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: friends

Bu Asri’s Birthday

Bu Asri's birthday

Two days ago, Angga and I were told to come to Bu Asri’s place to pick up something. When we arrived (during dinner time haha), we were asked to join the birthday dinner! It was totally unexpected! There were a lot of foods! Most importantly, there were IKAN ASIN and SAYUR ASEM!!! waaaaaa… Those were my favorite food that my mum always made!!!! I was so happy to find them!!! hehehehe…. Alhamdulillah :). Happy birthday, Ibuuu Asri 🙂

A Day Out

The sun was out today!!! It was sunny and lovely :). But it was SOOO cold! It reached —1 degrees Celsius when I left my house in the morning. I wonder. shouldn’t it be spring already?!

Nevertheless, I had such a lovely day! I met my high school friend, Wiza, who has been sending me postcards from all over the world these days. She has been traveling in Europe since November last year (envy her!!) and she’s ending her travel here, in The Netherlands.

So I met up with her in Den Haag. I hadn’t really talked to her ever since I finished high school in 2003. I did met her a few times whenever I went to Jakarta, but we didn’t get a chance to talk that much. We weren’t THAT close anyway when were in high school. I was a bit worried that we wouldn’t be so connected. You know, it would be boring to spend the whole day taking about dull topics 😛

But it turned out, we had such a great time!!! Talking and talking until we forgot about time!!! Hahaha! I didn’t realize that we had a lot of things in common (besides traveling, of course). We also went to Kinderdijk to see the windmills. I always loved Kinderdijk :). It’s a lovely place. If it weren’t so cold, it would be perfect to sit by the canal!!

Anyway, one thing she said: "We are the citizen of the world. That’s why we don’t have ‘home’!" Hehehe! Yeeeep, maybe that’s the reason why 😉

Some flood updates from friends…

Brisbane under water. The high rise buildings are where the CBD is located

Our street in Warren Street St Lucia in the Western Suburb of Brisbane is under water, we have been forced to evacuate to designated care centre..thank God we alive.
— Wama

My place is in the yellow zone so water will pass through a corner of my block but I am on the second floor so should be alright. and 1/4 of UQ either is or will be flooded soon. 
— Justin

I live in Indooroopilly, which is like a little hill next to St. Lucia, but I am just a bit surprised even Indooroopilly and some other suburbs on higher ground still get flooded. Like Toowoomba which is on top of the Toowoomba ranges (like on top of a mountain).
Went out for a walk last night, there are not many cars on the road, the news told us to stay at home and avoid unecessary travel.
And at the end of the day, went to woolies*, nearly all the bread and toilet paper were gone, apparently there won’t be any trucks resupplying them for a while… maybe I need to get some bread because most of my food is in the fridge, and if the power cuts off… oops…
I’ve seen some photos from St Lucia, like the whole Sir Fred Drive is under water… And the water is to rise further until it peaks on Thursday. So I am still waiting anxiously for the water to come. Oh, and the whole Brisbane is shut down till Friday.
— Justin

The restaurant by the Brisbane River

The floods in 1893 (bigger than 1974 flood) didn’t even reach this property apparently, so it should be okay unless it gets worse than them. We have packed stuff just in case. If something bad happens, we can run away anytime :) 
— Mayu

I’m at my parents’ house now in Kenmore, which is an unaffected suburb. I just have my fingers crossed for my apartment in Toowong which is not far from the Regatta hotel opposite the river! And my contents are uninsured 🙁
— Georgina

Alhamdulillah gw ga kena sih. Tapi daerah sekitar gw udah evakuasi. Insya allah ga papa lah ya..
— Kiki

Still waiting for updates from more friends…

The bottom line is: THE WORST IS YET TO HAPPEN! 🙁

(*) Note: "woolies" is short for Woolworths, a supermarket chain in Australia.

One of My Motivations

Best of luck with your thesis Amalia!!! I know how stressful it is but I managed to get through (juuuust thou lol). So can you!!!
Don’t forget that you have no choice but finish on time coz my Maid of Honour cannot be replaced 😉

— Mayu

Life? What’s That?

I’m getting crazy. Absolutely crazy that I just want to take my brain away for a day. My brain needs a rest. If my brain were a hard disk, it would have made a weird annoying noise. Ohhhh, look at me! So geek, for comparing my brain to the computer hahaha!

My routine for a week has been this: wake up, do assignments, sleep, wake up, do assignments, sleep… continuously. I do assignments while eating. I think about the assignments while taking shower. And rather than counting sheep, praying, or think about something wonderful, I think about the assignments before I sleep. On the bed. O yeah! See how "devoted" I am?

I haven’t seen the outside world for a week already, except at one time I had to go to the campus to meet with my project mates. I wonder if my housemates ever wonder that I barely go out of my room, except to pee or to heat up my meals. Oh gosh, good thing I had lots of foods that I cooked a week ago! Or else I would go starving.

