I met a fellow blogger, Rahmah, who was one of the winners of the 2010 blog competition organized by Nuffic Neso Indonesia. She got an opportunity to attend a summer course at the Universiteit Utrecht for two weeks. So cool, isn’t it?
I realized that it was the first time for me to meet her after having to visit and comment on each other’s blogs for YEARS! 🙂
My future husband is going in with the commitment of traveling around with you & your husband, or else there will be no marriage! And ur husband has to deal with the same commitment!
— Jessie
I have been traveling with a good friend of mine, Jessie for few times and we’re planning for more: Spain, Italy, Egypt, and Indonesia! We’re just so addicted to traveling that every time we go back from vacation, we’re already planning where we should go next! No matter how broke we are, we still travel! LOL!
So today, I chatted with her over the YM and suddenly we were talking about marriage and I was like… “Sigh, I can’t imagine what we’ll be like after we’re married.” Will we still be able to travel again freely? People change. Most people change after they’re married. Well, that’s for certain because they’ll prioritize family first on top of anything else. So Jessie and I made this kind of commitment, which requires our future husbands to agree on any traveling plans we have! Woohooo! We rock! 😛
* Continuing this project again, after 3 months of hiatus — due to privacy concerns. Now this project is powered by WordPress! 🙂
Such a hectic day today 🙂 Jessie picked me up in the morning to go to her place in Utrecht. I helped her moved; coz she’s moving back to her mom’s in Helmond. There were so many stuff and the car was extremely full! She even felt like the car stood a bit lower LOL. Once we arrived in Helmond, I helped her unpack some of her stuff and re-arrange her room. It was tiring yet I enjoyed being with her 🙂
After the whole moving out-in drama, we went to Eindhoven to attend our friend’s farewell party. We stayed there for quite a while to wait for Ari and Qonita who came all the way from Hamburg, Germany. The four of us went to Helmond again to Jessie’s house and had the second dinner 😛 We talked talked and talked…
This would be the last time I saw Jessie before she’s leaving for Indonesia on Thursday. I’m going to miss her so much! We’ve been spending so much time together these days and it feels weird now that she won’t be around for two months. But anyhow, I really had a great day today 🙂 The sun was shining til 25 degrees Celsius (and I was hoping I got a bit tanned, but apparently not). The laughter. The talk. Everything was great. 🙂
I chatted with a friend of mine who had spent quite a number of years in the States, but finally came back to Indonesian for good about a year ago. It’s been sometimes since I last talked to her and it’s always a joy to share each other’s latest updates.
She told me how hard it’s to be in a society where men are expected to be served by their women all the time. Many people think that the relationship between she and her husband are quite strange — merely because they share responsibilities together. These responsibilities are not only about household chores, but it also extends to their daily life as a couple. There are no unwritten rules about who do what. They take turns — naturally. Though for example, the wife is used to make tea for the husband; when she’s tired, the husband sometimes makes tea too. When dinner is served, then no one is expected to put the meals on the plate for the husband. As long as he’s able to do it himself, why should anyone serve for him?
This is what makes me not completely “connected” to Indonesian guys. I’ve been raised in a different environment. My dad, though he’s a busy man, always has time to help my mom. Yes, he never cooks because he doesn’t like it (I don’t think I remember he ever cooked for us. If mom was ill or was tired, he would rather buy us foods). But doing laundry was his job in the house. Gardening too. Cleaning the backyard. Sometimes vacuuming. And many more. I think it’s hard to find the kind of husband (in Indonesia) who sees his wife as a life long partner rather than a server. Even if I can find such a guy, it’d be very hard to implement it because people in Indonesia expect different things. They expect the wife to serve her husband and they’ll try so hard to “enforce” it on other families. I’d say: mind your own business!
But yes, it’s hard to find  the kind of person I describe above. My mom even told me the same thing. If you can find him, that means he has either been abroad (meaning: live. not visit) or was raised in such environment. My dad was a student in Egypt and I figure: that’s how he gets that “behavior” and open minded thinking. People who have lived abroad have completely different mindset than those who have never seen the outside world. Besides being completely independent, they have the chance to see different culture and see how people in different countries conduct themselves. They are able to compare it to what they have been taught to believe in and realize that a few things need to be left out.
