Apr 17 2008
Overseas Vacation
I accompanied my dad earlier this afternoon as he was busy preparing their (he and my mom) papers as requirement for their scheduled travel to the US come July this year. They will be attending an international convention on their organization that is involved in the reach out to married couples all over the world. They will be representing the Philippines because they are the national representative of the country in their organization. This organization of theirs is worldwide and they have other similar counterpart organizations in other countries.
As we were going around the city, they then got to the point of discussing their accommodation and reservation on their stay in the states. They had mentioned that a lot of their friends and counterparts in the host country were volunteering to host them in the said convention. However, they agreed to contact a close family friend of ours in New Orleans. These friends of ours have been in the states for more than 5 years already. My parents and they have constantly kept in touch and they call us via international long distance once every month. They have a property here in Dumzville (their former residence) that they are renting out and they have designated my parents as the “guardians” of the said property, taking charge of collecting the rent, as well as carrying out any major repairs of their house when needed.
I have mentioned about these phone calls because usually, these phone calls would stretch for hours. As you probably know, the time difference between these two parts of the world would mean that the time they would call (usually daytime at their end) would be dawn in the Philippines. On more than one occasion, my mom has told me about how she managed to fall asleep while holding the phone while engaged in conversation with this friend of theirs. My mom has also asked them how she managed to talk that long on the phone and on international long distance at that. She told my mom that long conversations like that was made possible because she has been availing of online phone cards that were cheap, which then allowed them to save as much as 80% or more over regular long distance providers like at&t, sprint, and such.
They will be calling those friends tonight to break the good news to them. Alas, after more than 5 years, they will get a chance to meet and get in touch again. I am excited for them just thinking about it.
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