Project 365

The Boeken Festijn has ended. Today was my last day of working there. I worked from 12pm til 10.30pm! It was tiring, as usual. But I had SOO much fun with the people I worked with; my new friends. We had a lunch break together and some brought foods to share with. Ian brought a delicious kentang kering (dried potatoes), kak Linda & Sam brought some kerupuk (and something else, probably? I forgot!), and I brought macarona bechamel (a left over from the dinner party last night). We ate together, took pictures, made jokes, and laughed… while visitors passed us by probably wondering what in the world we were doing there! Hehehe. It was as if we had our own world and we didn’t give a damn on other people hihihi.

Too bad that we couldn’t work together anymore! But we planned on meeting up (and reunion) in the beginning of April and I just couldn’t wait for it! Hope to see you all sooooon!

* Picture taken by Maureen. L-R: mbak Dessy, Bahri, Ian, Sam, me, kak Linda, Indah.

Finally! I got Jane Austen’s complete novels in one thick book! I’m so happy!!! 🙂

* Mbak Dessy gave me this book. I was supposed to pay this book but she refused!!! Thank you so much mbak! :-*

Vanessa and I invited some friends for dinner today at her place. Actually, I wanted to do it at my place, but there are no space to accommodate 10-15 people. So I decided to host dinner together with Vanessa; as both of us haven’t get the chance to do that since we first moved to our new place.

I cooked two different dishes. First was an Egyptian macarona bechamel which had become a famous dish among my friends. I’ve made it several times and friends have come to me to request cooking it 🙂 It is very delicious and I admit that I’m good at making it! Hahaha. That’s the only dish that I’m confident about without having the chance of cooking failure! LOL.

The second dish I cooked was ayam kecap which was the easiest recipe I had ever discovered! (And thank you, mbak Ina for publishing the recipe!). The first time I cooked it was a total failure, because apparently I put too much butter in it. But this time I knew how much I had to put and the dish turned out quite good! At least, everyone loved it! And they loved kecap tooo! (I brought a big bottle of it and told them how to eat it with rice hihihi – the Indonesian way!).

Vanessa and I cooked too much foods. We were expecting at least 15 people to show up but many of them cancelled in the last minute. So we ate too much and our stomach was stuffed! Ah, it was great 🙂

The Book Festival @ Brabanthallen

A book that has 300 recipes for Nutella!

taking a pic with a DJ bfore he’s famous

Some ppl are working, some are posing…

Bahri & Linda working 🙂

Bosche bollen — a must eat! Super!!!

Today was the second day I worked at the Book Festival. I went to Den Bosch with my friend Bahri as well as my new friends Maureen and mbak Dessy (who stayed over at my place for few days). We decided to take a bus as it was much cheaper (although it took us 1 hour to get to Den Bosch; compared to only 20 minutes by train hehehe). Once we arrived, we went straight to buy Bossche bol, which was a super delicious chocolate ball and was only available in Den Bosch! It was my second time eating it, and I couldn’t be happier! 😀

I took few pictures today when I was working at the Book Festival. It was in low quality though, as I took them with my poor mobile phone. But anyway, that’s how the festival was going to be like. The place was quite huge. My job was to unload and arrange those books; it involved a lot of carrying, pushing, sorting, walking, good eyes, and good memory. We worked for 9 hours for the preparation of the festival and got 15 minutes break every few hours (1 hour in total). Today was the last day of the festival’s preparation (tomorrow is the opening), so I worked longer than expected and went home quite late.

The good thing was I went home with Bahri so at least I wasn’t alone and had someone to talk with. We had a good conversation on the way back and we reached Eindhoven at around 9.30pm. Quite late, huh? But anyway, there were a lot of things to be thankful for. Judging by the pictures, didn’t I look happy (though tired)? Hehehe.

I work at the Boeken Festijn (Book Festival) again this week. This is my third time working in this festival (I worked in Rotterdam and Eindhoven previously). I’ll be working for only three days though; trying to get money for my Easter trip. Den Bosch is only 20 minutes away by train from Eindhoven, so it’s not far at all.

Anyway, I really enjoy working at this festival. Besides having the opportunity to see the books and buy them with the discounted price, I get the chance to meet new people, including Indonesians living in different parts of the Netherlands. They are mostly students and ex-students who are searching for permanent jobs and trying to survive in this country buy being part-timers. I do admit that sometimes I’m quite hesitant to meet Indonesian students; mainly because I don’t feel that I think the same way as them. We have different lifestyles. We have different ways of thinking. We have different stuff to talk about.

But these Indonesian people that I usually meet at the Book Festival are of different category. Perhaps they’re more mature. Or they don’t mind to work and try not to spend their parent’s money. Or they’re humble. Either way, I feel like I belong into the right group.

Although the work is quite tiring, but every time I have a break, I always have wonderful time. Laughing. Cheering. Even to the point… screaming! Hahaha. It is such a joy to be entertained and to be “freshed” again when I go back to work after a 15-mins break.

I’m off to work again tomorrow. I have to wake up early and gain extra energy. Good night, people!

I went to have dinner at Andreea’s place at her Spacebox today. Andreea and I took the Communication Skills class last semester, together with Shilpa, Evans, and Ciprian. There were only five of us in the class, so we knew each other quite well. The class has ended few months ago, so we decided to have dinner together. All five us had to cook and bring a food (potluck). I brought an Indonesian food, gulai, which turned out to be okay (not superb or something 😛 ). Shilpa made some Indian foods (complete with raita and a starter!), Andreea made a roasted pork (which I couldn’t eat unfortunately), while Evans made some bean curry. Sadly to say, Ciprian wasn’t there! He decided not to come in the last minute!! And I wasn’t happy about that!!! But thankfully, Andreea invited her friend so Evans wasn’t the only guy there 😀

Anyway, we had a super great time! Besides the foods (of course!), we did a karaoke. Andreea recorded a video for that and I’m sure it’s awful! Hahaha. She also taught us a dance she did at the student organization; which was quite fun!!!

Next week, a friend of mine, Vanessa, and I are going to host dinner at her place. I’m looking forward to it. I don’t know what I’m going to cook (yet!) but I’m hoping that it’s going to be a fun evening! I think there’ll be many people coming (as I kept on inviting people I met!!!). Hope it won’t make me broke hahaha. Can’t wait for it!

Surprise! I got a postcard from my friend Wiza today! 🙂 It instantly made my day!! Wiza was traveling around Tasmania, Australia (an island I never got to visit!). She and I have been exchanging postcards for some time now. Both of us love to travel to different places, so we send each other postcards for every few months.

Thanks so much my dear. Can’t wait for the New Zealand’s postcard, W! 🙂

I’ve spent this whole week completing a project assignment with my group mates. The project is supposed to finish last semester, but we kept on delaying it on and on. The motivation in my group (and myself) had disappeared for so long. And it was really hard at the beginning to resume the project again!

Nevertheless, we managed to finish the report. Tomorrow is our presentation. I’m not really sure about the quality of the report. But I hope it isn’t too bad. Fingers crossed.

Let’s just say, I’m glad we’ve completed it.

Dinner at Agni’s place on 25 Feb.

This is a beautiful village in Austria called Hallstatt. It’s located about 1 hour from King’s Lake. Isn’t it a pretty place??? I’m not sure if we can visit this village, but I’ll suggest it to my friends later for the trip! 🙂