But no matter how stressing it is, the presence of my friends always cheers me up! Even though, it can only be done online. It helps. It really does.

A Chat

And yes, I was laughing so hard! 😛 I felt like I hadn’t laughed for so long.

I guess, I have to always remember now that no matter how busy I am, I should never ever neglect my friends. Hihihihi 🙂 I’m sorry if you think that way! Been so stressing! 😀

Friends Come and Go

Jessie is back already!! So I spent the whole day in Helmond with her, talking for hours (was it 7 hours? LOL!) and eating a delicious yummy mushroom soup made by her mom. One of my favorite Dutch foods I have to say! Haha. But anyway, I was so happy to finally see her again! I think she’s the only person in the whole NL to whom I can talk about absolutely anything! 😀 No rules, no restrictions, and straight-forward!

I also accompanied my friend Dessy in the evening as it was her last day in the Netherlands. I really enjoy her company these few days. Dessy and I went to the same elementary school in Jeddah. We weren’t actually close during those times, but we still remain friends til now. I didn’t expect that we can be so connected and have many things in common, knowing that we barely talk to each other unless I visit Jakarta! I hold her in high regard. I have to say that I’m very happy to meet yet another prospective travel buddy! 🙂

Amsterdam with Friends

Dessy and I went to Amsterdam again today and started with a free tour. We only did the first half of the tour though. It was my  first time to be in the tour and I actually really liked it. I’ve been to the tour in Berlin so I knew what to expect. But I now understand how the prostitution business started and why a number of houses in Amsterdam are leaning forward! 🙂

After the tour, I met up with a CouchSurfer-turned-good-friend, Putri, her sister, and her boyfriend. It was a short meet up (as usual! :(). I tried to convince her again to join me for the Middle Eastern travel at the end of 2011 :P. She’s always interested but she’s not sure yet because of the timing. Anyway, I got to visit her house again and met with parents (finally!).

DSC_0095

Afterwards, I met Abde, another CouchSurfer who lives in Paris. When I traveled to Paris alone for the first time, he was the one who was kind enough to show me around the city and help me with the super heavy luggage! He’s in Amsterdam to visit his family so we decided to meet up again. It was great!

DSC_0168

We just realized that we never had a picture together!!! hahaha… So here we are…

Dessy and I

An Authentic Dutch Dinner

I was invited for a dinner in Helmond with a couple of friends. It was lovely! We had a nice conversation over dinner. And the foods were just DELICIOUS! It was a full course Dutch dinner, consisting of 6 different courses. I LOVE THEM! 🙂

Dinner table Dutch shrimp & crabs cocktail. A weird combi with some fruits but it was DELICIOUS! YUMMM!

Champignonsoep (mushroom soup) with some beef in it... love it! Another salad

Salad. Some shrimps, mashed potatoes, salmons Love the grilling!!

Let's cook! :) Some deserts!!!

Grilled meat

Jessie, if you read this… I wish you were here with us :'( MISS YOU! xoxo

The Joy

Mayu & I

Two months ago, I wrote about a close friend of mine who was going to get married next year and who "forced" me to be her maid of honor. I didn’t reveal who she was because it wasn’t official yet. But today, I got a message from her saying that she’s officially engaged!!! I was so delighted to hear it! It was a mix of joy and tears! I knew that she and her boyfriend were going to get engaged anyway. But you know, sometimes you just felt so moved that those tears couldn’t be stopped…

The euphoria of visiting Brisbane and seeing her one more time has got me again! Aaaah, I’m so excited! I’m kinda picturing of how the wedding is going to be like. I know that it’s going to be a small and simple one (I like it!!). But will there be any Japanese elements in it? Or perhaps a mixture of Japanese and Aussie culture? I’ve never been to any weddings where the bride and groom came from two very different countries. So I’m thrilled!

Which Floor Am I On?

I was invited to a close friend’s housewarming party in the evening. We’re a group of international and Dutch students who happened to take the same courses. There were Chinese, Taiwanese, Romanians, Columbian, Turkish, Indonesian (only me), and of course Dutch. All of the sudden, we were talking about floor buildings and we started to have some arguments for few minutes!

The Chinese and Columbian argued that the ground-level floor of the building is called the first floor, while the floor above it is called the second floor. However, the Romanians argued that the ground-level floor IS called the ground floor. The floor above it is called the first floor. While the Dutch seemed to agree with the Chinese and Columbian.

And me? To be honest, when it comes to floor numbering, I always get confused. Maybe because I’ve lived in different countries, so I get confused with their respective conventional ways on how to name their floors. When somebody say which floor I have to go to, I need to ask him/her again that we refer to the same floor. I just have to do it somehow.

Then the Dutch compared this floor numbering with centuries. You don’t call zero century, do you? You’d call it first century instead.

Hehehe. It was a loooong discussion and a friend of mine had to stop it by explaining in a Petri net way *geek mode on* LOL. Ah, what a day.