Travels...

I barely got out of Kosovo on Wednesday. I've been planning this trip to Indonesia for I dunno how long, and the day before I'm supposed to leave, Winter decides to move into Pristina in full force. It snowed all day Monday (closing the airport) and all day Tuesday (about half the flights left). By Wednesday morning i was starting to freak out. NOOOOOOOO!!! It stopped snowing abuot noon and warmed up enough for the snow to start to melt. All flights leaving as scheduled!!! HOOORAY! So off I went on one hell of a journey to get here. First to Istanbul, then to Dubai (where I spent 5 hours sleeping in a chair in a lounge), then to Bangkok, then to Jakarta. 5 countries in on 24 hour period. Holy geez, was I tired when i got here.

So here I am in beautiful Indonesia, sweating my a** off, and loving every second of it! Matt met me at the airport and we went straight back to the hotel, talked for a bit until I just about passed out in the middle of a sentence (28 hours straight of traveling will do that to a girl). We got up the next day (Friday) and walked all over Jakarta. I had no idea it was so huge. Evidently it's the 3rd largest city in the world. It's scooter city there, as expected, but in addition you have rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, these scary looking 3-wheeled motor taxi things, and motorcycle taxis. Nobody stays in their lanes and traffic is NUTS (at least in Jakarta). That night we found a little backpacker's alley with tons of little pubs and met a couple of Indonesian fellas to hang out with. They ended up taking us to another place with live music - a helluva good blues band - and we boogied the night away. When we got back to the hotel, Matt noticed a dead bird that had been hung by a string from the corner of the balcony above us so it hung just above our balcony... not really sure what that was all about, but it seemed awfully ritualistic. Anybody know anything about that kinda stuff??

We woke up the next morning full of ambitions to hit up a couple of museums and such, but it was pouring (and I mean tropical storm, ain't never seen rain like this before, pouring). It didn't take much convincing for either of us to call it a lazy day and do a whole bunch o' nuthin'. We napped and did some responsible ELF stuff (like wrote our mid-year reports), and napped some more. That night I made him take me to Tony Roma's for dinner. I know I know, I'm in Indonesia - get some Indonesian food. I got two more weeks to do that, I wanted some RIBS. After stuffing ourselves sick, we went to a part of town called Blok M. There was supposed to be a million and one bars and clubs and stuff there, but I think our taxi driver was a little confused. He dropped us off outside a totally deserted bus station, and after walking around through dark alleys and spooky, deserted market stalls, we came out the other side where we wanted to be. So I've heard stories about prostitution in this part of the world, but I got a serious glimpse of it. We walked into this one club to dance a little, and you could tell right away what the deal was. First, I was the ONLY white girl in the room. Two, there was nothing but white DUDES in the room. Lastly, there was about a 10 to one ratio girls to guys. We kinda stood off to one side and took bets on which fat old rich guy was going to take home which girl. (I know, a little sketchy, but ya gotta go with the flow sometimes). After the "Shake that Booty" contest at midnight, we decided it was time to make a run for it before one of us got sold off without our knowledge.

Sunday we flew back to Semarang, where Matt lives and works. It's a pretty good sized city (2 million or so - roughly the population of Kosovo), although it has the feel of a smaller village. Maybe that's just becuase he doesn't live right in the center, he lives on top of a hill on the edge of town. From the campus of his school you can get a great view of the whole city, as well as a glimpse of the ocean.

Ok, so get this, I've been on an island for 4 days and have yet to see the ocean. WHAT?? That's ok, that will be remedied on Wednesday. We (he) chartered a little plane to take us to this little resort on a tiny little island off the coast. White sand beaches and bamboo huts on the water for 4 days. I can't wait... sun, snorkelling, being lazy.... FAB. Pray for good weather... they are in the middle of the rainy season here, but I hope to get just a little bit of a tan before i have to go hang out in the snow again.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I'll write more later, probably when we get back from Kura Kura. :D