Julia's Tales: 2016

2016

Books I'd Read All Over Again

Wow. I spent a good thirty minutes making a post banner just to end up not using it for this post. OK. SO, last night I kept thinking about some books I read that I'd want to read again if I only had that precious little thing called time. If you know me personally, you'd know how I love reading books. It doesn't matter if it's a cheesy chick-lit or a murder case-solving thriller, I read them all. And if you're like me, you would probably know how it feels to read a fresh new book everytime you finish one. But you would also know how it feels to have that longing to reread, reimagine, and rediscover a book you once read before.

A little history of how I became a bookworm:

When I was young (like, elementary young), I was NEVER a fan of reading and books. The school I went to had this requirement to borrow at least 10 books from the library for the whole academic year, and just to accomplish this requirement, I would borrow books but I'd never read them. One time, I borrowed a book and I really didn't care what it was all about, I just picked something up from the shelf. When I handed it to the librarian to check it out, she looked at me like I had something disgusting on my face. It turns out, the book I borrowed was something you would read to a toddler, and not something an elementary student would read! Lol. From then on, I picked books more carefully but I still don't read them. One day in fourth grade, I saw a classmate of mine reading a Barbie novel (a legit small hardcover book). I borrowed it from her although I'm not sure if I ever read it or just scanned through it and stopped at pages with drawings. And like the Barbie fan that I was back then, I asked my mom to buy me one. And that was probably the first book I ever read in my entire life. After that, I found a website for kids where you can read a book online. I started reading Camp Confidential and when I was done with it, I was proud of myself because I finished reading a book that didn't have any drawings in it. But after that, I didn't really continue on reading until the sixth grade when my best friend then influenced me that reading was fun. And indeed, it was. I started borrowing Sweet Valley Twins books and Nancy Drew books and I got hooked. From then on, I never worried about the yearly library requirement anymore because I was already always borrowing one after another and I expanded my genre. I started reading Sweet Valley High and Mary Higgins Clark in high school and eventually started Harry Potter in my senior year of high school. And that's pretty much how I got hooked on reading books, mostly novels/fiction.

Anyway, going back to the main topic, here are the books I would want to read all over again if I had the time.

1) Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

If it isn't obvious yet, I LOVE this book! Well, I love the whole series of this book! I have to admit that I wasn't a fan when this came out because I was still a child and I didn't like to read then. Our mom bought the set of the book series (when there were still four of them) when we were still young and did not appreciate reading books. And now, I'm so thankful she bought the books because it was the most fun book series I ever read. I finished the series in 2012 and since then, I really wanted to read the whole series of books all over again.

2) Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom
Truly, one of the best books I've read. You can pick up a lot of lessons from every page, like it never runs out of quotable quotes. I remember when I finished this book and I couldn't help but think that if the world would just take a few hours and read this book, it would really touch their lives like it did to me, and if they would just take all the lessons by heart, the world wouldn't be as complicated and as toxic and as crazy as it is right now. I can't stress enough how beautiful this book is, and I am thankful I found this sitting on my father's shelf of old books, and thankful I got to read it. If you haven't read this precious gem, ya'll should. If it won't change your life, it'll at least change your view on life. And yes, I would love to read this again.

3) Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver
I don't know how this book only got a rating of 3.59 stars on goodreads. To me, this is one of the best YA novels out there. It's a perfect mystery about two sisters coping up with their lives after a near-death experience together. Their relationship wasn't the same again after that. This book got me so hooked I couldn't stop reading it! Lauren Oliver is one of my favorite authors, and she wrote this beautiful masterpiece that I really want to read all over again, and when I do I'm pretty sure it'll still give me the same feeling of thrill and mystery all over again.

4) Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

This book is definitely my favorite Sophie Kinsella novel. I have to admit one of the reasons I bought this book was because I instantly fell in love with the cover. But the beautiful story made me fall in love with it more. It's a very fun and adventurous chick-lit book, definitely a Sophie Kinsella classic. And just like the books already mentioned before this, I want to read this book again. Unfortunately, I don't know where this book went. I think someone borrowed it from me and she never really returned it. It's really sad. Yes, I know there'll be a free epub format of this for sure, but this is one of my loved books and I'm just so sad I lost it.

