A week of craziness

Wow! What a hectic week! I’ve been insanely busy! And the madness continues… But at a slightly slower pace… For now anyway.

Bali was great! So happy to see Rocky and Arie again. Only had 2 night there tho, so not a lot of time to do much, but the main reason for staying there was to see them both again anyway. Spent most of my time there just hanging out, made a new friend Satria and played WOW, (really badly I might add… The game has changed a lot since I played it last) but it was fun all the same. Seeing Rocky and Arie after one year was awesome, and getting to stay at both their houses and see their families again.. And how fast Aries little sister is growing up. I wish I could have stayed there longer, but the visa conditions made it impossible... I was gone before I knew it.

I arrived in Jogja on Thursday.. Had no idea what I was doing, who I’d meet or what to expect. After arriving at Wisma Gadjah mada (the university guest house) nothing was much clearer. Haha… the following four days held a few not so interesting seminars, form filing for the police and immigration and kos (boarding house) hu

nting (more about that later) o

h, and also meeting all the amazing Anak ACICIS!! Its such a great group this year, I’ve heard of previous years where none of the group really clicked. But this year we’re all around the same age, and well, even the older students are great to hang out with. There are so many people from all over Australia! Its great to see, but at the same time, it was a strange feeling being in a room with so many other people interested in learning Indonesian… My Indo class has never been more than about 10 people.

I’m at home writing this.. I’ll upload later.. Maybe tomorrow… I’m in my new home.. My kos.. I can hear the groan of motorbikes in the distance and a pedagang kaki lima.. He’s hitting a bowl with a spoon, while pushing his cart, to let everyone know he’s coming, so if you’re a bit hungry, just go out side and grab a feed! My kos is great, its in a good location, Pogung Baru, and there are some really nice people here, even though I’ve only met 3 of them so far. The others are on holiday, but should be back soon… so there might be a little more activity around later.

The hunt for a kos was an interesting one. It started way out past the ring road, in some remote back streets, but soon changed to a more urban area after I explained to my pendamping that I need to walk to uni for at least a month. I liked the idea of the Karang area, abundant with local students, yet still good kos. But after asking around, most places seemed to be full already. There was one however, it didn’t look promising from the outside, and at only 200.000Rp per month ($30AUD) I didn’t expect much, there was a bed, a broken chair and a hole in the ceiling. It was a good starting place, but it wasn’t for me. Moving on, there was an ok kos, but af

ter taking a tour, we found it was for muslims only.. With no luck in the Karang area, we decided to go to the Pogung area, there were 2 kos yang cocok, both owned by th

e same person. I ended up choosing the first, its a nice kos with 6 rooms upstairs and 4 rooms downstairs. Mine is on ground level, a huge room, nice bed, 2 cupboards, a desk, and a shared  bathroom. Its all I really want in a kos, so I don’t think I’ll be moving anytime soon.

Woah! Its almost 7pm… I’ve gotta go meet a friend for dinner… Gonna be late.. I’ll finish this later…

….. Ok… I’m back… miss me? Its just after 10… just had dinner for about 40 cents.. Can you believe it?!

So where was I? …. Oh.. And sorry for this being HUGE… you’ll get over it… or not read it.. Either way :P oh yeah… about my kos… guess what?!?! Kufron left!!! He was our pembantu… and he’s gone… I was talking to him this morning, and he never said anything… apparently Ibu Kos wasn’t paying him properly… and just before I left for dinner… I found out he’s just left! :(  yeah.. It really sux… maybe I’ll see him around…

I met Ajeng a couple of days ago for dinner, she was holidaying in Jogja with her family, just for 2 days. But its a bit strange, cause she will be in australia for this year, and I will be here, but then.. When I finish my year here, she will move back.. Haha.. We’re just temporarily swapping countries.

Today was a big day for me.. Its the first day I’ve had all day to do whatever I wanted.. And after going shopping and realizing I hadn’t bought barely any

thing… I went again today.. Met up with Jimmy and set off for Amplas .. It stands for something.. But  can’t remember what.. Lol.. Its just a huge shopping centre. At 8:30AM we found out the h

ard way that it didn’t open till 10AM. So we wondered the streets and got excited about buying motorbikes.. They’re about 7 million second hand, and between 10 - 13 million new.. I’m thinking about getting a new one.. Its a lot of money, but I’ll be able to sell it at the end of the year anyway.. So maybe all in all it will cost me about 5 million. Haha.. Thats if I can get my licence here!

Ok.. So.. .shopping with Jimmy..bought some new Indo CD’s and DVD’s! :D … they weren’t on the list.. But I also got a towel, door mat and some sheets! Popeye sheets! Yes, you read correctly! Popeye! (and YES Jimmy, they ARE awesome!!! You’re just jealous) kinda strange how happy sheets can make you… I think its cause it made the room look different, so now its like its actually mine… not just a room I’m staying in.

Well.. This really is a huge blog… ok.. I better hurry up…

In other news, Brendan and Jimmy got a tour of an abandoned hotel, saw a car that looks similar to the bat mobile, they also forgot to buy fans for their rooms, so are now hot. Brendan then got lost and stuck in the rain with Karan on the way to dinner, but eventually managed to find everyone. Brendan is still under investigation and more information will be posted regarding his whereabouts as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention.

Ps... I forgot to upload my pics to my computer.. maybe later.. haha