In the End

OK. There is a lot to tell about my vacation. So much that I have decided not to tell it. There are way too many days and stories that I could and would tell, but I do not have the time nor the capacity to really tell it. I really enjoyed spending my time with my friends and family. Seeing some of my best friends; Tom, Brian, Olysar, Chris, Holly, Kate, Jon and Manny. Those people made my visit very special. They made me see why I should come back home in a couple of months. Lets not forget my relatives. My cousins, Aunts and Uncles; they reminded me that being with my family really is the most important thing in my life. Last, but not least, My Mother, Father, Brother and Sister-in-law to be; they are the ones that make everyday special. They make me feel like, even though we have problems sometimes, that blood ties will last forever. Everyone at home has a special place in my life and in my heart. They have made me who I am today. I always look to their examples when I need guidance in my life. If I lost all my money in the world, I would be thankful that I had my health and my family. They have taught me so much about the world and how I should be as a person.



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The End



Home is where the heart is.



-Cezar-

In the End

Seriously?!?

OK. The past post was about my first day which was Saturday. Sunday is now the topic. My friend Holly had found out that I was home. She was sneaky enough to find out that I was coming home. She and I had conspired to surprise her husband, one of my best friends, with me being home. When I spoke to her before I left she and I agreed to 6pm on Sunday night. So I had the whole day to kinda mess around. I told my brother to help me surprise my cousins. He told them that he was going to drop off something to them around 2:30ish. So that was set into motion. My parents and I spent the morning together. We had breakfast, went to church and then went to eat lunch together. It was nice family time together. 2pm-ish rolls around and I head off to my cousins house. I pull up and prepare myself. I walk up to the door and ring the bell. I hear some commotion inside and the door slowly opens. My cousin Erika opens the door. She looks at me with a blank stare. There was a long pause and a big grin on her face. The first words out of her mouth was "no way!" She kept on repeating those words over and over, for what seemed to be 5 minutes. Everyone was in separate rooms so no one knew what was going on. Eventually everyone started to come to see what was all the fuss. Their reactions were the same as my parents. A lot of crying, hugging and disbelief. I sat down with them and had a late lunch. I told stories and accounts of my experiences in South Korea. I spent a couple of hours just talking and having fun with them. Then I was was off to Holly's house. She had called me to see where I was. I informed her of my status and she told me to rush over asap. I leave my cousin's house and drive off to my friend's house. The husband had dropped them off from the shore back to their house so that he can get some groceries. So I ring the door bell and she answered the door. Once the door opened she jumped out and hugged me and welcomed me back. I walk into the house and say hello to some of the members of family who were visiting. So I waited until the husband came home. Then she received a phone call that one of our mutual friends was coming over. I told him several times over of my fake plans, so he was also under the assumption that I was not home. He rings the bell and I answer the door. All I see is a smirk on his face and disbelieve in his eyes. The first words were "I thought you were supposed to be in the Philippines." I told him that I lied. We laugh about it for a little bit. He comes in and we all wait for Chris. Then it happened. He called to say that he was going to be home soon. I run to get a light saber that he and I have. I wait behind the door. He walks in and I jump out with the light saber. His first words were "oh, hey." Then he proceeds to bring the groceries into the house. He gives me a quick hug and laughs it off. We spend the night laughing and telling tale. My jet lag was getting the better of me so I had to leave the place a little early.


That was my Sunday, there is much more to come.



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The End



Liar liar pants on fire.


-Cezar-

Seriously?!?

You're what now?

