u/yerbamateblood

Flying into Manila 12/23, flying out 1/10, looking for somewhere off the beaten track

Hello r/travel folks, I (26m) and my friend (27f) are trying to decide between two trips to take from 12/25-ish to 1/10-ish. We’re flying from Boston. Our first option is inland Mexico: Guanajuato capital, Huasteca Potosina, maybe Xico in Veracruz, maybe Angangueo in Michoacán to see the monarchs. Our second is the Philippines—fly into Manila, stay there for the new year’s putukan, then head to an off-the-beaten-path island like Sibuyan and/or up into the highlands of Luzon.

In the past we’ve traveled to Morocco together (loved the High Atlas, hated Marrakech and Essaouira with a passion). She’s traveled to Thailand, Laos, Jordan, Turkey, and a bunch of continental Europe; I’ve traveled to Ukraine, Cuba, Japan, and a bunch of continental Europe.

I’ve been to Guanajuato capital once before, loved it, never been outside of Guanajuato in Mexico. Never been to the Philippines. I do speak like intermediate Spanish. My friend is as torn as I am, has never been to either Mexico or the Philippines, and does not speak Spanish.

Neither of us are enthusiastic city people, what’s most important is to get off the beaten path, meet friendly locals, have spontaneous adventures, and hopefully experience some natural beauty in the process.

It’s about twice as expensive to fly to Manila as it is to fly to BJX (Bajío) but then it looks quite a bit cheaper to travel around in the Philippines. I’m aware that there are some security concerns in the state of Guanajuato so clearly we would keep our meanders away from places like Celaya and Irapuato.

Any and all advice is appreciated!

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Hey all, I'm a novelist and my next novel is partially set in Pedro. I'm coming to visit in the second week of Sept to do some research (btw, if anyone wants to be my local Pedro tour guide, I'd be most grateful<3) but in the meantime I wanted to ask: What to exclude, what to include? What pitfalls to avoid? What would make you roll your eyes, and what would ring true?

Thank you so much <3

Hey all, I've never been to PH before and I'm going for 18 days over Christmas and New Year's (23/12-10/1). I'd love to be in Manila for New Year's Eve because of the fireworks. I would also love to visit Sibuyan because I've been fascinated by some of PH's smaller islands for a long time (Sibuyan, Biliran, Maripipi) and Sibuyan seems least affected by amihan.

Do you think Sibuyan is possible to visit at this time of year or will amihan make it a headache?

Do you think in general this is a good time of year to visit PH?

Do you have any advice for me?

Thank you so much!

There are people who think contraception is immoral because the object of copulation is procreation. In a similar way there are people who think the only reason to read a book is to write a book; people should call up books from the dust and the dark and write thousands of words to be sent down to the dust and the dark which can be called up so that other people can send further thousands of words to join them in the dust and the dark. Sometimes a book can be called from the dust and the dark to produce a book which can be bought in shops, and perhaps it is interesting, but the people who buy it and read it because it is interesting are not serious people, if they were serious they would not care about the interest they would be writing thousands of words to consign to the dust and the dark. -Helen DeWitt, The Last Samurai

reminding myself (and all of you) of this quote as I write my second novel, which is causing me immense anxiety

I have been standing in this line for three hours, waiting for my audience with the lone Delta gate agent. This line is a microcosm of America. In front of me is a man wearing a Playboy tee shirt. He looks like Botero sculpted him out of 200 quarts of refried beans. Every few minutes his phone rings loudly and answers in Brazilian Portuguese, in a voice eroded by decades of untreated gastric reflux. He is America.

Many strangers—mostly women—are talking to each other, because they’re Americans, bonding over tenuous commonalities. (“Oh, I have an aunt in Rhode Island!”) Black, white, Asian, Hispanic—we are all stuck in this fucking line. An Indonesian woman in a headscarf and a black lady in a tracksuit agree that Freida McFadden’s “The Housemaid” was a disappointment.

There is a bald, goateed white man in calf-length cargo shorts and a baseball cap. He is standing next to a bald black man in skinny jeans wearing a gold chain. Their postures are identical, their arms crossed over their chests, staring up toward the ceiling, periodically sighing and shaking their heads, as if they’re imitating each other.

America has the ugliest tattoos. America’s ass looks terrible in those jeans. America is wearing matching dropshipped Lilo and Stitch sweatpants and tee shirts. America is 340 million children smearing 340 million iPad screens with their greasy little fingers.

Hey r/blind I'm a 20-something American who used to teach English to primary schoolers abroad. I'm in a totally different line of work now but I've kept in touch with a few of my former students and their families. One of my former students (he's now 16) was diagnosed with Stargardt disease a year and a half ago. In the time since I've seen him, he's gone from completely sighted to something like 20% vision, and he's expected to become completely blind within the next year. He's coming to the US to stay with me for a while as he participates in a clinical trial. I have zero knowledge of what it's like to become blind or be blind, and I need as much advice and help as I can get. If any of you would be generous enough with your time and energy to answer my questions, I'd really appreciate it.

(I would ask his parent, but she's honestly not a functional person, which is another reason he's coming to stay with me for a while.)

My main question is: how can I best support him while he's in my care? Is there anything I should definitely do, pitfalls to avoid? How do sighted people annoy you (so I can avoid being an annoying sighted person)?

He is from a developing country with no accessibility or infrastructure to support a blind person. There are very few avenues there for blind people to live independently or participate in society. He has never used or had access to a cane or a screen reader, never learned Braille, clearly doesn't have access to a slate and stylus. I don't want to overwhelm him, but I also would like him to have the opportunity while he's in the US to develop skills that can give him an independent adult life. What do you think should be the top priority here?

Thank you all for any advice you can give.

I’m an American who was visiting friends in France when I accidentally spilled a drink on my 2022 MacBook Air. The display started acting strangely but the computer still worked, so I brought it to an Apple Store in France.

I showed them I had AppleCare+, but they said diagnosis would take about 10 days and I was leaving France before then, so I kept using the laptop temporarily.

That same night, the battery started overheating/burning and the computer stopped turning on entirely. I immediately brought it back to the Apple Store. They again said they needed around 10 days for diagnosis and would repair components individually rather than replace the machine outright.

Since I had to leave France, I left the MacBook with a friend, who submitted it for diagnosis on my behalf.

Now Apple says they found an “additional problem” not covered by AppleCare+: allegedly the display had previously been replaced. But that makes no sense because I bought this MacBook brand new in 2022 and have NEVER had the screen replaced or repaired by anyone.

I’m trying to understand what the best course of action is here, where and how best to escalate this.

I’m especially frustrated because I’ve been paying for AppleCare+ continuously, and now it feels like they’re pulling out all the stops to try to avoid honoring the coverage

Any advice appreciated.