tila naging paborito ko. Di ko sinasabing ayaw ko sayo dati, sabihin na nating, di kita gusto dati, ngayon, gusto na kita. Di lang gusto, kundi mahal. Pangalawa, pareho kayong nagpapabilis ng tibok ng puso ko at pangatlo, para kang kape, comes in many flavors and variety of sweetness and bitterness. Pero higit sa lahat, para kang kape, hinding hindi ko pagsasawaan. 

Salamat sa mga kapeng pinagsaluhan. Sa mga kwentuhan at tawanang naganap na mga kape lang ng starbucks ang tanging saksi. Salamat at ikaw ang nagiging pangunahing kape ko sa araw-araw. Ginigising mo ako ng mainit mong yakap at matamis mong halik. 

 

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To everybody who has loved and lost.

Anyone who has gone through the agony of losing someone she loves so much and still wishes against all odds to have that love back again. But sometimes, a love lost is a love gone forever. No amount of hope can bring back to life a relationship that just died a natural death. Set yourself free, let your heart spread its wings and fly. Remember, it may rain for forty days and forty nights but still, it will not rain forever. One day, the pouring will stop and there will be plenty of branches where you can find rest. One of these is where you will build your nest and start all over again. It’s never too late.

You may not find love and lose it but. When love dies, you never die with it. You cannot be a redeemer all of your life. The best way to weigh a relationship is through the test of fire. You cannot be a sober with your mistake forever. We all fall and make wrong decisions but our blunders are not meant to bury us deep in misery but to teach us the valued lessons of life. Loving is always a learning process. With love, we learn how to care and sacrifice. We learn to share and reach out. We learn to be unselfish and give more than we can. Then, when everything doesn’t end well, we learn how it feels like to fall and get hurt.

But learning doesn’t have to end there. After our fall, we strive to get back on our feet and move on. This is where we learn that life doesn’t end where our heartaches begin. There’s no future for a relationship of lies and selfishness. It’s true, there is life in love. But, there can still be life even after losing love, if you leave the past behind and let your heart heal and give you the chance to find yourself again.

The success of a relationship lies not only in the beauty of its beginning but its consistency. Make a choice not on impulse but on decisions based on a healthy balance of mind and heart. Let us always remember that happiness is not a matter of destiny but a matter of choice. There comes a time in our lives when we chance upon someone so nice and beautiful and we just find ourselves getting so intensely attracted to that person. This feeling soon becomes a part of our everyday lives and eventually consumes our thoughts and actions. The sad part of it is when we begin to realize that this person feels nothing more for us than friendship. We start our desperate attempt to get noticed and be closer but n the end, our efforts are still unrewarded and we end up being sorry for ourselves. You don’t have to forget someone you love, what you need to learn is how to accept the verdict of reality without being bitter of sorry for yourself. You would be better of giving that dedication and love to someone more deserving.

Don’t let your heart run you life, be sensible and let your mind speak for itself. Listen not only to your feelings but to reason as well. Always remember that if you lose someone today, it means that someone better is coming tomorrow. If you lose love, it doesn’t mean that you failed in love. Cry if you have to but make sure that tears wash away the hurt and bitterness that the past left with you. And when it does, pray that it may be the love that will stay and last a lifetime. 

It’s true that love can wait forever but it is crazy to stubbornly hope for someone who doesn’t even care or understand how you feel. Love makes us see the things through rose-colored glasses. Most of the time, we fail to recognize the danger sign that lights up along our way. This feeling you have nurtured for so long isn’t healthy anymore. You must realize that you have to go now before it consumes you and your sanity. There is always a time to think and stop, a time to be sensible and not allow your hearts to rule over your heads. You deserve to be happy not in the arms of a person who keeps you waiting but n the arms of someone who will take you now and love you forever.

If loving a person who is attached to someone else is not a crime, then, maybe, many of us would have been jailed long before we realize what its consequences could have been.Loving someone is never a sin... it’s what people do out of love that sometimes makes it all wrong. The selfish desire to want that person is what makes it a sin. Don’t think only of your feelings for real love doesn’t have a place for selfish people. When there is love, there are always sacrifices. When we love someone, we never easily give up on that person. Even if we get hurt badly, we always try to find a way to ease the pain and learn to understand and forgive. Loving too much doesn’t hurt…it’s when we expect this love to be reciprocated that we begin to seek approval and acceptance of the things we have done and when we are taken for granted and rejected, we curse the very same love that we once freely and happily offered. Don’t waste your time waiting for someone who never really cared about how you would have felt. Open your heart again and give yourself a chance to find the man who would make loving worth the pain and the sacrifice. Just like anything else, our love grows weak and dies, if not taken cared of. It can keep up with pain only to a certain extent. Beyond that, it withers without any hope of recovery and soon dies.

