Project 365

The beautiful King’s Lake (Königssee) in Bavaria, Germany. Such a beautiful place.

I’m super excited now! My friends and I have just planned another road trip around Europe, and this time to Paris, King’s Lake (Königssee) in Bavaria, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria. Three countries in 3 days with 2 super strong female drivers! Awesome!

We’re planning to start our trip on Thursday (1 April) evening to Paris. We’re gonna stay there til Friday afternoon before heading for Munich (or any other cities nearby in Bavaria) to spend a night at. On Saturday morning we’ll drive to the amazingly beautiful King’s Lake (and other places in Bavaria, but I haven’t explored which places to visit yet). Then our trip will be concluded in Salzburg, where Mozart was born and where the famous movie The Sound of Music was filmed (which has a beautiful setting!).

Oh, I can’t wait for this trip! Here’s the rough route.

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along. — Rumi

The Rumi book that I ordered 3 weeks ago has finally arrived! I’m so happy.

In total, I have 9 other books waiting to be read. I’ve already started reading few pages of Rumi, quarter pages of Bill Clinton’s Giving, some pages of Karen Amstrong’s Muhammad, and John Roosa’s Dalih Pembunuhan Massal. I’ve been trying to keep myself contented and busy — and reading these books have been quite enjoyable.

Even so, I thought of buying the famous Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, after watching its BBC TV series on YouTube, featuring one of my favorite actors, Colin Firth who really fit into the character of Mr. Darcy I must say! Few years ago, I watched Pride & Prejudice’s movie adaptation, and I remember how I really loved it!! That’s why I came to think of buying the book. I know that I hate classic English literature, but that’s because its constructions of words are hard to understand. But I really want to learn. I want to get used to it. I want to be able to feel and understand the beauty of those words.

But anyhow, I was happy to find the full version of Pride & Prejudice on Google Books! So I decided to read it online in the meantime — perhaps I’ll buy it once I read all of those 9 books.

After having to abandon Couchsurfing for more than half a year due to my busy schedule, I decided to take part in this super awesome community again — helping travelers and meeting new like-minded people. Today, I met with Ivan, a Russian guy who was in Eindhoven for a business trip. I was contacted by him few days before and I was honored to be his first Couchsurfing friend, as he just joined the website not so long time ago. I took him to the Boekencafe, which was my favorite cafe in Eindhoven, for a cup of delicious hot chocolate. We were there for about an hour; talking about Russia and our life in general. One thing that surprised me was that, he didn’t drink alcohol!! (knowing that Russians really looooved their vodka and beer!) We only talked about an hour and it was a pity that we couldn’t talk longer. I think he was a good and charming boy. In the picture, this was me and him in the cafe.

After meeting Ivan, I went straight to teh Rita’s house. As usual, we had a weekly pengajian (Qur’an recitation and study) with our religious leader whom we refer as Pak Haji. Every week I learnt so many things; and for today, I was struck by this verse of the Qur’an (Al Ankabut 64):

And the life of this world is nothing but diversion and play. And indeed, the home of the Hereafter – that is the [eternal] life, if only they knew.

Dan tiadalah kehidupan dunia ini melainkan senda gurau dan main-main. Dan sesungguhnya akhirat itulah yang sebenarnya kehidupan, kalau mereka mengetahui.

This verse is such a good reminder for me. It made me shivered when I read it. Ya Allah, please keep me reminded and guide me to the right path… Amin Ya Rabbal Alamin.

Another verse that we discussed was from surah Ar-Rum: 2-3:

The Romans have been defeated in the nearest land. But they, after their defeat, will overcome.

Telah dikalahkan bangsa Romawi, di negeri yang terdekat dan mereka sesudah dikalahkan itu akan menang.

The Romans (Byzantine Empire) were defeated by the Persians at the time when this verse was sent down. And the Qur’an had predicted that they would win the war from the Persians in few years time (which happened during the years of Abu Bakar As-Siddiq). Subhanallah, this is one of the miracles of the Qur’an.

From this verse, Pak Haji also pointed out that recently Harun Yahya discovered that the words “fi adnaa” in Arabic which is translated by many as “in the nearest land” actually had a literal meaning of “in the lowest land”. What’s the lowest land, you may wonder… Well, the lowest land in the world is the Dead Sea (395 meters below sea level) which was the place where the Romans were defeated by the Persians. During that time, NOBODY knew that the Dead Sea was the lowest region on earth! Yet, the Qur’an had been able to reveal this at that time! Oh, my heart is beating right now. Even as I’m writing this post.

Wallahu A’lam (Allah knows best).

This is the painting of a famous Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh. It’s called Almond Blossom and is one of my favorite paintings of Van Gogh. I bought a huge poster of it few months ago which are now displayed in my room. I also bought a smaller version for my former housemate and close friend, Jenn, for her 25th birthday.

I was (and I still am) so happy today. After a long and tiring (yet fun day!), I got a sweet surprise: I received a letter from Jenn. I couldn’t describe how excited I was when I saw the envelope which had my name on it! I could recognize right away her writing and I knew it was from my dear friend Jenny. As I read her 4 small pages of letter, tears flew from my eyes. And suddenly… all the sweet memories that we had 2 years ago came to life.

I’m just too grateful to have a friend like Jenn 🙂