Project 365

Welcome! This is my own 365 project of creating at least one post per day about the stuff that I learnt, achieved, and found, the stuff that made me happy, or the new thing I did every single day.

The project was started on 21 February 2010. It has stopped for few times but I am determined to continue!

This project is dedicated to myself. I want to feel grateful for every single thing I have. I want to be thankful for my own life. I just want to feel that I have enough.

Tag: dinner

Dinner Gathering

It’s been 5 months since we had the last dinner gathering at my house just before the winter break. Since then, nobody was able to organize a gathering and I wasn’t able to do it at my house anymore as the landlord asked me to use the attic for the tenants only.

I’ve also been quite busy socializing with “other groups of people”. I think I’ve been searching for comforts and trying to get away from my loneliness. I’m tired of always complaining how lonely I am, so I decided to get myself out of my comfort zone and explore for some more friends who can make me belong and connected. Except for one or two guys that I’m close with here, I have a hard time socializing with many of the guys here (and they’re the majority!).

So I’m glad that I’ve found some girlfriends that I’m comfortable with. Jessie and Ari are the two girlfriends I’ve been spending my time with for the past few weeks. We’re dubbed the “three musketeers” as we’re almost always together! πŸ™‚ We’ve had endless fun talks and I always enjoy them! I’ve also been quite close with some friends in Leiden. But as the transport cost between Eindhoven and Leiden is quite expensive, we don’t see each other quite often.

Anyhow… back to the gathering! So this time Qonit and Reyhan (the new happy couple!) were the host. They cooked fried rice, kalasan fried chicken, and vegetarian semur. They also served us delicious appetizers, dumplings-like which I really really loved! I gotta find it in a Chinese store soon! Not to mention there were different types of drinks and desserts that we — the guests — brought. Delicious foods and fun gathering!

The Girls!

— The girl’s corner πŸ˜‰

The Guys!

— The guy’s corner πŸ˜‰

Pasar Malam Indonesia 2010

Pasar Malam Indonesia 2010

After having a 4-day road trip in 3 different countries, I came back home and arrived today at 2am. I went to bed at around 3.30am and woke up again at 8am. I had to go to Den Haag with my friends Ian, mbak Linda, and Sam. We had planned this gathering two weeks ago so that we could have a reunion with all the Indonesian people at the Boekenfestijn. And I was so glad I met all of them, except Maureen though πŸ™ She had promised to come but I didn’t hear any words from her.

Anyway, we then went to the Pasar Malam organized by our Indonesian embassy in Den Haag. I spent quite a bit of money as I ate too many foods there! We also got the opportunity to watch some of the performances which were very entertaining! I had such a great time! πŸ™‚

L-R: Bahri, Sam, me, Ian, mbak Linda

Ian and I then went to Amsterdam at around 6.30pm. I asked him to accompany me to meet my mom’s friend in Jeddah, tante Novi & family, who were here for vacation. I brought some stroopwaffels for my little brother πŸ˜€ . Tante Novi and oom Agung then invited us for dinner at an Indonesian restaurant called Kantjil (yet another Indonesian foods for today! hehehe). It wasn’t bad at all.

We took the last train to Eindhoven. I’m too tired but I’m impressed that I still managed to write this post! πŸ˜€

*the last 4 days of the posting will be written later πŸ™‚

A Day in Weert

I went to a small city called Weert today. It’s about 20 minutes from Eindhoven by train. Sam, mbak Linda, and I were invited to Ian’s house. These were the people I met during the Boekenfestijn and we became close ever since. Sam and mbak Linda were a married couple originally from Maluku (Moluccas). Sam was half Dutch Indonesian (we call it Indo or Indische), while mbak Linda was pure Indonesian. Ian also had an Indonesian background. His father was a Dutch and his mother was an Indo born in Surabaya.

Anyway… in the afternoon, Ian and Sam were busy making some music while mbak Linda and I were busy shopping in the centrum (city) πŸ˜€ After shopping, we sat for a coffee and had a very interesting conversation. This was the first time I talked to her and had a deep conversation. We talked about many things, including our life, future, and Maluku! (I’m going to put this into two different posts: here and here). I had a great time! After our coffee time, Ian and Sam joined us and we had few more drinks. I got to try on a Dutch food (fish) which I forgot its name now!! It wasn’t bad at all.

Then we went to Ian’s house to meet with his parents and had dinner together. They were very nice and their house was very cozy! Ian’s dad cooked so many Indonesian foods and they were very very delicious! They were rendang, tempe goreng, and chicken among other things. You know, it’s amazing how it’s not unusual for the guys here to cook. All the guys on the table (Ian, his dad, and Sam) loved to cook and it’s quite rare for the guys in Indonesia to be able to do that. Once they get married, the wives were expected to do everything in the house, including cooking and doing house chores. But for the Dutch and many other Western people (and MY OWN DAD!), they took turns to cook. They split the house chores with their wife. Isn’t it great?!?

We stayed in Ian’s house until 9pm! It was a looooong day and we were all very tired. But it was a great day and I had such a wonderful time! πŸ™‚

De Nederlandse Klas & Lekker Eten

I had a decent day today as usual. I went to the Dutch class after skipping so many lessons. I was supposed to go to the centrum (city) with teh Rita to explore some sales, but I was stuck in doing chapters after chapters of my Dutch book. It was fun actually and I felt like I didn’t miss anything huge when I went to class.

My Dutch teacher told me something interesting today. The Dutch language for “I sit in front of the computer” is:

Ik zit achter de computer

… which literally means: I sit behind the computer (achter = behind). She said that Dutch language was the only few languages that used “behind” rather than “in front of” in this case. Cool! πŸ˜€

After the Dutch class, I had a three-hour-long meeting at the computer lab. Couldn’t believe time ran so quick! But I was glad we made a progress πŸ™‚

Then in the evening, I was invited to Reyhan’s place to have dinner with mbak Rining and Pak Agus. We had a really interesting conversation — well, actually Pak Agus told us so many things about some failures of our education system in Indonesia and some nasty bureaucracy at one of the best universities in our country. I really wanted to share it here but I’m really tired now. Plus, I’ve got an assignment to finish. Hmm maybe next time!

Welterusten! (good night)

A Visit

A friend of mine came to Eindhoven today. He’s a Dutch whose mother is an Indonesian (yet he has a Dutch look but a little bit of Indonesian politeness/manner hehehe — he’s polite compared to normal Dutch I’d say). He has a lot of interests about Indonesia and plans to live in Indonesia after he finishes his college. He’s trying to learn Bahasa Indonesia from now on. He is a good cook!!! He cooked me a delicious nasi goreng (fried rice)! I was supposed to decide what he had to cook for the dinner but I ran out of ideas and chose nasi goreng instead; merely because I hadn’t eaten it for so long! Hehehe.

We watched movies. We talked about different things. I was surprised to know that he had an interest in Islam! And he wanted to know more about it. He told me about stuff he did in the army which he did for two years. Very interesting indeed!

Well… it was definitely a great night. I really enjoyed it πŸ™‚ Thank you, ya Allah for today.

Indonesian & Columbian Dinner

BIS dinner

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 πŸ™‚ 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 πŸ™‚

The One With Karaoke

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 πŸ˜› ). 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 πŸ˜€

The girls The foods! Yum! Karaoke...

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!

Five of us

Dinner

@ Agni's Place

Dinner at Agni’s place on 25 Feb.