God wakes us in the midst of the storm to teach us a lesson. He takes away people we love so we can learn to value love itself. He makes us cry so hard so we can see clearly when we open our eyes. He makes us bitter so we can realize that there is no genuine happiness if we think only of our own needs and not of others.

Relationships built on jealousy and selfishness are doomed from the very beginning. The hardest part of losing love is letting go and moving on. Most of us cry endlessly over things that could have been but never will be. God allows us to experience pain to make us stronger and better persons. He will see us through the most trying and difficult times in our lives and only if we put our trust in Him can we learn to find joy n our tears and happiness in our sorrows. In many failed relationships, separation comes as an inevitable but moving on always proves to be twice as difficult as letting go. Sometimes, our choice to hold on is beyond the control of circumstances. Letting go is a decision that can never be dictated to us. It is a resolution we make to ourselves. Acceptance is a key to a new beginning and time is the healer of all wounds.

Even if storm casts its fearful shadow, there will always be light after our darkness and loneliest moments. There is always hope for those who believe. There is always a chance for those who try.

Losing someone we love may not be a loss at all but blessing because someone even more deserving is yet to come. There is nothing wrong in expressing our feelings to someone we love, but we must always be sensitive to the signals that tell us when to rationalize and be sensible. There comes a time in our lives when we would fall for someone who wouldn’t be as interested as we are because his attention is focused on someone else. There are many times when we love but don’t get love in return. There are many times when the sign ahead says stop but we still stubbornly head on. We would say our love is unconditional, but if it really is, then we should never feel bad. But why do we get frustrated when love turns sour? Because we still subconsciously seek acceptance and assurance from the people we care about. Being in love can be the most wonderful thing we could experience but if the feeling begins to consume our whole beings, then we have to stop and let our minds and not our hearts dictate our actions. Only when we learn to accept our fate and understand the meaning of our failures can we truly go on with life. Without having to look back and cry over the things that could have been but never will be.

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The Painful Truth About Love

Let me say this, I love reading novels but through the years of reading books, I have found a painful truth: novels blinded my perspective of love. Not just novels but also romance films and series. I sometimes think that I am a character in a my own fictional story and that in the end, I will find my one true love.
Based on personal experience, I have undergone tons of experience when it comes to the love department. Let me give a list.

• I was dumped and cheated for a girl he met online. 

• I was dumped and cheated for his ex-girlfriend he realized he still loved. 

• I had a war with the ex-girlfriend of a suitor (I counted it in since I started to like the suitor and I was on the verge of saying yes to him)

• I fell in love with a man who isn't ready. 

• I fell in love with a man who has other things in mind as a priority. 

• I fell in love with a bi-sexual. 

• Lastly, I also fell out of love with a man I know would move heavens and earth for me.  

See! Those were my past experiences in love. Every experience has a different magnitude of pain. But believe me, I thought every experience was the worst I could handle and then got disappointed that there was far something worse. But I have to give credit to these men in my life. Through them I got stronger and better.

Enough for the prologue, let me get to the main point of this blog. Love, as many people say is a feeling very diverse. So diverse that there are no exact words to describe it. But as I've read many books, my perspective of love changed. Making me expect things in my partner. You should do that. You should be like this. You should give me this. You should take me to this romantic place. You should surprise me. blah blah blah and the list goes on. You see, the core of all the disappointment is expectations. But where to this expectations come from? Yes, you got that right. Those fictional movies and films we watched and read. Some real people then have done it making us think that if that guy can do that, then why can't my partner? Then you start thinking of the things you want your partner to do to you. Fortunately, our partners are not born yesterday and they know the drill in having the girl's love. Flowers. Chocolates. Love Letters ,etc. While some expectations are easy to met, some are very improbable to do. Boys are not Edward Cullen that they don't need to sleep so they can have all the time watching you sleep. They are not Augustus Waters who knows how to say the right words, at the right time at the right place. Nor they are not even Christian Grey who is the epitome of handsomeness and wealth who can give you every thing you want and how you wanted it to be.

