One Afternoon with College Friends

Good evening! It's a beautiful and exhausting Sunday for me today. Finally, my friends and I had met after several reschedules since December.

Earlier this day, NatNat and I met for a matcha date. I told him yesterday about this matcha store which opened recently and he was like, "Let's go!". Lol. He's returning to his workplace tomorrow so we squeezed in a few hours together before he leaves. He also drove me to my friends' meet up place and yep..my friends were surprised and couldn't stop asking when they saw him. Lmao.

We met at our friend's church/chapel where he is working as a pastor. His Sunday duties were already done in the morning so he's now free to join us.

These friends I met were from college. What I like about them is that our bond was still exactly the same like it was more than a decade ago. Expect to laugh until your stomach hurts when they start reminiscing our student life. I laughed so hard at one of our guy friends revelation that one of our transgender classmate confessed to him back in 2012 because everyone thought the world was ending. Haha.

Of course, a reunion isn't complete without talking about our other classmate and trying our best to remember their names and their group of friends. Like one classmate who became a teacher, the other a magazine photographer, and a gay classmate becoming a pastor.

We had more laughter after noticing how "pasmado" or unfiltered some of our friends' words were while talking about changes in our body due to aging. Aside from the laughters, we also talked about finance, health, and investments. We're really getting old! I wonder when can we meet again.

Four hours felt very short. One of our friends had to leave early because she had another reunion to attend to. Meanwhile, we continued our chitchat at a cafe. We were supposed to go to a cafe with a roof deck area but our pastor friend who drove his electric bike decided that we go to Shell Cafe instead because it's beside the road and easier for us to go home later on.

This was my first time to ride an electric bike. It was kind of scary because the hand rail on the side was only small but good thing our friend drives safely.

Our friends who were driving ahead of us were already at the cafe we first agreed on and was already at the roof deck. They drove back and got to Shell Cafe few minutes later. Lol.

I've heard already about Shell Cafe on social media and people have good reviews about their drinks and foods. They have good selections of foods and drinks. And they're affordable! The pastries also looked delicious.

I ordered a small Iced Hazelnut Latte (Php 120) and Choco Almond Twist (Php 72). The drink was good, I liked it, but the pastry was just okay.

I was the first to order and didn't know one of our friends paid for the rest of the order. Damn! She came late so she volunteered to pay for our foods. She just gave me one of her take out revel bar orders. Haha.

I'm not sure what drinks did they ordered but for the pastries we had choco almond twist, revel bar, banana loaf and cinnamon. The cinnamon was good but we liked the revel bar the most. It was delicious.

Our friend brought his son with us, the reason for the toy cars on the photo. Lol. He was very patient even though his son was throwing the toy cars out of the table.

Of course, the usual top shot for social media upload even though most of us are no longer very active. We just upload the photos on our group chat and gets buried and forgotten.

It was already 6 P.M. and we decided to go home. Our two guy friends already drove off because they just live near the area while us ladies rode the jeepney to get to the next city where we'll separate ways.

It was fun being with them again. These were the people I can be myself without much judgement. The people I shared the good times and struggles of college life. I'm thankful to still have them around even after many years.