New Years Eve With Linda

Olongapo Market Place to buy her some things for her room, such as: a propane stove, a lamp, linoleum for the floors, wall coverings, and a big foam mattress and bed frame. I also bought her a table and chairs, an armoire for her clothes and an electric fan. It took three trips to bring all this stuff back from Olongapo Market Place. I finished Linda's room at around 7:00 p.m. and made it back to the hotel by 8:00. Linda came back from Manila around 9:00 p.m. and was exhausted from the bus trip. When she got to the hotel I told her I had a surprise for her. We went over to her new place and when I opened the door to her room she couldn't believe her eyes. She said she never had anyone do anything like this for her in her whole life! The next day we both went to the market place to buy more things she needed for her room. The market place is fun. It has some interesting things there and a lot of friendly people. This is where you will enjoy yourself the most when it comes to mixing it up with the locals. Food and clothing are very inexpensive in little market places like these. However Linda taught me shopping for anything such as food or clothes, it's not a good idea to have your American boyfriend right next to you.

She said the merchants will charge her more if they know she has her "rich American boyfriend" paying her bills. We bought some fresh crabs that were still alive and cooked them up with some rice and vegetables in a garlic ginger and butter sauce that night. I remember the whole meal cost us around $4. I found out that night that Linda was a hell of a cook. I asked her where she learned how to cook so good and she told me her mother taught her when she was seven years old. (I had trouble getting American women to cook for me in their thirties and forties!) Now that Linda was set up in her own place the next step was to make arrangements for Linda to have someone help her to get her passport and fill out any papers needed by the INS.

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