Project 365

I want to sit atop the fluffy clouds, and breathe in that fresh air. I want to look up and see the millions of stars, free of interference. I want to be where no person has been before. — loveforcoffee

The Sound of Music was one of my favorite childhood movies. I remember I used to watch the cartoon version of it and became really interested with the story! Then a few years later as I grew older I got to know that the cartoon that I had been watching was actually adapted from a movie! I watched the movie over and over again and I loved it! I think I still have the VCD of the movie back at home in Jeddah! 🙂

One of the things I loved about the movie besides the characters, story lines, and the SONGS, was definitely the scenery! The mountains… the old cities… the palaces… the fountains… the lakes… ahhhh they were just so pretty! Most of the settings were actually in Salzburg, Austria, the city where I’m actually heading to in 2 weeks time (yay!). I can’t wait for it! I really can’t!

I promised myself I’d watch the movie again before I visit Salzburg. So that I can remember them and actually feel related and excited about those locations when I’m there! (I remember when I was in New Zealand, I visited a number of places that became the movie settings of Lord of the Rings. But since I hadn’t watch that any of those movies and I’m still not interested to watch them, I couldn’t really say anything special about those places… except the sceneries, of course!)

So now I’m gonna make it different! I’m gonna be in Salzburg, visit some places, and reminisce about the good old movie scenes… 🙂 It’s going to be so memorable and exciting!

I’m trying to find some movie scenes of the Sound of Music on YouTube (especially those that show how beautiful Austria is), but most of the videos are of low quality. This is the best that I could find so far. And if you wanna watch the full version of the movie, click here (really good quality! not sure how long this link gonna stays tho!).

Enjoy!

Eindhoven was warmer than usual today! It was sunny with a 12 degrees Celsius temperature. Despite the stomachache, despite of everything… I can’t ask for a better day 🙂

In the winter, I usually did my laundry and hanged the clothes inside my house. Otherwise it would take ages for my clothes to dry up. But not today though! I decided that it was the time for me to dry my clothes in the backyard.

And look what I found! The flowers have bloomed! What a beautiful sight!!! I could see some gigantic bees wondering around (Oh, hello there! I haven’t seen you guys around since last fall!!). I’m gonna go to a market on Saturday to buy some tulips to be put in my room. The last time I looked for them a few weeks ago, I couldn’t find them! So probably they’re now available on the market 🙂

Spring is here. And I can’t be more delighted. Alhamdulillah.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

Kahlil Gibran

Link: Dutch East Indies

Found a very interesting site about the youth life of Elizabeth van Kampen living in Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), including during the occupation of Japan.

After living more than 1.5 years in the Netherlands and meeting many people who are of Indonesian heritage, I became interested in their stories back in the days when they were still in Indonesia.

Just something interesting to share about 🙂

Some route changes have just been made to our Easter trip. We’ve decided to add Neuschwanstein Castle to our sightseeing list!!! It’s a beautiful castle and it’s the inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle.

We’ve also decided to stay for a night in Ulm instead of Munich as previously planned. Qonita, one of my friends who are joining the trip and who are going to be one of the drivers, has found a Couchsurfer who’s kind enough to offer us a place to sleep. It’s indeed a great news!

I haven’t found a Couchsurfer in Salzburg though. I’m still looking for it. If I don’t find anything, then we’re just going to sleep in a hostel. It’ll still be fun!

Here is the updated route 🙂

I had such a lazy and relaxing day today. Chatting. Reading few pages of Rumi. Cooking. Doing some laundry. I enjoyed it. I loved staying at home. I was happy and I had nothing to complain about.

One of my favorite bloggers, Karen Cheng, just published a post today about 5 things to do everyday (in order to find some balance and spirit in life). I really love it! Here are the list (make sure you read the explanation on her blog!):

1. Do something enjoyable
2. Do something active
3. Do something brainy, challenging or intellectual
4. Do something good for someone else
5. Take one moment to savour life and your surroundings

I do 3 out of 5 points frequently, which are number 1, 3, and 5. I do #4, but not as frequent and I feel like I have to do more with it. I’ve been struggling to do #2. I never really like sport. I’ve always wanted to learn to play tennis, but I’m just too lazy to do it. I need someone to push me! 😀

Perhaps, the two points will be my own resolution for this year 🙂

Don’t grieve for what doesn’t come.
Some things that don’t happen keep disaster from happening.

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

I went to ICTheek (computer lab) at 8.30am today to do a report assignment with my classmates Shilpa and Li Lun. In the middle of doing the assignment, we caught in a hard-to-stop conversation ranging from traveling, marriage, to culture! (Shilpa is from India and Li Lun is from China; so our talk was very multicultural!)

Talk about marriage… I discover that we — Asians — have similar culture when it comes to wedding. We would invite EVERYONE; from relatives, neighbors, people whom we barely met, to hi-bye friends. What makes me raise my eyebrows is that, most of these guests are our parents’ friends whom you don’t even know about! Seriously, why would you spend so much money for the wedding party of your “parents”? I wonder. Though I complain about it, there’s nothing I can do with it. I can’t really escape from this tradition. If I were given a choice, I would have definitely go for a traditional wedding ceremony attended by only close friends and relatives. I wouldn’t even have any problems if I were not to have any wedding celebrations! I would rather save the money supposedly used for my wedding for my family’s future!

Shilpa told me that she invited 1,000 guests to her wedding few years ago. That’s a massive number! She said that her wedding lasted for almost 1 week. Some small “parties” and celebrations were held and organized in the first few days of the wedding by the bride- and groom-to-be’s family separately. I can’t imagine how tiring it must be for her! Even she thought that the money spent for the wedding was better be spent for something else. But tradition and culture were hard to skip, were they? 🙂

In Betawi culture (my mom is a Betawi by the way), there is a long lasting tradition that if you’re married, you need to give a so called berkat (a basket of staple foods or even cooked meals!) to your family and relatives. The problem is that, Betawi people have MAAAANY relatives. The last time my cousin was married, she had to give baskets of berkat to at least 40 houses! Can you imagine that?!?! I feel like this is such a waste of money! Why would you give staple foods to people who have no financial difficulties at all?!?!? Isn’t it better if you can just give those foods to the people who need the most?!?! Again, I wonder why.

And I wonder whether I can break this tradition if I end up marrying someone. Alright, perhaps I can tolerate the need to throw a wedding party and having to receive unknown guests to my party, but I definitely can’t tolerate having to feed 40 middle to upper class families!!!

Give me a break!

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.