Project 365

One afternoon chat with my lovely brother. How I miss him so.

Such a hectic day today 🙂 Jessie picked me up in the morning to go to her place in Utrecht. I helped her moved; coz she’s moving back to her mom’s in Helmond. There were so many stuff and the car was extremely full! She even felt like the car stood a bit lower LOL. Once we arrived in Helmond, I helped her unpack some of her stuff and re-arrange her room. It was tiring yet I enjoyed being with her 🙂

After the whole moving out-in drama, we went to Eindhoven to attend our friend’s farewell party. We stayed there for quite a while to wait for Ari and Qonita who came all the way from Hamburg, Germany. The four of us went to Helmond again to Jessie’s house and had the second dinner 😛 We talked talked and talked…

This would be the last time I saw Jessie before she’s leaving for Indonesia on Thursday. I’m going to miss her so much! We’ve been spending so much time together these days and it feels weird now that she won’t be around for two months. But anyhow, I really had a great day today 🙂 The sun was shining til 25 degrees Celsius (and I was hoping I got a bit tanned, but apparently not). The laughter. The talk. Everything was great. 🙂

I can’t keep smiling to find Marge Simpson’s portrait posing as the Girl with a Pearl Earring (picture below). This is a painting by a famous Dutch painter called Vermeer. It’s one of my most favorite paintings :) 

Visiting Paris is a dream to many people. And I’m lucky enough to be able to go there twice. It’s a pretty city with many gardens scattered everywhere. What I like about Paris is that, although it’s such a huge and crowded city, it’s a great place to just hang out, do a picnic, walk along the Seine River, or just sit somewhere. It’s surprisingly not polluted (compared to Jakarta!). And I enjoyed it so much when I was there.

Anyway, this is a picture I found posted on somebody else’s tumblr. This is a picture of Palais du Louvre (Louvre Palace) where the Louvre Museum is located. It’s usually packed with tourists!!! Probably this picture was taken early in the morning. Stunning, as usual.

It was a REALLY hectic day for me today. I had to attend my friend’s wedding in a small city called Enschede, about 3 hours from Eindhoven (if you live here, you know that 3 hours is very far!). The ceremony was at 2pm and I had to take a train from Eindhoven at 10.45am. As I was still in Helmond on that day, I had to wake up early in the morning to go back to Eindhoven.

I reached home at 8am and quickly took shower and had breakfast. Good thing I had thought about which dress I would put on days before the wedding. Otherwise it’s going to be even more chaotic! I decided to wear my modern kebaya and a trouser (since the wedding was going to be less formal, I tried not to be too formal and over-dressed). I put on my make up quickly — the quickest time I had ever done!! — and rushed to the train station. I forgot to buy a card for the newlyweds (I bought a wrong card — an engagement card LOL… coz everything was in Dutch), so I bought it in the train station. I ALMOST missed the train. Phew.

The whole journey took for 3 hours and more. I had to change the train in Utrecht and took a bus from Enschede Central Station to the destination. The wedding was held in the house of the bride’s mom and only few people were invited. The bride is one of my good friends here, Maureen, whom I met when I worked at the Boekenfestijn in Rotterdam 2 years ago. The wedding was announced all of the sudden, I ALMOST couldn’t attend it! But I was glad I did. To see the happy couple on their big day was amazing. To witness the whole process was mind-blowing.

I was asked to read a verse in the Qur’an and at that time I just realized that it was the first time for me to witness a wedding ceremony. I really didn’t know what to expect. Haha. Anyway, I met few friends of mine whom I hadn’t seen for ages! It was great seeing them. I took a train back to Utrecht with them and it was good coz I had somebody to talk to! LOL. Great day, as usual.

Congrat’s once again, Maureen 🙂

Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day) is a national holiday in the Netherlands which celebrates the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands and symbolizes a national unity and togetherness. Queen’s day is one of the most celebrated holidays in the Netherlands, where people dress in orange (which refers to the name of the Dutch royal family, The House of Orange) and gather in the center of the city (in Dutch: centrum) for parties, concerts, etc. The centrum of all big cities in the Netherlands are generally packed with people, with most main roads are closed to cater for many entertainment events. Amsterdam is perhaps the most visited city for the Queen’s Day. A friend of mine told me that even the trains leading to the city had to be suspended due to the exploding number of people in the Central Amsterdam train station.

On this special day, anyone in the country are also allowed to sell things in the streets without being taxed. As I’m not a big fan of being around with drunk people and loud music, I preferred to spend this year’s Queen’s Day helping teh Rita and others selling many things on the market. I got the opportunity to practice my Dutch speaking skill with the customers and Oma Yana (pictured). It was a fun day; we managed to be there from 9am til 3pm and got about 70 Euros!!! I was so happy. The money would be used for our religious activities (i.e. mosque) and donated to Indonesia. I was very satisfied 🙂

I also went around the market to hunt for cheap stuff. I was looking for Scrabble, the game I used to play when I was a teen, but found none (I found the children version though). I bought two beautiful necklaces for 50 cents (both!). It was worth it!

We went home (back to teh Rita’s place) at 3pm and it took us more than half an hour to reach home! All roads leading to centrum were closed for concerts (the music was very loud, it could be heard from as far as teh Rita’s place! — about 2 kilometers from centrum). I was quite tired by then and decided to take a rest about an hour before continuing to cook for our weekly pengajian.

Staying over at teh Rita’s place today. I had to help her cooking but I ended up helping mas Umar with the RDF thing. I learnt new thing today about RDF, for sure 🙂

As there’s another guest of teh Rita who’s staying over tonight, I’m going to sleep at her daughter’s room. I really love the room! So cozy and pink! It’s not my favorite color but this room was the kind of room I longed to have when I was still a kid. I used to love looking at IKEA catalogues and dreaming about the sort of room I would like to have. It was a little kid’s wish. I’m kinda reminiscing about my awesome childhood memories.

Balinese dancer. I love this picture. So Indonesian. So vintage. So priceless.

Indonesian children 🙂

I’ve been having a healthier breakfast or brunch everyday since I was sick 2 weeks ago. I usually opt for fresh milk and cereal in the morning, but because I’m still coughing I try to avoid cold milk for now. So I’ve been drinking delicious Chocomel everyday. I’m also a big fan of any kind of cheese, butter, or margarine and I can’t miss it on my breakfast! To add a little bit of “energy”, I add tuna salad spread which is really delicious 😀 Not to forget a fruit, of course.

I miss banana milk, the white milk, and the cereal. I can’t wait til the day I’m totally free from cough 😉

But for now, I enjoy this kind of breakfast/brunch!

Jessie, Ari, and I were supposed to wake up at 8am today. We planned to go to Lisse, a town made famous for tulip fields and the biggest flower garden in the world: Keukenhof. But none of us seemed to hear the alarm and the next thing we knew, it was already 10.30 am! LOL!

Today wasn’t as beautiful as yesterday though. The sun was hiding and it was forecasted to be raining. It was a bit chilly too (good thing I brought my coat this time!). But we went to Lisse anyway. We rented a bike near the Keukenhof and cycled around the town to see the flower fields (especially the tulips!). It was beautiful! Such an amazing thing to see massive fields with different colors of flowers scattered for many kilometers! Although I did the same thing last year, it was still worth doing! 🙂

We went back to Utrecht at around 8pm to pick up my stuff at Jessie’s place and went straight to Eindhoven. Overall, I had a super great weekend with my girls 🙂 Really enjoyed the laugh and the talks we had! Next plan is: ice skating 😉