Project 365

I finally met up with a Brazilian CouchSurfer, Vivian. She contacted me two weeks ago but I had been busy the past two weeks so we only got to meet today. I was so glad I met her! She’s my age, friendly, open-minded, and thoughtful. We had a very nice conversation for 3 hours at Usine, my favorite café (of course!). We just talked, talked, talked like we knew each other for years! Hahaha. It was a great afternoon!

Well, I learnt quite a bit of things about Brazil from her:

• Not many Brazilian can speak English. If you can speak the language, you’re considered "educated" or "higher" than others.
• Brazilians are usually not so fond of Portugal due to long colonial history 😛 (I asked her if she’d live in Portugal since they speak the same language, and that was her answer hahaha).
• You’ve probably heard about Singlish (Singaporean English) or Manglish (Malay English), but have you heard of Portuñol? LOL! It’s Portuguese Spanish! I didn’t know that!
• The word gereja is from Portuguese! How come I didn’t know that?!
• The Portuguese in Indonesia were kicked out by the Dutch in 1570’s while the Dutch were kicked out by the Portuguese in Brazil! 😛 They both got their portion, eh?!
• Brazilian guys are hot and sexy but they’re not "created" to commit on their relationship. She said that it’s common for them to cheat on their girl or wife 😐 She was even very sure that all of the Brazilian guys (99%) at some point in time have cheated on their woman! That’s not good.

I can’t remember what else we talked about. There were too many things, but these were the main ones. We’re going to meet up for lunch next month probably… I’m going to cook an Indonesian food and she’ll cook a Brazilian food. Excited 🙂

A CouchSurfer from New York, Johanna, contacted me a few days ago to meet up for a coffee. So I told her to meet at Usine (again!).

It was a really AWESOME afternoon! We got along really well, which surprised me. She’s one year younger than me but she already had a beautiful baby! Oh it made me envy!

She’s really different than most Americans that I met. She’s more open-minded and more open to experiencing other cultures. I asked a lot of things about American culture and I discovered that there were many things I didn’t know! Well, I had a great time talking to her and playing with her baby girl, Bella. Bella was such an active baby! I felt we got along really well too!!! Hehhehe.

I invited her to the Angklung Charity Concert this Thursday and it seemed like she’s more likely to come. Oh I was excited! We were planning to meet up again — this time I promised her that I would be teaching her how to cook Indonesian food! 🙂

Just some of the pictures of today’s highlights:

This is me and Jessie at an electronic shop, Mediamarkt, amazed by this Samsung’s 3D TV!

And we found the most expensive headphone I’ve ever seen in my life! Yes, the price tag was 399 Euro (which was about US $500 or Rp. 4.6 million)! What’s the special thing about this headphone? It could “reduce” the external noise. For example, if you’re in the airplane, which usually requires you to turn up the volume of your player because of the noise coming from the airplane. But, using this headphone, you’ll most probably no need to do that. Amazing, but useless, somehow. I’d rather spend that amount for a tiny Sony laptop, which was 30 Euro cheaper than the headphone!

Then I went to the graduation ceremony of my friend Reyhan. There were 19 graduands who were given their degrees, but only one person was a female. Awesome! 🙂

After having ifthar at the Turkish mosque, I sat in a cafe with a CouchSurfer from San Diego, the States whom I currently hosted. I had a nice conversation with her. Great evening, indeed!

Phew, what a day.

Alhamdulillah ya Allah. When there is a bad news, the good news follows! 🙂

Today I’ve been searching for a Couchsurfer who is able to host 5 people at once for a night in Paris (or nearby Paris), knowing that the hostels in Paris are quite expensive. I know, our trip will not be until next month, but I have to prepare everything from now.

Just before I was about to go to bed, I received a message from a really nice Couchsurfer who will open his door for 5 of us to sleep at!!! I can’t describe how happy I was! Searching for a couch/host in Paris is not easy. It took me 3 weeks to find a host when I went there last year, so I was really delighted to receive such a good news in such a short time! It seems like the host is very nice. He said that he could have a day off just to be with us and show us Paris around! OMG! That’s super wonderful! And the most important thing is: he has been to Indonesia! Yay! (perhaps that’s why he wants to host us!!!)

Oh I’m so grateful!

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).

Phew. There are too many things to be grateful about today. It was quite a busy and tiring day, yet at the same time it was such a fun and exciting day.

After about a month of procrastinating, finally my friend and I resumed our project that had been looooongggg abandoned. I went to the ICTheek in the morning and tried to understand the whole thing. It wasn’t so effective, but at least we saw some light. We saw progress. It was slow. Yet, we were a bit sure. At least, this could be my new motivation! 🙂

I went to the High Tech Campus to meet with some people to finalize my website project. I was sooo panic that time because I was 15 minutes late! I could have been on time had my Dutch class finished on time and I weren’t LOST! It was raining so heavily that for the second time I was lost. I took the wrong street. I cycled and cycled and cycled until I had no energy. I felt so bad 🙁

Long story short… I met them and discussed about some improvements and adjustments that I needed to make. We discussed about the salary too. Well, in the beginning I wasn’t expecting that much since this was a new NGO. So I was quite satisfied with it, alhamdulillah. I also told my boss that once I graduate (if!), I’d be able to work for him temporarily; so that at least I can do something while I seek for a permanent job. Well, let’s see what will happen later.

After the meeting, my boss and I also had a long conversation about his work and life, politics, etc. It was quite interesting. Meeting this kind of people who is the initiator and whose purpose is to improve other people’s life always inspires me. Hope I’d be able to do it one day. Insya Allah. Amin.

My day finished with a great dinner at Agni’s place with his sister and Arya. It was such a fun and warm night. We haven’t done any dinner gatherings for sometime now… Hmm, maybe we should plan one soon! (trying to gather my motivation here!)

I’m really looking forward for tomorrow. I’ll be going to meet a couchsurfer from Russia for a coffee. This would be the first meet up after I took a long half a year break from Couchsurfing. It’s going to be exciting! And he seems very excited! I’ll share the stories tomorrow, of course. Good night. Dream sweetly.