Volcano Day!

"There's been a change of plan". What an exciting thing to hear first thing in the morning! If it was up to me, there wouldn't even be a plan, but luckily, not everybody's that lazy. In fact, Kristine went out of her way (and didn't sleep, too!) to make sure I'd have a great week here in Manila.

Today Kristine, her mom, her mom's cousin, an aunt from America and I had a pizza in a place where you could see a volcano. The volcano is an island in a lake that is inside the crater of an even bigger volcano. Don't believe me? See for yourself!

In hindsight it wasn't anything special. Just pizza and pasta in a nice place. But it's the little things, you know. They were all really nice to me and made me feel welcome, not like a random stranger Kristine met on the Internet. There is no way I can put that in better words; you need to experience if first hand in order to understand it. It was a three hour drive and Kristine has a point in saying that it's a waste of time to sit in a car for so long only to go to lunch. But in this case, the journey was terribly interesting, too.
For an outsider, there seems to be no rule whatsoever as to how to act when you intend to turn left, turn right, park, overtake or use a roundabout. The entire city is one big traffic jam, but for some reason it's working. The white lines on the roads only mean that... well... they don't mean anything, I guess. Traffic lights are seen as a mere suggestion, and there is no speed limit, because most of the time you cannot go much faster than 50 km/h anyway. The result, however, is not absolute chaos but a cleverly self-regulating system where everybody pays attention when it's due. I bet there are far more car accidents in Berlin than in Manila.
But back to the people. Later that evening, I got to meet Kristine's uncle and her brother, and her mom told me a little bit about the house. It took me less than 24 hours to feel at home!