Foremost Goal

Filing my income tax return consumed my time and attention for the past two weeks. Although our Bureau of Internal Revenue made it more arduous for me because of an unexpected glitch on my tax identification number. In spite of the complication, I went ahead and completed the task with crossed fingers that it has been settled, more or less (sshhh…). A crucial necessity more than ever as it’s a prerequisite to my goal of traveling I intend to do by the end of this year.

Last night, I was busy scanning the tour packages being offered by various travel agencies. My sister who’s going to New York in November earlier asked me if I wanted to tag along. “Well, okay…” was my reply. But as I mentioned before, U.S.A. doesn’t excite me so much knowing its urban areas abound with Asians and Latinos. We’ve got a lot of them here, too. Besides, its tall buildings and malls and infrastructure aren’t dissimilar to what we have here. Not to mention the chances of someone like me being granted a U.S. visa for travel purposes are quite nil. My sis has obtained 10-year approval from the embassy. Of course, she’s a consistent member of the jet set club. What about me, you ask? I’ll be forever part of the jet sam squad. (Stop asking)

My point is, if I have to choose between the U.S. and Europe, I’d still go for the continent which has also become a most favorite destination of the Syrian immigrants. So far, I’ve been setting my sights on going back to Switzerland and visiting Italy for the first time.

In 2014, while we were in Interlaken, I skipped having latte with my sister in a posh coffee shop to go outside and proceed to a lovely wide park where I could watch more than a dozen paragliders up high embellishing the beautiful afternoon sky. I wished I had participated – but our time there was very limited. So maybe, maybe next time…

The professional paragliders after landing smoothly were packing up ready to call it a day.

 

Whereas last night too, I chanced upon a travel agency that offers a trip to see the Northern Lights of Iceland. I went “Wow!” and started considering changing my original plan. Iceland. Cooool… There’s glacier there — it’s cold cold cold for sure. I remember the temperature at top of the Swiss Alps made me freezing stiff and numb I thought I’d die. No kidding. Iceland no doubt will instantly turn me into an ice cube.

 

Boy, was I glad to have taken this photo of a man and his dog strolling along the station while we were on our way up to the icy mountain.

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Is there anything as uninteresting as working on your tax return? I nearly procrastinated for eternity and alternately kept on going out for walks and daydreaming about future posts to write, at the same time turning to YouTube searching for my favorite tunes from the past. This original version is still a highly favorite love song of mine.