So where was I. The last time we saw our Filipino friend he was at the airport. Let's rewind a little bit. I had stayed at a friends place the night before. She had the same time flight I had and she lived an hour away from the airport. She offered to let me stay at her place then we head off to the airport together. I arrived at her place settled down for a couple of minutes then she and I decided to meet up with a couple of hashers for drinks. They thought it would be funny to keep me up until about 3am. When I eventually got to sleep at 3am-ish I needed to get back up in 3 hours for my flight at 11 am. I planned to wake up at 6am. That didn't happen at all, I woke up at 7 am. My friend and I had to rush out of the door and catch the correct bus to the airport. I was able to check in and get everything together by around 9am-ish. The first flight I had to take was to China and from there was a direct flight to America. My flight leaves promptly at 11 am and I arrive in China 2 hours after my flight departed from South Korea. I was informed that I had to go through customs and pick up my baggage then check into my flight for America. I had only 3 hours to do so. Once I got off the plane I started running. If I was to make my flight to America in Time I had to clear many obstacles; which included immigration into China, baggage claim, running to the correct terminal for my flight, checking into the flight, and finally passing through security. I had no problems at immigration and baggage claim. I found out that the terminal that I had to be at was at least 1 km away from where I was. So walking was out of the question. I had 2 check in baggage, one with rollers and a box. Trying to manage that with semi-running across an airport terminal was not fun. After my short 1 km sprint I make it to the correct terminal and find my way to the check-in for my flight. As I approached the check-in sweaty and out of breath, my first words to a random stranger was "is this the line for Continental?" The woman, who I had asked, looks me up and down and says yes it is. I breath a sigh of relief. Then I peer over to look at the line, it had wrapped around quite a bit with a large amount of people. Then I sighed in disbelief and frustration. At that moment I only had 2 and a half hours to get check-in and get passed security. I was pacing up and down in my area the whole time I was in line. The woman in front of me kept on looking back at me, or trying to make excuses to look at me. I was too distracted at the time to start a conversation and my flirting. After I check-in and get passed security, I run into her again. I had about an hour until my flight and she was on the same flight as me. She and I started walking together. I start talking to her and make conversation. I start flirting with her a little bit. The first round of questions went like this. Where are you going? She answered Boston. I replied with a few stories of Boston I had. I told her my destination. I asked her what she was doing in China. I told her I was a teacher in Korea and tell her some stories about that. I asked her what she does in America. She responded "I am a student." I thought to myself, oh she looks older then a student but oh well. I asked her what school she goes too. Then there was a long pause. She looks around a little bit and responds "yeah, I am in high school." She goes further into it and says "I just turned 16 last month." The first words out of my mouth was "no way." She proceeded to prove it to me and our conversation went to a dead stop. I tried to recover and pass it off as if I wasn't hitting on her for the past couple of minutes. She apologized to me several times for some reason. I told her that there was no need and I was just talking to her for entertainment. Then I pretended to get hungry, she pretended to have people to meet up with and we went our separate ways. The flight was normal, nothing out of the ordinary. I land right on time in America around 6pm. My brother had set up a dinner with my parents around 9ish. I get out of the security and immigration around 8ish. I call my brother and tell him I am here. He tells me he is a couple of minutes away. So there I was in Newark waiting for my brother. I couldn't believe I was home again. I was back in America, it seemed like Mars at the moment. I was in shock that I was in shock. Then I see my brother pull up in his car. I was wearing sunglasses and regular clothes. I see my brother and his fiance in the car. They are looking around in confusion. They were looking at me and I was looking straight at them. They could hardly disbelieve that I looked the way I looked. We all hugged it out for a couple of moments. Then we drive off for home. My brother and his fiance we super happy and still in disbelief. We were all excited to see the reaction from my parents. So we get to my area and my brother drops me off down the block so that no one suspects me being home. The plan was I hold on to my brother's cell phone and his fiance sends me a text message to come in. So there I was waiting and waiting and waiting until I get it. A couple of minutes later my brother comes running down my street. He informs me that his fiance forgot her cellphone at home. We have a quick laugh and he grabs the phone from me and tells me the new plan. He told my parents that he left his cellphone in the car. So he runs back into the house he told me to count to 60 before I come in. He walks into the house and I start counting. Once the 60 was over I started opening the door. I hear my parents talking in the background. My father was the first to see me and then my mother saw me a moment after. I said nothing to them. I quickly sit down and start eating food from the table. I wait for a few moments and I say "hey." My parents faces were just in shock. My father was half smiling and shock same as my mother. Everyone was in silence which seemed to last forever. Then my mother started crying. She cried for a while. She cried so much that we had to make sure that she was OK. After the initial shock we all start laughing and tell them what happened. Then I proceeded to yell at my parents for not listening to me about waiting to buy the tickets to see me. The night proceeded as normal. My parents were still in shock and I was just glad to be home. I ate some good home cooked food that I missed very much. We had a good night of laughs and happiness.

