They think they speak English

Disclaimer to our huge base of loyal blog readers: The blog entries
will probably be short and with many misspellings this trip since I am
traveling with my iPod touch only and no computer.

We arrived in Manila about 21 hours ago and when the tour books
recommend you don't spend any time here, they mean it. It's probably
one of the grosest cities we've been in. We ventured out for a bit
today after a restless night of sleep and being woken up by Muslim
prayers at 4:30am. It's a Catholic nation, but there are still many
religions here and we could hear prayers coming from a loudspeaker.

We spent the majority of our time out either at a mall or in a taxi
cab going to or from the malls. This probably doesn't make sense
unless you have been to Manila, but the malls are the nicest and
cleanest parts of the city. It's full of smog and crime and gypsies
and it's just not fun to be on foot here. They either want to sell you
something or want something from you, and as soon as they spot whitey
the game is on.

We are being picked up tomorrow morning at about 9am for transport to
Puerto Galera, which is where we will do our advanced open water diver
certification and spend lots of time doing nothing. We often promise
that we will relax and have a real vacation but rarely follow through.
This time we plan to make good on that promise. So much has happened
in our lives that have shaken us to the core and we really need some
time to reflect and relax and just let our bodies be.

So the people here think they speak English... and they do, but it's
really a weird mix of Spanish and some Asian dialect plus probably the
dialect of each island group here, and English that make up what you
hear on the streets. You remember that scene from European Vacation
where they are checking into the hotel in London and Clark gets out
his pocket translator to try and figure out what the British guy is
saying? It's pretty much like that here. They speak too fast and mix
some Spanish in and generally it's just confusing to me.

We have about 4-5 hours of travel tomorrow to get to the dive resort
but at this point we would do anything to get out of Manila. Oh, and
Meaghan, Manila gets only a 30 - 60 minute slot in our travel series.
Really. It's that bad.

The country code is +63 and our mobile numbers are: 09393725564
(Diana) and 09393738728 (Jason) in case you need to reach us.