The Nine-Day Staycation

To signal the end of the Ramadan, the holy month in the Islamic calendar, the Eid holidays have given expatriates like me a total of five working days off including two weekends (that's two Thursdays and Fridays). *counts with fingers* I had a total of nine days for a vacation. And it's probably the only vacation I'm going to experience the whole year.

I originally wanted to secretly go back home to experience the beach again (not that there aren't any beaches here, I actually live near one) aside from wanting to surprise my family and friends. My plan instantly crumbled upon learning the price of a single round trip airline ticket. It has doubled tripled its value days before Ramadan even started. I honestly couldn't afford it specially since I'm helping my family financially more than ever.

There was no other choice for me but to stage a staycation. What's a staycation? It's a relatively new buzzword that is "a portmanteau that combines 'stay' and 'vacation' and refers to a holiday that takes place either at or near home," according to Consumer Reports.

I wanted those days to be a 216-hour continuum of uninterrupted sleep and bumming around, but that blissful dream, sadly, never transpired into reality. I even wrote down a list of what to do during those nine days before it even started yet no one from the list got scrapped off. I never imagined those days will go by as if I just batted my eyelashes for nine times.

If there was a memo evangelizing ignorant people like me who never knew vacations can turn into a living, morbid nightmare, shame on you for hoarding that info.

Whining is a good stress-reliever, no? ;P

P.S. I'm thinking that I might do some posts of the highlights (eh? sure, if you can call them that) of my staycation.