If I had a thousand words to describe the look on my parents faces I would. I do not have the capacity to write about it. I wish I had a camera at the time to show you all, but I did not. You have to take my word for it. I blew their minds and melted their faces.


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The End



You can't pay for a good surprise.


-Cezar-

You're what now?

Lies and Propaganda!

Hello all I am back from vacation. I need to confess something to all of you. I was not honest about my plans for vacation. I went back to America for 2 weeks to surprise my friends and family. I had to make a complete alibi about my whereabouts. I really wanted to keep my parents in the dark as much as possible. I lied to everyone that knew them and to people that didn't know them at all. The only people that knew were my brother and his fiance. So this is how the story unfolded.

Around June I had to make a decision on where I wanted to go to for vacation. I had several options. There was Japan, China or the Philippines. I had options and plans for any one of those places. I was on the fence on all three. I started to talk to my parents and my brother on where I could possibly go to for vacation. They of course pushed for me to come home. I was not completely sold on coming back so soon just for a quick visit. I was concerned that I was going to stay home rather then come back to South Korea. I think that is what my family wanted to happen too secretly. So I discussed the idea with my brother over an over. My parents kept on pushing and offering bribes for me to come home. Eventually I decided to come home. I wanted to make it a surprise to everyone. The issue was that my parents kept track of my bills, so I did not want them to be alerted with a ticket purchase for America. I asked my brother to pay for me so that I can pretend I had other plans for my parents. I bought my tickets and that is when the lies began. My parents initially thought I was going to the Philippines. I would have used that lie to sell the idea, but I have too much family there and my parents would have used all their contacts to help me find a place to sleep. So I told them I was going to spend 2 weeks in Japan. I thought that just telling them that would be enough of a cover story, I was wrong. Once I I sold them the idea, they wanted an itinerary for my trip. I did not know how or to show them a fake itinerary. So for a couple of weeks I played the card of I want to be independent. I booked my flight for August 1, so my I thought I could keep it up for a little while. I kept the lie alive for 2 or 3 weeks. They kept on insisting on the itinerary. I kept on insisting on not telling them at all. I got into a couple of verbal discussions with my parents about it. As August came closer my parents started not to believe the lies I told them. They started to suspect I was coming home.

It was nearly a week before I had planned to come home. My father had jokingly said that he knew what I had planning. I asked him what. He told me that he knew I was coming home. I told him that it was not true. This is the part where I knew my cover was blown. So I decided to make a new lie on top of the old lie. I asked my father if he wanted to know the truth, he said yes. This is the part where I had to make up a bigger harder lie. I told him that I met a girl. I told them that she and I will travel South Korea together. I had to make up her name, where she was teaching, where she was from, how we met and where we plan to go. I had to create this lie very early in the morning to my father. Once I set that lie, he lectured me about having a "special" friend. Then he went off to work. I was not surprised to get a call from my mother. She started asking me about my plans in Japan, as if she didn't speak to my father about my new "special" friend. I played along with her, then she started to ask about this new friend. I told her what I told my father about the girl. Since it was early morning all of my head was not in the game. I mixed up the state that she was from, but they both bought the lie. Then I received an email from the both of them. They bought tickets to visit me in South Korea in September. I kept the lie going for almost 2 months. I told my father not to buy tickets until November. Then they go and buy tickets 2 days before I come home. My brother instantly called me. He and I spoke about various options. We decided that nothing could be done and that they could try to cancel when I get home. So I wait until my flight to home.

I will take a break for now. There are many stories ahead starting at the airport.


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The End (for now)



The tangled webs we weave when we first deceive.


-Cezar-

Lies and Propaganda!