Travel Tales – Simply Eccentric

There are Filipinos anywhere in the world who love to connect to their fellow citizens. They are those, who the moment they hear anybody speaking in Filipino or any Philippine dialects they know, will approach the person, and ask “kabayan?”
Meeting “kababayans” make them feel they are not alone in the place where they are. That they will have a fresh connection to the Philippines. And there is the possibility of making friends with people of their same culture.
This displays Filipinos inherent attitude of being friendlyy, hospitable, love for family, and some degree of nationalism.
My family had experienced meeting Filipinos when we travelled to Venice few years back. While exploring the lovely city, a kababayan approached us upon hearing us conversing in Filipino. She even invited us over to her place when we introduced ourselves and found out that we have common friends.
Through her we managed to connect to a former town-mate. She was kind enough to host our stay in the city for a week.
Another recent experience was while walking along the cobbled streets of Gamla Stan (Old town) in Stockholm, a lady approached my company and asked if we are Filipinos. She introduced herself and coincidentally, she and one of my companions, speak the same dialect. They ended up as FB friends and promised each other to meet constantly.

It is interesting to know that we have several historical religious structures within the capital city of Manila that are comparable to those that can be seen in European cities. Credit goes to the long period of Spanish colonization that lasted for over 300 years from 1521 to 1898. We managed to visit some of them to complete the station of the cross on Good Friday, a Filipino religious tradition done during the Lenten Season.
The sad part though, we lack the interest and the resources for their proper preservation and upkeep. Many of our historical churches are either altered after renovation while some showed to have been given little importance at all.
Century old churches can be found everywhere in the country’s more than 7,000 islands. They are vestiges of our colonial past. While it is hard to diminish that part in our history, we should put those structures to a beneficial use. They are interesting tourist attractions just like our beautiful beaches.