REMEDY: The Supposedly Nice Turned Epic Fail Turned Nice Adventue!!

- March 13, 2010, Saturday, Neighbor Charmaine's Birthday

- I had been excited since the day I saw the poster for the Fete de la Langue Francaise (Festival of the French Language) to be held in the Alliance Francaise de Manille building in Makati.

- I thought of inviting Charmaine because it was her birthday, and I wanted to have an adventure for both of us. Both of us had some stuff to do at school this morning, and we promptly headed towards Alliance Francaise around 11:45 in the morning.

- After the almost hour and a half trip to Alliance Francaise, I found the building to be unlit and empty, which reminded me of what Ms. Clavel in Madeline would say: "Something is not right."

- We went inside the building and asked one of the staff about the supposed language fest. We found out however, that the Alliance Francaise building caught fire last Friday, and obviously, they had to cancel today's event. They didn't have electricity, and gladly the phone lines were fixed. At least the whole building didn't burn down though, but still, it was a surprising bad news.

- With all our hopes down, both of us visited the building across Alliance Francaise. It was a building that had many art galleries, high-class furniture shops, and a few cafes or so. Some classrooms of the Alliance Francaise can also be found in that building.

- Since I hadn't eaten lunch then (Charmaine ate lunch while she waited for me earlier in school,) I decided to try Caruso Cafe located at the ground floor.

- The moment I saw the menu, I nearly fainted. The dishes were as expensive as hell. Then again, I tried their penne all'arrabiata, and it was indeed filling, and "molto delizioso!!" Of course I have to commend their great staff, as well as the complimentary free bread and olive-oil-balsamic-vinegar-and-cheese dip. I think Charmaine also enjoyed her mocha frap.

- Thinking of places to go before we come home, I realized that Greenbelt wasn't too far away. Some coursemates had told me about their "event" in Greenbelt's Gelatone for their Events Management class, under our awesome department chair, Sir Sev Sarmenta. They would be selling gelato like they always do, but part of their earnings would be given to charity.

- Charmaine and I rode a jeep to Greenbelt, and hurriedly went to Gelatone to grab some gelato - the perfect thing on an EXTREMELY HOT summer day.

- Charmaine and I walked around Greenbelt after getting our gelato. We even went to Greenbelt 5 and introduced Charmaine to Royce chocolates. We tasted some of their best selling chocolates. That made my day a little more sweeter.

- We went home around an hour of walking around Greenbelt, tired from the sun's heat and all the walking. (We even napped inside the LRT.)

- I would be lying if I said that I'm still very happy about not being able to attend the event in Alliance Francaise. Then again, no one wanted what happened to the building. At least I had a nice time with Charmaine, and I hoped she liked her tiring birthday adventure. The gelato scoops did make me happier, as well as meeting friends (and Sir Sev) during the event. I hope that if ever the Fete de la Langue Francaise would be postponed, it would be on a day when I'll be available. I'll be starting my internship soon, and I might not have much time to entertain my social life. Howell. :|:|:|:|