I had a very nice day spent with cuzin Nicky whom I've missed so much since he's been living in Japan for the last nine months. He's only here for the Christmas break but the whole clan is so happy to see him.
In the Zurbano clan (my mom's side), I have 9 cuzins all-in-all, all blood-related. Being the eldest granddaughter in the family, I was everyone's Ate, and in return, all my cuzins are very special to me and they all have unique relationships with me.
As for Nicky, everyone in the family respects that other than being very close as cuzins, we are the bestest of friends. That's why it is a common scenario that Nicky and I have dates--solo dates, with no other cuzins and/or our significant others with us.
And today was no different. Since Nicky is here for two weeks, everyone knew that one of these days, we would go out. And we did that today.
We had lunch at Pancakes, this time I treated him because before he was always treating me out. We shared Fish & Chips, Pizza and Pancakes. Iba daw kasi ang Fish and Chips sa Japan kaya I ordered that for him.
We talked about a lot of things, of how we were for the past nine months. He told me a lot of his adventures in Japan, their way of living there, how people are more respectful, the food that they eat at kung anu-ano pang mga kwentong-Japan that will make you want to go there. Nakakatuwa. Just hearing him talk about his life in Japan, makes me so proud of him because he was able to survive there even without his family and friends. Iba talaga ang nagagawang change sa pagkatao mo if you move to another country or you immerse yourself in travel.
In the course of our discussion, we both agreed that if one stays in their home country for the rest of their life or never even travel to other places, the person becomes complacent. And if you are complacent, not much growth happens in your life. When you travel and/or live in another country, even for just awhile, you will really change---you will be mature in some ways or grow in lots of ways and you'll have a bigger perspective in life.
Nasabi ko tuloy sa kanya, "Now you know how it feels to move and be able to survive even if you start from zero again, such a nice feeling 'no? The fullfillment is enormous." And he agreed.
Anyway, after a lot of serious and not-so-serious conversations, we ended the day by hanging out in my room and fixing my computer (he's our IT guy hehehe). The family will surely miss him again when he goes back to Japan but we'll always be here for him no matter where he is. And the other thing we agree on---even if we love other countries, Sydney will always be home. :)
