It’s been awhile since the last time I received a postcard. It was only one and a half month ago that I finally settled and had an address. So I can’t tell you how happy I was when I received this postcard!! This is a personalized one that my friend made. She took those pictures and printed them as a postcard. Although I lived in Eindhoven, I didn’t get to bring any of its postcards with me. So thanks so much Qonit, for sending it 🙂
It really made my day.
Not many people knew that I’d go back for good. Most of them found it out a week or even a few days before my departure. So I never expected to receive anything from them. I have too many stuff with me already. I didn’t want to bring anything more. But there was one special gift I got from our angklung team that really touched me and almost made me cry:
This frame is now put in my room in Jeddah. It’ll be brought to Malaysia next year, for sure! I’ll definitely miss playing angklung with them! 🙁
I still can’t believe that I have left Europe for good. It does feel like a dream. It really feels like yesterday when I stepped into this country for the first time. Now I have left. I have left for the better :).
I had a lovely Moroccan farewell dinner with mbak Widi, Cintya, and Farida. We sat at a Moroccan restaurant called Chomicha located in Kruisstraat. The restaurant was quite cozy with a lovely setting. I ordered a 3-course surprise menu. The chef got to choose the meal(s) for me. They were delicious :). The beef tajine was fine. I think Cintya’s kofta tajine was better 😀
I hardly sat in a “real” restaurant here in Eindhoven. I have done it before, only one or two times a year. I decided to do it again since this is my last week in the Netherlands. I just want to treat myself with a really good meal! Alhamdulillah!
 
I have no mood to write anything these days. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I decided to post some pictures that I took for the past one month ;).
Leaves have started to fall in Eindhoven, after few weeks of sunny and warm weather. Usually, we’d take our gloves out by the month of October. But the weather has been very warm lately. Does that mean winter would be worst and colder than last year? 😐
I was invited to a Korean lunch at a friend’s house. I forgot what this dish was called but I always loved it! This was the second time I ate it.
Baby Nolan and baby Mentari are two of my favorite kids 🙂 I’ve watched them grow ever since they were born and it’s always impressive and exciting to see them growing and doing their things for the first time :).
 
Last weekend, Jessie and I went to the McDonald’s near Best. This particular McD got a Rock & Roll theme. There was a huge statue of Michael Jackson on its parking lot. I saw lots of pictures, flowers, and messages from his fans near the statue. We were checking out these memorabilia, when we saw a teenage boy crying with his family trying to console him. That was my first time to actually see with my own eyes someone crying because of the death of a celebrity. How stupid does that sound?! Isn’t it ironic that people don’t believe in God but they believe in these fake looking celebrities that they have no relations to and have no idea whether these celebrities are honestly a good person or not…! A strange world we live in…
This picture is not actually mine, but this one was taken at the Welcoming Party organized by PPI/e (Indonesian Student Association). I had a great time there, meeting new Indonesian students. I gave a short presentation about Dutch culture. It was OK, I think I should have done it much better than that. I prepared it in less than 8 hours before the event itself haha. But it was a relief to know that people found it useful.
I’m so proud to be part of the family :). It’s been a great and an inspiring journey from the beginning. It started off as an ambitious dream with only 18 members and it has grown rapidly with a total of more than 40 members! Impressive!
Today was a celebration of our achievements (and apparently it coincided with the birthday of our director :)). It was also the day when the committee presented their visions and future plans on where this group would be headed. They even planned on recording in a studio!!! How awesome is that?! There were too many plans that they’ve laid out and it’s sad to say that I would not be here next year…
Not to mention: the foods were not to be missed, of course! After all, an Indonesian gathering without the foods were never complete!
Happy 1st birthday, Angklung Eindhoven!
Oh, what an awesome (and tiring) day! The annual cultural event that we had all been waiting for finally took place! The highlight of the event was of course: Angklung Eindhoven! 🙂
Before the start of the event, we had the chance to do a last-minute practice at the parking lot of the St Petrus Church located across the event’s venue. We couldn’t practice at the venue because the organizing committee was busy doing check sound. It was on Saturday afternoon. Many people passed by from the market nearby and of course, they watched us practicing :). We told them to come to the event and some of them said they wanted to come. Last minute promotion, I guess? 😉
 
At the start of the event, I was busy welcoming some people from Eindhoven University of Technology (my university!) and Gemeente Eindhoven (Eindhoven city council). They were very warm and friendly! They even told me to do whatever the things I supposed to be doing. Too bad the Alderman couldn’t come (he was supposed to come, but due to the changing of event’s time, he couldn’t attend). I had the opportunity to welcome the people from the embassy on another occasion and I hate to say that they’re very very formal. Some of them were not friendly and they even distanced themselves from us just because we’re ordinary citizens (that’s what I felt). Talking to the Dutch “important personalities” were much more relaxed!
The angklungers performed twice at Made in Indonesia, with different songs. We played Medley Maluku (Nona Manis — Ayo Mama — Rasa Sayange) and Bungong Jeumpa for our first performance. For the second one, we played six songs: Yue Liang (a Chinese song), Yamko Rambe Yamko, Burung Kakatua, Si Patokaan, Tulpen Uit Amsterdam (a Dutch song), and finally Medley Indonesia (Tanah Airku — Indonesia Pusaka).
 
