It's heartbreaking to watch - to learn to forgive yourself for an action that caused so much pain to others at the same time, changing the course of your life. The girl was supposed to go to MIT, study to be an astronomer as it's her dream, and then one day, crashed a car and killed a kid and a mother.  On that day, she heard from the news that another earth is coming closer near our earth.  Later on, it was discovered that same human beings are living on the other earth - same people, almost the same lives. 

In that case, if true,  if I were to meet myself,  would I be crazily eager to sit down with her and so she could tell me stories about her, or would I freak out, run for my life, scared that I might judge her?  I'm leaning towards the latter.  It's a smooth film, that leaves you thinking and feeling..awkward.

The movie is not so much as sci-fi, it's not horror, it's more...introspective drama I guess. Watch it, so worth it. 

Looking forward to 2011!  Latin America backpacking, New Orleans, living abroad,  already on my planning list!

Here's a little something we were asked to prepare for our family reunion especially that we are miles away...but I decided to share it as it could also be my thank you to some of the people who made it a deliciously great year for me, for making all that I wished for last year happened and to thank the void, Universe, God...the blessings are immensely appreciated, I thank with open arms, humbled and jumping for joy. 

Forgive the elementary video editing....so pressed for time. Okay, even if not pressed for time, it would still turn out that way - amateurish hehe! :)

We just lie face down and we don't even swim, the current of the river at Rio Sucuri, Bonito, in Brazil, carried us downstream.  The water is so clear, you could see right through the bottom. The video and the pictures don't do it justice.  We were trying to gauge who wants to lead because it's scaring the shit out of us. Seriously, the river looks like a habitat for Cayman alligators. We ate one previous night and the revenge of the Cayman is a stomach-wrenching diarrhea attacking us in the middle of the night right up to early morning.  Who knows it will come back and bite us in this river.  

While there are no corals (this is a river), I enjoyed trying to behave like an alligator using Nikki's video cam. With my eyes darted on the surface of the river, I go down underwater like an alligator.  So cool! We zipped through the river for 3Kms, nary a stop, and with no panting like a dog like what we did during our Inca Trail to Machu Pichu.  This one's peanuts. 

You know what's our highlight? Here goes. We were advised never to pee in the crystalline waters so when we got off the river, our tour guide went to dock the boat somewhere and we were there standing at the other dock badly needing to pee.  I'm embarassed with this conversation but I'd like to post it for posterity as I remember it:

Me: Pee na tayo! I really, really need to pee! Let's pee now!! I'll pee anywhere!

Nikki: Ako rin! But sige, sa gilid?

Me: Okay! [jumping at the left side  of the dock under the trees, I squatted. Nikki did the same on the other side, facing each other.]

Me: Shit, bakit ganun, it's stuck in our wetsuit!  [Laughing, could not hold it back, still peeing! So this neoprene is porous, crap!]

Nikki: Oh my gosh, di sya nahuhulog! [Laughing, peeing, looking at my pee] Ayan, kita ko na yung pee mo!

Me: [Laughing] I can't see yours!

Nikki: Oh my god! [Laughing]

Me: Ayan na sa yo, Niks! [Jumping while squatting] Do this, it goes down if you do this! [Laughing while speaking]

Nikki! [Laughing] Oh my god...

Me: I'm done na! Quick, Manong is coming na! [Me standing up, trying to compose myself]

Nikki: [Still laughing and squatting]

Me: Nikki, please stand up na, mahuhuli tayo! [Laughing while begging at Nikki!]

Nikki: [Still laughing and still squatting!]

Me: Nikki, what are you doing, stand up na! 

Nikki: I'm not yet done, hahaha! It does not seem to end!

Manong came over, Nikki still squatting and we're both laughing. Given the language barrier, he laughed too but there are things better left unsaid.  Maybe these are the things that should be filed under, What Happens in Brazil, stays in Brazil. 

But I realize in my deathbed, what would I really want to remember? The clear waters of Rio Sucuri or glorious (not gory) details like this?  The experience is just simply worth telling. 

But thoughts really become things. What I consistently envisioned, happened.   It got cemented last August when I booked the Machu Picchu trek for me and Nikki (my very good friend and travel buddy for life!) - this is the first purchase related to that trip, and then I knew, even before I bought plane tickets to South Am, it's going to happen. For realz.  How I got the funds to do it, it's a good conversation to tell over a cup of coffee or tea :).  

I just came back last late Thursday night. And now it feels so long ago but the memories are so sharp. I still laugh to myself whenever I recall our bloopers.  

I met a teenager on my flight back home from Rio to Miami, I was connecting via Lima.  Her name is Hannah and she was traveling to Peru with her good friend Manu.  It's their first time to travel without their parents, and internationally too.  They're literally jumping out of their seats when they told me about it.   They have an exciting itinerary, they will be going to Machu Picchu and also to the Lost City of the Incas and I think to Lake Titicaca.   Hannah was so giddy and asked me about tips.  I hesitated, but I give anyway.  I always will feel like a beginner at traveling.  

I asked her about the hippie bands/bracelets on her hand. She told me that it was from Bahia (a beautiful place in Brazil and short background: they live in Rio but they're German; their parents moved to Brazil some years ago), and that you make three wishes as you tie it three times in a Bahian way, and it can never be untied in your wrist.  Each knot will untie only when your wishes come true.  She told me two tied knots are left,  one has came true already. 

I think I know what it is. I smiled and we bade goodbye, my wish that they will make memories no matter what happens. And then I realized, it's not so much whether those knots will get untied, it's how many knots we make in our lives. I want to continue to dream big dreams, because I know for sure they will come true. 

Listening to: The Hand That Gives the Rose by Coles Whalen.

“It’s challenging,” he said, “but only because you know the reward will be a field of people in Mexico singing along with you, which is such an adrenaline rush that it’s worth all the hours of, ‘Oh my God, this doesn’t work.’ If you get that bit, that the whole is bigger than its parts, then that’s your ticket all around the world.” - Chris Martin, of making music.

I just would like to remember this moment when I breathed the same air with my  most treasured band in the world.  Chris and the boys came over to Atlanta and sang all the songs that needed to be sung.  I stood outside with friends listening to their music - and when they sang Fix You, I almost crumbled.  Everybody sang to the song and it was a spine-tingling feeling. That anthem has been my saviour during those times when I thought I cannot be saved. 

I love you, Coldplay. I really, truly do. 

But the lucidity of her old age allowed her to see, and she said so many times, that the cries of children in their mothers' wombs are not announcements of ventriloquism or a faculty for prophecy but an unmistakable sign of an incapacity for love.  The lowering of the image of her son brought out in her all at once all of the compassion that she owed him. 

And this is why I have a love/hate relationship with reading epic books. I get attached to them afterwards, I'd gush, I'd weep, I'd have emotional hangover for days. Even weeks. 100 years of solitude is magnificent in its sprawling entirety. I cannot choose a favorite Buendia because each one has its distinct charm, creatively described by Gabriela Garcia Marquez.  100 Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) is so highly recommended.