5) All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
This book is beautiful. I think this is Niven's debut novel, and when I finished it, I already want to read another of Niven's books. I love it even though it broke my heart. It's also one of the best YA novels along with John Green books, and Rainbow Rowell books.I definitely want to read this again.

I have already presented you five books, but it doesn't end there. Here are more of the books I've already read in the past that I want to read again...

6) Landline by Rainbow Rowell
7) Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
8) Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella
9) It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (my first colleen hoover book!)
10) Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
11) Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (heartbreaker, but still want to read this again)
12) Sweet Valley High books (do they still exist? I really want to reread them!)
13) Nancy Drew books

So, now that I've listed most of the books I really want to read again, I hope it also showed the books I love most. And I hope that this also gives you an idea about how good the book really is, and I hope you read them if you haven't already. Thanks for reading this post all the way to here. LOL.

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Aloneventures at 21

Grand Central Station. Photo by me.

Hi, you! I've been doing some stuff lately that I forgot I had a blog. Yes, I am home. In the Philippines. So this is the first blog post posted from my home, with a sucky internet connection, which is the main reason why I haven't had the time to blog. But this afternoon, looking back at the times I had in the States, I suddenly had the urge to word-vomit. So I endured the turtle-like internet speed we have here at home, and logged in my blogger and here I am typing this post (with background music for dramatic effect, of course! kidding!).

Looking at the pictures that I took during my U.S. trip, I couldn't help missing all the beautiful adventures I had. Lately, I have been looking forward to crazy adventures, be them little or big, with friends and family and getting excited for future adventures that are still plans. I guess I really miss the spontaneity of being in an adventure and travelling. Oh, and I miss being in airports and the subway. And then I realized that I had such a wonderful time during my travel, and at 21 years old! It's such a wonderful opportunity of having to travel alone, young, single, and no commitments. By the end of this post I hope that you get to grasp what I've learned as a young lady travelling in America, from one state and city to another.

Before my five months vacation in America, I was very excited (of course) of what it'll be like travelling in another country especially because it was gonna be my first time out of the country. I was anxious about how I'm going to survive foreign airports. Okay, sure I've flown quite a few times especially when I was little when we would go to Bohol for our summer vacation, but I never really bothered to get myself acquainted with how airports work. I left that job to my parents. So when I had to fly to Cebu alone (because that's where we were going to fly from to America), I was a little bit anxious of where I'm going to go and do next. But fortunately, I survived Davao's Francisco Bangoy International Airport (ha! In your face! LOL). But really, that airport was nothing compared to the bigger and more complicated airports I've ever been in the States. Going to America was fine because I flew with my grandfather, who needed aiport assistance, so that's okay because all I had to do was follow the assistant to where we should be and stuff. As much as I wanted to learn from there on where to go and what to do in airports, I couldn't because it was all too fast. So when we arrived in Korea, next thing I knew, we were already at our gate waiting for our flight to Georgia. Now I've heard Georgia was one of the biggest and most complicated airports in America, so I braced myself. Just like in Korea, we were also met by an assistant, who wasn't that bad, and not that good either. Especially when we had to go through customs. Ugh. Just the mere memory of that moment makes me cringe so hard I could die. Anyway, let's wave that off and forget that the moment ever existed. It was so easy going to our gate for our flight to Florida because we had the airport assistant.

Just after a few days after we arrived in Florida, I had to go to Connecticut to join my mom's cousins on their autumn vacation in Vermont. That meant I had to go alone, which means I'll be flying alone. Since there are no direct flights to Connecticut from Florida, I would fly to New York, and get fetched by my aunt that I never met, at least not in my memory because I'm sure we have but I was just too young to remember. Thankfully, my aunt in Florida, who drove me to the airport went with me until the airport security. WPB airport in Florida is one of the most friendly airport I've ever been in. So getting to my gate was not that difficult. For the first time, I've survived a foreign airport. Now when I landed in New York, of course I didn't know where to go next after getting off the plane. Even before, I've had this plan that when I didn't know where to go in an airport after landing, I'd just follow the people from the same plane. So that's what I did. And I found myself in the baggage carousels and the airport exit where the aunt I never remembered meeting was already waiting for me. Yes, I survived JFK airport (kind of). I must admit, when I was still in the escalator going down, mejo namumukhaan ko na yung aunt ko, and when I did, I couldn't help but smile and told myself, "OMG! You survived! huhuhu". Going back to Florida via JFK airport was different because my uncle from Connecticut already left me on the ticketing counter. I couldn't blame him, it was an early flight which meant we had to travel from CT to JFK so early in the morning and he just came back from his shift so he still hadn't had rest. But after getting my ticket, finding the airport security check and my gate wasn't at all difficult! This is because there were signs all over, you wouldn't get lost at all.

