Boring week

Hola everyone! I just wanted to send a quick update from across the Pacific...

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving!! And all of you who were lucky enough to eat turkey on that wonderful day, I hate you. Actually I was really bummed that I wasn't going to have a Thanksgiving dinner. But then Robe organized a big Thanksgiving dinner for me with my housemates, and I felt so incredibly blessed. Although it was Chinese food, it still felt special because we all ate together and laughed together. We played games, talked about the Thanksgiving story and we talked about why we were thankful. It was so great, and we didn't even go to sleep until 1:30am, which is unheard of in Indonesia. Granted, this was not the best idea we've ever had, as I had to wake up at 5am the next morning to teach at 6:30. Needless to say I was a little groggy when I walked into the classroom...

Anyway, nothing exciting really happened last week. I FINALLY got my passport back from Jakarta, but actually some of the other Darmasiswa students at my uni still haven't gotten theirs back. Keep in mind we sent in our passports to get our extended stay Visa at the beginning of September, when all the Darmasiswa students first arrived in Indonesia. It has taken Indo Immigration almost 3 months to get my passport back to me. Ridiculous. And some of the kids who don't have theirs back yet are planning on going home for Christmas. Clearly they can't leave the country if they don't have their passports. So we called Jakarta to ask them about this, and do you know what they said? "You will just have to wait until we can finish them. We are sending out about 10 per day and if yours is on the bottom of the pile, well then that's too bad." Then they said they hoped to be finished with all of the passports by mid-January. When we then told them some of us wanted to go home for Christmas, they pretty much said, "Too bad, so sad for you. You'll just have to wait." AH! INDONESIA!!!

Anyway, we found a nice little "warung" (very small restaurant/food stand) near our house that is extremely cheap and good. We can get a full meal - rice, tempe (fried goodness made from soybeans), veggies, and fish for Rp4000, which is about $0.43. Isn't that ridiculously amazing? And the best part is that the woman who owns the place doesn't skimp on portions. Wonderful.

What else? Oh, hanging out with all of these Asians for 5 months is starting to take a toll on me. Before I went out the other day I put on sunblock and when I walked outside, I opened my umbrella to shade myself from the sun. I didn't even realize I was doing it until it started raining and I thought to myself, "Oh, I better get out my umbrella. I don't want to get wet." Yea...I'm now afraid of getting a tan. I must protect my beautiful white skin!! Oh my goodness I'm becoming Asian...When I told this story to Hindy and Lily (the 2 Chinese girls I spend all my time with), they laughed and said I've been using my umbrella for quite some time now. Oi.

Okay I think that's about it. We're all still doing well here, battling the sun and the bugs and the rain. I miss you all!!! Later :)