Same Drink, Different Person
Same Drink, Different Person
Sans Rival Bistro's iced cappuccino seemed so familiar, and it was interesting to have the same drink as an entirely different person.
My husband Tim and I flew to Dumaguete in mid-June. I had been accepted into the Silliman University National Writers Workshop, and we decided to go there a week before the sessions officially began so we could have some sort of vacation first. We thought it was a great idea since he had not been there before.
One of the places we visited was Sans Rival Bistro along Rizal Boulevard. My initial reaction upon setting foot in it again after seven years was that it hadn’t changed much. Its food and drinks had had a price increase, though. Its famous Sans Rival spaghetti, for instance, was now priced at Php140 per serving. If I remember correctly, it was just around a hundred pesos in 2016. Even its iced cappuccino’s price had gone up from around Php60 to Php70.
But what really struck me was this: The drink looked the same as the last time I’d ordered it. It was still served in that familiar mason jar with the same-looking paper straw. Even the way the cinnamon was sprinkled on the drink’s froth was no different than how it had been years ago.
Interestingly, I realized all this while enjoying the drink at the very same spot I’d fallen in love with during my previous visit. It was like things had come full circle, except I was now an entirely different person and sharing the table with my husband—someone I had never thought would come into my life.
More importantly, I now had the time and energy to write—something 2016 me could only dream of. In fact, when she saw Silliman University for the first time, her only reaction was, “Wow, so this is where that famous writers workshop takes place!” She had no idea that in seven years, she would be back on the very same campus not as a mere visitor checking out its anthropology museum’s collections but as a fellow for creative nonfiction.
Life, indeed, is full of surprises.