Thursday, December 26, 2013

It's Good to be Home This Christmas

The sunrise and the sharkie. Aboard PAL809. Turning final for ILS RWY 05 approach.

Happy holidays everyone!

How did you spend your Christmas? Well, I went home last December 21 because we were still allowed to have a break since we were not part of the shift complement yet, but once we have our permanent facility deployment, we are not allowed to file a leave from December 15 'til January 5. But the most challenging part of going home this holiday season was beating the holiday rush.

If you happen to work or stay in Manila and wishes to be with your respective families living in your hometown, then you must prepare ahead of time... like super ahead of time. Ain't joking here. Went home to Davao last December 21st and I could say that everything's crowded - from the streets in front of our compound up to the predeparture area of NAIA 2. I was caught by gridlock traffic around 12 midnight and I thought I wouldn't make it to my 4am flight. Other than that, the price of tickets from Manila to a provincial destination triples every yuletide season (it's always like that)! Two weeks prior my flight, I tried looking for cheap tickets to Davao, only to find out that the cheapest round trip ticket was around Php 9,000. PAL's even cheaper than CEB. The latter offered me Php 12,000, and that was their cheapest on my preferred dates.

But yeah, I'd still prefer to spend a LOT just to be with my family this yuletide season. I'd want to make the most out of it since for sure, I wouldn't be spending the yuletide season with my family next year... unless if the gods and goddesses were good enough, magkatugma ang day-off ko sa holiday! Here are some photos taken during my flight to Davao.

Too bad I didn't take a photo of it when it was full of people.


Flying over the mountainous part of Agusan del Sur and Compostela Valley.

I was really excited that time since it was my first time to ride their brand-new Airbus A321-200. Well, it is just an elongated version of the standard A320 but it feels good to be part of history. You know, everyone loves the smell of brand-new cabin. I mean, who doesn't?

And oh, dad fetched me and arrived home at around 6:30 in the morning and went back to the control tower to meet up with some of my planespotter friends! The exciting part was, I became an alpha controller for both aerodrome and approach control. It was truly a magnificent (and nerve-wracking) experience. I hardly can't wait to control live air traffic in my permanent facility assignment (hoping it's gonna be RPVA).




Christmas is truly my favorite time of the year, aside from my birthday. It's the time of the year wherein you are forced to attend reunions of all sorts (family, friends, enemies, whatever floats your boat), and eat unhealthy food and drink booze like there's no tomorrow. But the most important thing is, you spend your time with your loved ones.

Enough of being emotional.

Happy Christmas everyone!

PS: I miss the beaches of Samal Island and the mountain resorts of Buda.

3 comments:

  1. good to know you're home too for christmas!

    happy holidays, renz! may God bless us more for 2014 & beyond.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Merry Christmas doc Gelo! May we have a prosperous new year! :D

      Delete
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