Expectations ruin everything. But let's face it, expectations are part of every relationship since romantic relationships comprise of two consenting adults, you form a contract which you know, both of you shall adhere to. But let me say this to you straight, true love is not a fairy tale story. It is an action-packed, drama, horror, fantasy kind of story. Action packed because you gotta survive a lot of fights. Whether it is a petty fight or a make or break kind of fight, you have to prepare for it. Horror since  you have to defend your partner from the blood-sucking and zombie looking bitches. (Ok whether they are beautiful or not, if they want to have your guy, they are called bitches. HAHAHA) Drama. You have to accept the fact that relationships will make your eyes drown in tears and your pillow will have some sleepless nights too. You have to deal with tears. And it doesn't end there, you have to face the painful truth that not everyone will approve you for him and vice versa, and yet, if you want to keep the relationship going, you have to fight for one another (action again?!). Last but not the least, fantasy. Let's be practical here. There is no perfect ending since there are no perfect relationships and also relationships are supposed to be long-lasting and not ending, right?. But let me remind you that the fantasy I am telling here is when you have him on your side and you feel like you are in the arms of angel. Or when your lips meet his you feel like you are in 7th heaven. Yes, those are true I tell you. As long as the happy moments outweigh the sad ones, never ever stop fighting for one another. 

I want you to create your own love story and don't base it on what you've read or seen. Let you and your partner write and direct it. Believe me, it is always better to encounter a true to life love story with a lot of twists and turns than a love story which we know will never happen in real life.

xoxo,
Gela

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Ilocandia Food with a Twist

Hi there!
This will be my first legit blog post on doing a food review. Since this is my first time, I will be reviewing a one of a kind restaurant. One of a kind in a sense that the food is great and also, no branches of this restaurant is available since it can only be found in Laoag Ilocos.

Though there were many reviews about this restaurant, it is just right to have my own take and perspective regarding their food. Pardon the pictures I am going to show since I didn't have decent photos of the place. I just captured the food that we ate and also selfie of me and my food buddy.

Saramsam Food Restaurant is located at Giron St. Laoag City. This restaurant is previously located at J.P Rizal St. From our hotel, which is La Elliana Hotel, it took us around 5 minutes to get to Saramsam. Good thing the tricycle drivers of the vicinity are very kind and honest in terms of fares.

Ok enough for the chit-chat, let's go to the review proper.

My food buddy and I tried the famous dishes Saramsam is known for. Here are the dishes we've tried.

Poque-Poque Pizza- Small 8'' Php185.00

I have to say, I really became an instant fan of this dish! I am no fan of eggplant but trying this dish made my perspective change. I also love the idea that this dish is vegetarian friendly since the toppings is just made of eggplant, onions and tomatoes. Though the toppings have less variety, the taste did not disappoint. It was sliced into 8 small bite sizes. One unique factor of dish is they don't serve hot sauce but instead they serve chili oil. 

Price: 10/10 very affordable

Taste: 10/10

Saramsam Pasta- serves 1 . Php160.00

This dish is the pride of Saramsam. It is comprised of shrimps, diced ripe mangoes, tomatoes, onions and bell pepper topped with parmesan cheese. The server told us to put bagoong isda in the dish to add some flavor. I think this is necessary since for me, eating this dish without any bagoong is somewhat boring since I like dishes with strong flavors. However, I might say a little bagoong goes a long way, my travel buddy and I have put more than enough bagoong so we ended up eating a salty pasta, but that's alright, it is still edible! I will give an unperfect score on this dish due to personal preference.I do like my pasta to be saucy and meaty. That's the main reason for the grade I will be giving to this dish.

Price: 9/10

Taste: 8/10

Spaghetti Chorizo De Laoag- serves 1 Php155.00

This dish is also one of the best sellers of Saramsam. It is made of linguine pasta with generous amount of spaghetti sauce. The main ingredient of this dish is chorizo and vigan longganisa. Thank heavens for this dish! I really loved it. You see, all the things I have been looking for in a pasta is here, saucy and meaty. Hence, I will be very bias in grading this dish. I just wish it has more serving than it currently has because it left me wanting for more! 

Price: 9/10

Taste: 10/10

Those were the dishes we've ordered. Here are the drinks that we had on our visit:

Basil Iced Tea- one tall glass Php 45.00 

Sampaloc Juice- one tall glass Php50.00

The two iced teas were named differently on the menu but that's what they are. I forgot what they actually called these drinks. Sorry, newbie here. =) These two drinks tastes good. At first, I was hesitant to try these and my first choice was to have canned pineapple juice, but my travel buddy insisted to try something new since we are in a new place. Saramsam, for the nth time, did not disappoint. My only concern here is the serving size, I which they will have the bottomless feature of these drinks because they taste good. =)

Price: 9/10

Taste: 10/10

Overall, I loved my visit in Saramsam. When I will be fortunate enough to return to Ilocos Norte, I will definitely visit this place and even recommend this to my friends going to the North. The staff are very accommodating, the place is cozy and quiet and also has this home feel. The food tastes great and the price is very affordable. You will definitely get what you pay for. 

My travel buddy and I enjoying our visit to this restaurants. 

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored and not the blogger is not affiliated with the restaurant under review . The blogger spent their own money trying the dishes. 

See you in my next time lovelies! xoxo

-Gela

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