When East Meets West in a City Where North Meets South

It's been a while since my last post. All of those preparations and expensive internet access halt me for a while. Now here I am stranded in the middle of nowhere. Okay this post will be dedicated to my journey and my first experience living abroad.
It was my first experience traveling by plane. I arrived at Cengkareng airport in the afternoon. After fasting break I entered the passenger-only area at the airport. Kind of nervous at the time coz it's my firt time traveling abroad, first time traveling by airplane and I was gonna do it alone. The flight I took was Jakarta-Dubai and Dubai-Munich. But everything ended up perfectly.
On my flight to Dubai I got companion from two friends who were going to hamburg. It was nice though. We wait our next flight at Dubai International Airport. Unfortunately we had to separate there. I have to take flight to Munich.
Once arrived at Munich I thought I would experience some troubles since my visa is Italian visa although it's Schengen Visa. The immigration in Dubai questioned me about my purpose and why I landed in Munich instead of Italian area. But the immigration officer at Munich Airport is far more friendly compare to Dubai or Jakarta officers. Thank God I was allowed and my baggage was arrived on time.
After passport control and taking baggage I look for S-Bahn to take me to the Munich train station (Munich Hauptbahnhof). I found the sign and it took me to the subway below airport. When I arrived there I saw no machines or counters indicating ticket selling point. I asked a man and he told me to go upstairs, there I can find the ticket counter. The ticket cost me around 8 euros. I took S1 from the airport. One thing surprised me, there's no ticket checking whether before entering, during the journey nor after arrived at the destination. Although I caught a message board in S-Bahn declaring penalty for those who ride the transportation without valid ticket.
Arriving at Munich train station is more confusing. I took wrong direction and I went downstairs instead of upstairs. Luckily an old man showed me direction. When I went upstairs to the train platforms cold air struck me. I thought it was air conditioner but it was the air temperature at Munich itself. Very cold, for Indonesian :P Waiting train is not so long and then it took me to my final destination, Bolzano/Bozen.
4 hours by train from Munich to Bolzano. It was beautiful when entering alps mountain. it has green and white look. I got at Bolzano train station and look around for friends but can't find them so I decided to walk to the Rainerum, the name of a dormitory. Don Gregorio opened the door for me since I don't have key to enter it. Don Paolo took me to my room and I was amazed. This is two times bigger than my old room in Bandung. Nice place.
Bolzano is a small town. But a beautiful one. Yesterday Me and a friend went to the mountain for weinstrasse or walking in vineyard. Nice scenery. But I have to do my best in the next one year to pass all the course here.

Home Activities

It’s been a week since I got to my hometown. Luckily right now is in windy season so it’s not as hot as my few last visits. Not many changes in my hometown. One thing that concern me is the Brantas River. It’s getting shallower each day. We can see several islands emerged in that river. May be in the next several years the river would totally dry up. I remember when I was a kid me and my friends walk across that river carefully because there are several part that are still deep. Those islands didn’t exist that time so crossing the river would takes some time because it was so wide.

My activities here is still related to my departure. Going to see the doctor asking for medical certificate, visiting my relatives because I won’t be able to visit them in lebaran day, nyekar (I don’t know the exact translation for this word) in the cemetery for the same reason as visiting my relatives, packing and learning how to cook. Ow one more thing, I also played with my nephew. My cute 3 months old nephew :D Seeing he smiled while holding my fingers was simply melted my heart. May be I’m a family man after all.

The best thing is I’m at home in the beginning of Ramadan. Moment I haven’t been experienced for the last 6 years. Fasting together during the day and Tarawih pray during the night. Nashukashi na. The masjid near my house where I use to pray Tarawih doesn’t change much. There are several changes like additional fans so it would able to reach entire section of the masjid. It’s lot cooler in the masjid now. One thing that still hasn’t changed is the kids. I thought kids in my neighborhood are all grew up and left this neighborhood. But I still can find kids in masjid during tarawih. Like most kids do they became noisy during tarawih especially during the sermon. Having them around is quite annoying but remembering back then I was just like them, or may be worse :D When I was a kid me and my friends also did what they do during sermon. I remember the Imam and several male jemaah told us to be quite and stared at us with angry looks. Unfortunately, I can’t find my old partner in crimes so we can’t commit the same crime now :D

I'm learning several cooking skills from my mom. Due to differences in the ingredients I’m going to find abroad, so I am just growing my courage to cook and my guts to eat whatever come up as the result of my cooking. Hopefully my skill will improve after condition there force it to.

Most of my EM friends are already in Europe by now. They’re spending their beginning of Ramadan there. Knowing that I’ll join them shortly makes me feel this mixed feeling. Exciting, sad, afraid and nervous. One thing for sure there’s no turning back now.

P.S. I wonder, why do all characters in The Simpsons only have four fingers in each of their hands?

Two Farewells in A Row

Last Sunday there were two farewells took place. First farewell was Bang Ipan's and his wife. They moved to a new house they bought last year. This farewell started very early. I woke up because I heard noises outside my room. I look outside and I saw Bang Ipan already started moving his boxes. So we (me and my friends) helped him moving his stuffs to pick up cars waiting outside the alley.
There was one thing lil bit funny happened that morning. Coincidentally, one of my neighbor held marriage ceremony right in front of our house. So there were two different looks that morning. One look was in the marriage where all the people in it were well-dressed and the other look was our side where we're all looked sweaty and dirty :D When the groom met the bride we had to stop our moving activity to honor this couple meeting procession. We could get bad luck, like that procession won't happen to us, if we ignored it :))
After all bang Ipan's stuffs were loaded on pick-up cars we moved to his new house. His wife said their house was ready 100% except for it's road access. I didn't take this seriously until I got there. She's right! The only available road wasn't in front of the house but about 10 metres above the house. Walking down to the house is quite difficult especially if we have to carry those stuffs. Finally we found a way to transfer those stuffs tot he house by making human chain (indonesian: estafet) and pass those stuffs among us till they reach the nearest man to the house. Finally those stuffs are inside his house. It was fun even though it was hot. The house resided in a hill with Bandung view just outside it's door. I guess this is why he picked the house. So it's a farewell for Bang Ipan and his wife. He left the house he's been living for about 9 years with us. Is it really time for us (the elders) to leave this house. My time is less than a week now :(
Second farewell was mine and with my friends from the place I worked (or hang out) :P Even there's no official statement but I consider it as my farewell :D We held this farewell las Sunday because it's the only time we could gather again. My friend came all way from Palembang so he can teach a training class and we can make this farewell by taking picture all of us together. So as we plan we went to photo studio and took pictures six of us. And then we went to a steak house for dinner. It was fun. My friend forgot to write my order so I got my order late. We talk about lots thing from trainings, projects even my romance life. The last part came up because one of my friend wanted me to join his family by dating with his sister :D My others friend even suggested me to marry my girlfriend before I leave. Definitely it was a very nice evening. I realized that it could be our last time together. I'll be busy with my preparations and they'll be busy doing what they usually do. Finally, internet would be our media to intermingle.
Everything has it's own path. We took our own and hoping it will be the best path for us. Although we're not walking on the same road again we always share same memories that we were walking the same road. I won't forget walking down ciumbeluit street at midnight almost every night, having meal at 3 AM, late-night coding, spending all days in the lab, and doing lots of wacky things :)

itsudatte wakare wa omoi yori mo sakini kuru no
Sayonara mata itsuka aimasho.....
Sayonara mata doko ka dete.....
dakara watashi mo konnani tooku ni kichatteru kedo makoto ni iu ne