After the trip to Connecticut and Vermont, I stayed almost three months in Florida with my aunts. They took me to Disney and Sea World. I also celebrated Christmas with them ( my first Christmas without my parents and brothers). But two days after Christmas was my flight to New York, this time spending more than a month with my aunt from my dad's side (my dad's youngest sister). I kind of gotten used to the WPB airport, like it was already my friend.

Times Square, NY. Photo by me.

Even before my trip to the states, I've always wanted to spend at least a month in New York, not just a week or two. Some would ask why and what the heck am I ever going to do there when my aunt is so busy with her work. Well, there's this thing called AloneVentures which I already kind of had when I traveled from one state to another, this time in the city that never sleeps. My aunt had a few days off because of the Holidays so she had time to take me to places. Before we went to Las Vegas for New Year's (back and forth fare paid by our generous relative!), my aunt asked me to buy some books from Barnes and Noble just more than 10 blocks away from her apartment. I could have ridden the subway that time but I wasn't that confident then, so I decided to just walk. Even though it was tiring, it was okay since I got to see how beautiful the architecture of the building in that avenue. When we returned to NY, my aunt started to get busy, but that was okay. I had also planned going back to Connecticut since it was just a train ride away. A few days before I went back to Connecticut, my aunt taught me how to ride the subway by of course, riding the subway, she also taught me how to get to the Grand Central Station where I'd be riding my train to Connecticut. So the next day, I needed to buy something from Forever 21 and the nearest store from my aunt's apartment was in Times Square! That's like more than 50 blocks away from my aunt's. But before going there though, I downloaded this app for the subway, which showed the map of the Subway. It's not that hard to understand because it shows which trains go to what station, and I had a little help from google maps, too. Since I didn't have data then, I'd screen cap google maps and familiarize the establishments near the said store. So that was my first subway ride alone, and I survived! Yay! And when I arrived in Times Square, I fortunately found my way to Forever 21, and it was heaven... ish. I also got to appreciate Times Square in daylight and without a lot of people. Took a few photos but couldn't bring myself to ask strangers to take a photo of me because of security concerns. Trust no one. Haha. But yeah, the only sad thing about having alone ventures is that you won't have someone to be your photographer. But hey, that's what our phone's front cameras are for, right?

So anyway, the next day was my train ride to Connecticut. I was already confident riding the subway alone. But unfortunately, that time, there were no 6 trains in the station nearest to my aunt's apartment. I could ride the bus but I didn't know what bus to ride, plus I didn't have internet and wasn't prepared at all for this. So, the only solution I could ever think of was to take the 6 train on the next station which was the one in Barnes and Noble. Yep, the one that's more than ten blocks away from my aunt's apartment. I had a trolley bag that time which is more tiring! What an experience! Thankfully, I got to subway station and arrived at the Grand Central Station. I didn't have to ask what train leaves for New Haven, CT since they showed it in the board, also I already knew because they also have a schedule on their website. But you know, just so I could make sure I'm taking the right train I looked at the board. Now, it's time for me to look for train 19 leaving for New Haven at 12:30PM. Twasn't that hard. But the only thing that made me unsure of train 19 was that it was only a signboard that says TRAIN 19 and nothing else. It didn't say anything about where it goes and what time it leaves, after all it had just turned 12. But I just trusted my instinct and went inside the train. Also, my gut told me to sit in the part of the train where there are already passengers. I sat across a group of two old women and just to really make sure, I asked them, "This train leaves for New Haven, right? and they replied half joking, "Well, I hope so, dear!". I was relieved. When we finally arrived, the other old lady told me something like "Looks like we rode the right train, we arrived in New Haven!". LOL. Going back to NY a after a week in Connecticut, I rode the train again. And survived the ride back to my aunt's apartment. Yay me!

