There were the days when a week of travel and different foods would not get me down and I was raring to go for the next adventure, but I am growing accustomed to this “getting older” thing that I hear so much about. Granted, I still have a lot of energy, but I definitely need the weekends to rest. It was a very relaxing weekend and I learned a lot about Northern Samar and the history it has in the Philippines. Paul, the owner of the Coffee Hub, is a bit of a history buff and seems to know a lot about Filipino history and the role America plays in the forming of independence for the Philippines.
As I have stated before, the Philippines were “discovered” by Magellan (even though it was already occupied by the natives) in the early 1500’s. After this, the Spanish decided to colonize the country and the many islands and introduce the European culture to this part of the world. Magellan was then killed by Lapu Lapu (the national fish) one of the Filipino national heroes.
After many years of trying to gain independence (I need to probably research this a bit, because there are a lot of eras I am missing), the Philippines gained some sovereignty from the Spanish around World War I. At this time, it was the United States that had a major hold on the Philippines and Filipinos waged war on the United States to gain their clear independence. Unfortunately for the Filipinos, the American technology was too much at the time and the Philippines would have to wait to become their own nation. During World War II the Philippines played a key role in the war between the Americans and the Japanese. The Philippines were allies with the United States and fought side by side with Americans (just 30 years after the war between the United States and Philippines). After World War II the Philippines were granted sovereignty and became their own nation.
As a sign of respect to the role that the United States played in their independence, not to say the respect was needed (as the U.S. did have a war with the Philippines in their own territory), but the 100 peso bill has an American flag on it. I did not particularly take note of this when I looked at the bill, but Julian pointed it out on his first day here and thought it was strange. I was happy to find out the answer to why it was there and was proud of our recent history with the Philippines.
NOTE: Not all of the statements above may not be true facts or the proper timeline, I am just going off of memory here people! Give me a break! Just kidding, enjoy!
Sunday, I introduced Julian to “two-beer” for the first time. It was not the same “two-beer” that I was introduced to, but he is only 18, so we will have to work our way up to the actual two-beer. It was a good time and Julian is definitely noticing how nice the local population is. Until next time…
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