Cafe Katerina, Tanay

I celebrated my 26th birthday last Tuesday, September 11th and as part of my celebration, Tim decided to take me to six places in two days. So I decided I will be writing about each place that we visited in separate posts. I'll start with the first three in this one.

Okay, so I know the itinerary isn't anything grande but my husband seemed to know me well with the places he chose. For starters, we kicked our Monday morning with brunch at Chili Chan, which I have written about before in this post so I'll start with location #2 which was Cafe Katerina in Tanay, Rizal.

Cafe Katerina is a quite popular roadtrip restaurant located along the Marilaque route in Sampaloc, Tanay. It boasts a good selection of food including sandwiches, tapsilog, short orders, grilled meat meals, and even pulutan for when you decide to grab a bottle of beer or something, (NOTE: NEVER drink and drive!)

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Tim and I just had brunch at Chili Chan's not more than an hour when we arrived at Cafe Katerina so we just decided to grab some coffee, a slice of their Oreo cheesecake, and their bacon and egg sandwich. Tim had the brewed coffee and as usual, I ordered an iced latte. All in all, we spent about 390php and for the quality of their beverages, their satisfying and filling snacks, plus the great view of the mountains, I'd say we got our money's worth.

The weather was a bit gloomy that day and if you know me at all you know that gloomy is my sunniest day. I was just so happy that the sun wasn't up so high, it was really a perfect day for a motorcycle ride that's why we decided to extend our trip a little and visit Regina Rica not too far away from Cafe Katerina. And yes, totally Tim's idea... it's not like religious places are my ideas anyway but I am glad that he had the day planned out.

Regina Rica became location #3 of my birthday celebration and as what we usually do when we visit the premises, we light several candles and I always light candles for my beloved grandpa and uncle. As you know I'm not religious at all, but praying for my grandpa and uncle, and my personal healing in a place like that gives me so much comfort.

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No word or phrase will ever be enough for me to express my gratefulness to Tim for spontaneously taking me out on a ride, on a Monday, too no less. I honestly don't feel like celebrating my birthday as I know I can't make travel plans like I used to. In the past couple of years, I've celebrated my birthdays alone. I am often on a bus alone to someplace I've never been before on my own. I guess what Tim was trying to imply was that, those days are over no matter how much I try to glorify those experiences, I will no longer spend my birthdays alone.

Knowing that makes me feel warm on the inside. Tim isn't exactly the roses and chocolates type of guy, heck he doesn't even like hugging me in public and as frustrating as that might be to me at times being a hopeless romantic and all, I'm slowly learning of his other methods of showing his love and affection.

Kayo? Anong mas gusto ninyo: excessively romantic type or medyo suplado ang dating? hahaha