Part 1
BINANGONAN, RIZAL. Amidst the worldwide anxiety on the spread of influenza virus A(H1N1), earlier named as swine flu, I attended the first World Social Science Forum held at Bergen, Norway, and had a side-trip in the Netherlands. This sojourn was made possible through a full grant generously given by the International Social Science Council, which was facilitated by our very own Philippine Social Science Council. I presented a research poster based on my dissertation project entitled, Value Formation of Inactive Filipino Youth, better known in the country as “istambay”.
The flight from Manila to Amsterdam was long. I have a bad cold and dry cough but because I was conscious not to solicit attention, I brought with me medicated candies. What was noticeable during this flight was that only few people dared to cough; a rarity in my years of travel – thanks to the widely spread news about the new influenza virus. After watching two movies and a few chats with Ruth, a friend from the University of the Philippines and a fellow research poster presenter, I was able to rest well.
At Schiphol airport (Amsterdam), we met Butch, another fellow Filipino presenter. After nearly three hours of waiting, we took another two-hour flight to Bergen, Norway, our final destination. At the Bergen airport we met another Filipino presenter, Windi. The four of us were welcomed by the cold and rainy Norwegian spring weather (around 6 degrees Celcius). Unfortunately, we missed the 11:00 pm bus that shall take us to our hotel. We waited for the last scheduled bus at 11:50 pm, and we reached Rica Hotel past midnight. It was raining so hard and all of us were soaked into the cold water foreign to our tropical skin. This is Bergen’s way of welcoming visitors from warm countries like us; a free cold nature’s bath with wind that tunes up our tropical expectations into chilly realities – welcome to a cold country!
I finally got to sleep in a heated room and a warm bed at around 2am, Norwegian time. What a long cold day indeed!