A friend told me that I need to find a guy who had lived abroad. Otherwise it’ll be hard for him to fit into me. Or vice versa. That’s true. If only I can peek on my future 😛
Eindhoven’s weather has been quite strange lately. The temperature kept on going up and down. At one point, it reached 6 degrees Celsius. What kind of “spring” was this? This was definitely winter in May! The boots and jackets that I packed in boxes had been taken out again. The sun was nowhere to be seen. Weeks passed with rain and cloudy day. Such a weird weather.
Today was the first day that the weather turned back into normal (10 – 16 degrees). The sun wasn’t shy to brighten people’s day. It was such a beautiful Tuesday. I decided to go out, dressed up (yay! with my summer clothing), and enjoyed the sun. I contacted my friends Indah and Elva and we went to Centrum to do window shopping. It was a great day to be out. The wind was quite chilly — but I could survive with only wearing my flat shoes; although yes many people still wore their boots. I could see many people sitting under the sun, having beer or coffee and enjoying themselves. I used to loath sun, but now I know how it feels like for not being able to see the sun for WEEKS! It’s the most awful thing ever!
Anyway, we had a fantastic time! I always loved to do window shopping, although yes I couldn’t resist to not buy anything. Sadly, there weren’t that many discounts (I’ll keep an eye on that!). I was gonna buy a high heel red shoe that I reaaaalllllyyyy liked, but I decided to wait until I went back to Jeddah. Hmm, or should I buy it now? :PÂ
I was invited to a rare cultural event called Indonesia Night (which was quite rare in Eindhoven; as most cultural events happened in Den Haag, Rotterdam, Utrecht, or Amsterdam). The event was held for the purpose of introducing the Indonesian culture to some Dutch students (majoring in chemical engineering) who were gonna do a study tour to some parts of Indonesia.
The event was started with a very interesting presentation by Prof. Nas from Universiteit Leiden about the symbols of many places in Indonesia. He did an extensive research about this topic in many cities, particularly in Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Denpasar, Bukittinggi, and Banda Aceh.
Prof. Nas described Jakarta’s 4 tiered symbolism. The city was first built during the Dutch colonialism time and was centered in what was now Kota (or city center) which was filled with European architectures. During the Old Order (Soekarno’s era), many huge monuments were built, including Monas, West Irian Liberation Statue, and Dirgantara Monument. According to Prof. Nas, Soekarno, who was an architect himself, tried to “neutralized” the city by building these monuments. There were many Dutch or European buildings during that time and Soekarno wanted to display the Indonesian presence or nationalism symbols among these buildings. The New Order era (Soeharto’s) also saw the creation of monuments, one of them was the Sacred Pancasila Monument. In the 1990’s, Jakarta underwent a number of major construction projects; as a result, many high rise buildings started to rise up.
Moving on from Jakarta to Denpasar, the Professor also explained how the traditional Balinese house was constructed. The house was largely consists of a collection of individual separated structures, including the family temple, sleeping pavilion, kitchen, and many more. These structures were located inside a high-walled compound and were organized in such a way that complied to the Tri Angga concept which the Balinese believed. The concept described the three parts: the high (which referred to the sacred mountains or hills), the middle (land), and the low (sea). In terms of the Balinese house, the high referred to the temple, the middle referred to pavilions where they lived, and the sea referred to the kitchen and so on. Prof. Nas even mentioned that the Balinese slept with their head pointing to the direction of the sacred mountain 🙂 This was an interesting concept that I didn’t know about!
After the presentation from an expert, two students gave a presentation about Indonesia. One was a friend of mine, Qonita, who represented Indonesian students who lived in the Netherlands. And the other was a Dutch student who had the chance to live in Indonesia. Both of them gave very interesting and entertaining presentations which I enjoyed very much!