The climax of our performance was of course the last part! The newlyweds, mas Dody and teh Ida (teh Ida is also one of our conductors and founders of Angklung Eindhoven), sang Tanah Airku and Indonesia Pusaka accompanied by angklung. Their voice was amaaahhhhzing. I was told that some people even cried when they heard them singing and they stood applauding us when the song finished. I didn’t pay attention to anything like that hahaha. I was just glad that we could play it nicely. The two songs are Indonesian national and patriotic songs. The first song is about our love for the country even though we live abroad. I think this one touched people the most 🙂 I can’t wait to see the videos 🙂 Meanwhile, here’s the lyric of the song Tanah Airku:
Tanah airku tidak kulupakan
Kan terkenang selama hidupku
Biarpun saya pergi jauh
Tidak kan hilang dari kalbu
Tanahku yang kucintai
Engkau kuhargaiWalaupun banyak negri kujalani
Yang masyur permai dikata orang
Tetapi kampung dan rumahku
Di sanalah kurasa senang
Tanahku tak kulupakan
Engkau kubanggakan
 
Coming soon: the videos 🙂
I promised myself to completely take a break from all organization and angklung activities, but I CAN’T HELP IT!!! This event is our last big annual event before the end of our organizational term — before the new president is chosen. Of course I wouldn’t want to miss this chance! I want it to be a successful event tooo! 🙂 Can’t wait for Saturday!
I had a great day at Pasar Malam Asia last Sunday. We played a total of 9 Indonesian songs with angklung. The last song played was called "Poco-Poco" and for the fun of it, I took part in dancing poco-poco with other mostly middle-aged dancers and audience. Yes, you can see me with the red kebaya and red headscarf struggling to do the right steps there in the video LOL. It was fun though! 🙂
Poco-poco dance is a line dance which is very popular in Indonesia and other SE Asian countries. The dance is usually accompanied by the song of the same name, which was written by an Ambonese, Arie Sapulette, and was popularized by an Indonesian singer, Yopie Latul. There are much speculations of where the dance came from. Some say it was originated from Moluccas and some say it was from Northern Sulawesi.
The dance became even more popular when it was recently declared as haram (forbidden) by the mufti in Perak, Malaysia. What can I say? If you want to declare poco-poco dance as haram, then you should declare all sorts of dances as haram too. It’s so inconsistent. Anyway…
People here are crazy about poco-poco! I’ve seen them (read: Indo-Dutch people) dancing in every Pasar Malam (*) events in the country. They’d dance poco-poco no matter what sort of songs is currently played.
* Pasar Malam means night market (literally) and is directly associated with Asian or Indonesian event. The “night market” itself doesn’t necessarily open only at night. Most Pasar Malam(s) in the Netherlands have Asian food stalls and music performances. The event is organized in many cities in the Netherlands.
Source:
Eindhoven was found to have the highest crime rate in the Netherlands for 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010
I was quite shocked to read it! I mean, I knew that Eindhoven was the most dangerous place to live in terms of crime rate, but I never knew that it had the highest crime rate four times in 5 years! Wew.
Actually, I live in the least safe neighborhood in Eindhoven (or maybe one of the least safe neighborhoods). Most of the people who live in my neighborhood are immigrants — the Africans/Caribbeans, Moroccans, and the Arabs. And I do get scared of going back home late at night, but thankfully I can take another route that is longer but safer.
Last week, I had the most scariest experience ever! Somebody rang my house door at 1 AM for multiple times and there were no one in the house except me. Yes, ME. Alone in the house. A-L-O-N-E! Can you imagine that?! 😐 I couldn’t do anything but be extremely scared. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. A potential burglar wouldn’t ring the bell before hand, BUT he could do that to see if there’s somebody in the house. RIGHT?! Right?! Am I right or am I right?
Anyway, I was actually soooo scared that I caused the twitterland to panic :P. I did that so if something ever happened to me, my friends knew and could do something about it. I locked my door and turned off the lamps in my room. My friend actually told me to go downstairs to ask who’s ringing the bell so that any potential burglar would have the second thought of going into my house, because the house wasn’t empty! BUT COME ON! I was not brave enough to even go downstairs! What if they decided to break the door, knowing that there’s only a woman in this house?! A lot of things seriously ran into my mind.
The best idea I could come up with when I was in “danger”? Pretending to sleep! Not a very smart move, eh?! Actually, it was the stupidest thing I had ever done! I didn’t even know the emergency phone number, until I wrote this post hahaha. Can you imagine that?
But anyway… thankfully, nothing happened. Alhamdulillah. One of my housemates came home 15 minutes later. It might had been him or his friends. You know me: paranoid in everything haha. Well, weekends are the scariest time to live in the house, to be honest. All of my housemates are usually not home. Grr.
Well, this stranger-rang-the-bell scenario didn’t only happen to me. It happened to my friends as well, who lived not too far from my place but located on a much busier street than mine. Another friend of mine even told me that her apartment was rang for so many times by drunk people.
Oh! Another friend got her house almost robbed two weeks ago! The outermost door was already damaged and the burglar was already inside the house, trying to open the second door which lead to all parts of the house. Thankfully, her brother screamed and threaten him with knife or something. So, the burglar ran away. Her house isn’t that far from mine too 🙂
Eindhoven isn’t THAT bad, I can tell you. I feel so safe here. It’s definitely much safer than in Jakarta. The only thing I’m worried about is robbery and drunk people 😛