Now I will tell you a story of when I almost rode the wrong bus during my aloneventure times in New York. You see, I was on my way to New Jersey to see a relative, the one who paid for my and my aunt's back and forth tickets to Las Vegas. The day before I leave, my aunt already taught me how to get to Port Authority which is where I can ride a bus to New Jersey. But when I went there the next day, OH. MY. GOSH. I think I got lost... for a while LOL. With a little baga-face moment, I asked for directions to get to the ticketing for buses bound for Clinton, New Jersey. So, I bought a ticket and ready to go... the problem is, I thought the number printed on my ticket was the number of my gate... I was SO WRONG. I was already lined up, and I kept rereading the stops printed beside the gate sign and there was no Clinton... I really felt like I was on the wrong gate... another kapal face moment, I asked the lady in front of me if the bus is stopping by Clinton, New Jersey. She said she wasn't sure that made me unsure, too. So my instinct told me to go back to the ticketing counter and ask which gate I should be in. When I knew it was in a different gate, I rushed to that gate because the bus leaves in like 10 minutes! Luckily, I got in the bus fine, asked the one collecting the tickets if the bus stops at Clinton, and when he said yes, I felt relieved! Phew! I arrived in the Park and Ride station in Clinton and met with my relative.

Another major aloneventure I had in New York was when I went to watch a broadway show alone. Another was when I went to the Museum of Natural History and walked a long way to a subway station and back home to my aunt's apartment.

And there I was back again in Florida, but a week after was my flight to Minnesota to meet with my aunt. Since there was no direct flight from WPB, I had to travel an hour or so to get to the airport in Fort Lauderdale. It's a little different from the airport in WPB, but I got in just fine since I was already familiar with airports. When I arrived at the airport in St Paul, Minnesota, I still had to ride a shuttle (it's like a van here in the Philippines) to get to Rochester where my aunt lives. So when I got off the plane, my usual "follow-with-the-rest-of-the-passengers" routine can't be done, so I relied on the airport's sign boards. Just to be sure though, I asked someone for information where to take the shuttle. Thankfully arrived in Rochester and met with my aunt safely. And going back to Florida was also just fine except I kind of got lost for a bit when I got off the shuttle service to the airport in St. Paul.

Then, it was finally time to head back to my real home. But not just yet. I still had two more days to explore California. Unfortunately, a relative living in San Francisco couldn't be there when I arrive so my aunt contacted her high school friend who lived in Sacramento to fetch me from the airport and tour me around. On the way to SF, I had to stop by in Atlanta's airport. Yeah, the one with the big and complicated airport. But I survived... I mean I thought I couldn't, but I had to survive fast because when I arrived at the airport, I had at least 30 minutes before my plane to SF leaves. Good thing my gate was close to the airport train which will lead me to the concourse of my gate. So I arrived in San Fansisco, met my aunt's friend. I was so touched with their hospitality but I'll talk about that in another post as this is already too long. LOL. SO fast forward to finally going back to the Philippines. Getting through SFO airport was a breeze since another friend of my aunt's went with me until the security checkpoint. I have made airports as friends already so it was pretty much okay. I had a layover in Korea so when I arrived, I did my routine again (you know, my routine lol). I reached my gate really early so I had time to check out the stores.

Then I finally arrived in Cebu, stayed in the airport until my early morning flight to Davao.

As you've noticed, I've had more aloneventures in airports and train/bus stations and quite a lot of them happened in New York. If there's one thing I learned during those times is that I learned to be brave, and to trust my guts. I also learned that asking directions is ONE OF THE BEST solutions if you aren't sure where you're going. Also, Google Maps and NYC Subway app are the best friends you'll have when you go around New York or just anywhere else. I learned to be more independent (well, just dependent on google maps, haha) and really brave. I'm so thankful to have had this trip at 21 years old and single! Still am though, 21 and single. Hahahahahahahaha kkkkkk. After having these adventures, I'm so hungry for more! I guess that's what these travels made me: hungry for more adventures!

So to my fellow twenties girls out there, go and have your own adventure! It doesn't matter where, what matters is that you have fun and that you learn something from your travels. I guess it's true what they say, travelling is the best investment that makes you richer! Also, although it's more fun to have trips with your best friends, try having your adventures alone, too.I guarantee it's as fun, pero wala ka nga lang photographer, hehehe.

Cheers to more adventures! XO

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Books I'd Read All Over Again

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