The reason why we were riding the motorbike was because we went off to fly kites in the corn fields. It was heaps of fun! I haven't flown a kite in yonkey donkeys, so I was pretty bad at it. But we ended up having two kites on one string, snaz as! Later on we joined up with the others for dinner at a lesehan. After now having eaten at several lesehan and surviving, I'm feeling a lot less apprehensive about them. I still do marvel at how if they were in Australia they would be shut down faster than you could say nasi goreng.
On Sunday morning I rode my bike to Mirota Kampus (which is a supermarket/clothes shop on the other side of UGM). It's kind of like Gading Mas, but they actually have what you want, including fresh fruit. I was quite proud of doing this myself, it may not sound like much of an acheivement, but anyone who knows anything about traffic in Asia could understand where I'm coming from. It also seems that everyone likes to do their grocery shopping on Sunday morning, so I was standing in line for about 15 minutes, not even moving anywhere.
When I got home, it was time for my small group (bible study) skype date. It was wonderful to be able to see and speak to the girls and to be able to discuss Jonah, as if I were there ... nearly. In the afternoon Jack, Joey and I went to Galeria (a shopping centre) to get some last minute stuff for uni. I impulse-bought some pants, that it turns out are actually really good and comfy, so for once it actually worked out! I also bought some notebooks for class and realised I could buy a pack of ten books for Rp.28.000 or just one for Rp.25.000. Needless to say I went with the pack of ten batik-style books.
After tea at a cheap as warung, aptly called Padang Murah ("Cheap Padang", padang is kind of like a buffet style warung, that always seem to specialise in deep fried things.), and desert at Dunkin' Donuts (nowhere near as cheap), the "awkward turtle gank" came back to our place to play cards.
"Awkward turtle gank" is currently in use 1) because we were trying to explain the awkward turtle (the Auslan sign for turtle, used in awkward situations) and 2) because Wahyu thought "gang" was spelt with a "k" on the end instead.
So today was my first day of classes since the end of May! Goodness it has been a long time. And I was off to great start, early and everything... which turned into really late when no-one turned up at the room. Luckily Red also had that class, so it wasn't so stressful. But we went to the office to see if the room had been changed; which it had. The new room was in the old FISIPOL building, several blocks away (see map below). So after a hot 15-20 minute walk to the new location we walked into the wrong room, didn't quite sit down because the lecturer asked what subject we were doing and finally found the correct one across the hall after discovering the updated (from only a couple of days ago) room locations of classes; I had been wondering how on earth all the Indonesian students seemed to know about the change, but not us. When we walked in there was a grand total of 5 minutes left, we were 45 minutes late. The lecturer said to us, "This class will start at 9.30 next week". He then asked us to do a speech to introduce ourselves. Red was shy, so I introduced us, and even got an applause at the end, so it was worth it.
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| (A) is roughly where my class should have been, (B) is where it was moved to, about 1.5km away. Just to put it in perspective, my kos is around abouts where the red dot is. |
After that I got a drink, cooled down for a few minutes then ventured off to find my next class room. I went to the building I thought it would be, but was told I should be in the building in front. Unfortunately the uni isn't really organised, so I wasn't sure which way the front actually was. I ended up being escorted by a security guard form the Psychology faculty to the building I needed to be in. That was a bit nerve racking though, because I already stand out enough as it is. I got in the room ok and checked with the other students that I was in the right class. Then the lecturer turned up and asked us to follow him to a different room. It was like a small meeting room with just 12 chairs around a table, so the rest of us sat on the ground. It was good though, I'm pretty sure I understood about 90% of what the lecturer said. The time I was most lost was when he said something about bule (white person) and everyone laughed. But everyone was friendly, all wanting to know "dari mana, bule?" ("where are you from, white person?").
After a full on morning of classroom searching and lunch in the hot canteen area, I came home to read for a bit then headed off to the pool with some friends. On Saturday, Nick and I had been looking at hotels for family to stay in and we discovered that the pool at one is free to use, as long as you buy some food or drink (around Rp.8000) afterwards. Swim and a meal for $1, neat as!
That's all for now, need to get up bright and early for my two classes tomorrow.
Sampai jumpa,
Katrina