These are the summary of the presentations that they both presented:
I was so glad I came to this event! I didn’t expect that it was gonna be this interesting! Knowing other people’s perspectives about your own country was always fascinating. I learnt many things and I had so much fun! The poco-poco dance turned out to be really great and many people took part too 😉
Jessie and Ari stayed over at my place for a night. We talked about many things; especially about our adorable guys 😛 and relationships in general. Jessie seemed to be too tired and she slept earlier than us; while Ari and I kept talking until Fajr prayer. The good thing was, the Fajr prayer was at 3.15am so I didn’t need to worry about missing my prayer 😉
Anyway, we talked about relationships last night. One thing I noticed about my past relationships was that I tend to get bored easily. I’m not be able to keep the sparkles and chemistry strong enough to keep me going. I’m not able to prevent the flame from perishing. It’s sad, I know. And it’s something that I’ve been trying to find for the answer or the solution for some time now. It irritates me. Could it be because I haven’t find the right guy yet? Or could it be because of myself?!?
I’m still trying to find the answer.
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! 🙂 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 girl’s corner 😉
— The guy’s corner 😉
It was a REALLY hectic day for me today. I had to attend my friend’s wedding in a small city called Enschede, about 3 hours from Eindhoven (if you live here, you know that 3 hours is very far!). The ceremony was at 2pm and I had to take a train from Eindhoven at 10.45am. As I was still in Helmond on that day, I had to wake up early in the morning to go back to Eindhoven.
I reached home at 8am and quickly took shower and had breakfast. Good thing I had thought about which dress I would put on days before the wedding. Otherwise it’s going to be even more chaotic! I decided to wear my modern kebaya and a trouser (since the wedding was going to be less formal, I tried not to be too formal and over-dressed). I put on my make up quickly — the quickest time I had ever done!! — and rushed to the train station. I forgot to buy a card for the newlyweds (I bought a wrong card — an engagement card LOL… coz everything was in Dutch), so I bought it in the train station. I ALMOST missed the train. Phew.
The whole journey took for 3 hours and more. I had to change the train in Utrecht and took a bus from Enschede Central Station to the destination. The wedding was held in the house of the bride’s mom and only few people were invited. The bride is one of my good friends here, Maureen, whom I met when I worked at the Boekenfestijn in Rotterdam 2 years ago. The wedding was announced all of the sudden, I ALMOST couldn’t attend it! But I was glad I did. To see the happy couple on their big day was amazing. To witness the whole process was mind-blowing.
I was asked to read a verse in the Qur’an and at that time I just realized that it was the first time for me to witness a wedding ceremony. I really didn’t know what to expect. Haha. Anyway, I met few friends of mine whom I hadn’t seen for ages! It was great seeing them. I took a train back to Utrecht with them and it was good coz I had somebody to talk to! LOL. Great day, as usual.
Congrat’s once again, Maureen 🙂
Maureen contacted me today to tell me that she’s getting married this Thursday! What a good news! The ceremony is going to be held in Enschede, which takes about 3 hours from here. It’s very far and the transportation cost is a bit crazy. I’m quite broke already, but I can’t say no to this one! I really want to witness one of her happiest moments. I want to be present at her big day. I’m really happy for her!! I can’t wait for Thursday.
I’m trying to get my friend Ian to come with me on Thursday, so that we can share the transport costs (well, it’s only 5 euro difference if you ask me!). And I want him to see how a simple Indonesian wedding is like. I’ve been trying to expose him to Indonesian culture for some time now. The language, movie (we watched Merantau already! And we loved it!), etiquette, foods (those which he hasn’t tried, because he eats Indonesian foods almost everyday), and so on. I’m not a good teacher, but I’m trying my best 😀
When the good news came, the bad news followed. Few hours ago, I was shocked by my friend’s tweet:
Inalilahi wa inailahi rojiun telah berpulang kesisinya sahabat kita RICKY THORIQ PRAMUJATI.. Semoga amal ibadahnya diterima disisiNYA amin.
I couldn’t believe it when I read his tweet. Thoriq (as we used to call him) was my high school’s friend. We weren’t very close and occasionally had brief conversations, but I just couldn’t imagine having to lose another friend. He was the second third person from our batch to pass away. I offer my deep condolences to his family.