Photos: The first three weeks

Finally! The post you've been waiting for. It took me approximately three hours to upload, but I have finally gotten most of my favorite pics from the past four weeks up here. 

So let's start with my second night in Indonesia, when I was still at my site in Surabaya, and Bu Wahju, my counterpart, invited me to dinner at her house with a lot of her family: 

Bu Wahju is sitting to the right of me. Her parents are on either side of us, and her brother and her adorable daughter, Dinda, are on the far left. There were actually about 10 other family members in attendance that night, all in town at the tail end of the celebration of Idul Fitri. 

This is a picture of the main hall on campus, and the opening remarks by the rector of my school. All of the staff was gathered here as a post-Idul Fitri gathering, kind of a "welcome back" luncheon. I was also asked to sing in front everyone at this event. I chose to sing "California, Here I Come" (the old song, not the O.C. theme), which went over... all right. No one knew it. They all wanted me to sing some other California song that I didn't know. I later found out that singing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" gets 'em every time. Now I know.

My first time drinking avocado juice (a standard juice here)! It's mixed with chocolate syrup and milk and lots and lots of sugar. Pretty good. But I think I still prefer it in guacamole. 

Onto Bandung, for the in-country orientation. I've already posted a picture of my amazing room, so I am just posting this view from my window. 

Our first meal together in Bandung. Traditional Sundanese food. We ordered two of a lot of stuff and had more food than we could possibly consume. It all came to $5 each--as I've previously noted. Sorry, can't get over how affordable food was there.

My first time riding in an angkot (tiny bus, standard mode of public transportation all over Indonesia). We chartered this one to take all of us to a tea house 30 minutes away. 

Some more angkot people. 

On our way to Kawah Putih (the white crater), I couldn't get over the horse-drawn...buggies? mixed in among the motor bikes and cars and buses. 

Me at Kawah Putih! It was pretty cool. I think the color of the water is my favorite part. And I kind of like the sulfur smell. 

More traditional Sundanese food! We stopped here on the way back from the crater. You can see some kind of greens (I forgot what), a quail egg, tempe, tofu, some fish (yes, broke my vegetarianism [again] for the fish), and rice. 

We also stopped to pick strawberries. Apparently Bandung is known for its strawberry fields (cue Beatles song). 

For Tabitha's 30th birthday, we had dinner at this bar overlooking the city. 

After dinner, we got martabak. I had been looking forward to this ever since arriving in Indonesia. It's a Dutch dessert (as you can probably guess from its name) that's essentially a huge pancake with a crapload of butter smeared in the middle and bananas and chocolate and whatever else you desire to put  in the middle. It's SO greasy. I could only eat one quarter piece without feeling like I was gonna puke. 

We did some outreach in the local schools. Adam, Jackie, and I got assigned to a middle school in Bandung, where we got to introduce ourselves to several classes and have the students ask us questions. We also did a presentation for the teachers on project-based learning, but those pictures aren't as cool. 

Adorable 7th-graders. 

That's our RELO (our boss, essentially) singing California Dreamin' at a local bar. The bar had a couple paid singers, but they let us sing a couple songs, probably since we were essentially the only ones in the bar. Hilariously, however, they always turned the microphones WAY down whenever we came up to do a song! 

JAKARTA! Corny shot of me looking out the window of my hotel room. I had to do it to show how awesome it was--floor to ceiling windows on two whole walls, on the 45th floor! 

Another view of the sunset from my room. 

Expensive-yet-worth-it American food at a local mall in Jakarta (everything is in a mall in that city). And as usual, the difficulties of counting out the cash at the end of the meal. So many thousand-, ten-thousand-, and hundred-thousand-dollar bills! 

My room at night. I slept with the curtains open every night. SO AWESOME. 

A group of us decided to take public transit (what a hot, sweaty adventure) to Kota Tua, or literally, "old city." This was the colonial area of Jakarta. We got drinks to cool off at Cafe Batavia. 

Another shot from the Wayang (puppet) museum, where there were lots of cool life-size (or larger) puppets.

We tried to find the harbor, only to get really, really, lost in winding alleys of streets. But hey, at least we saw the less-touristy side of Jakarta, right? It was actually a lot of fun just wandering around. 

Last day in Jakarta: we graduated from our language classes! Woo hoo! My beginning- level teacher, Mbak Niken, is on the far left. She was super sweet and patient with us. 

Illegal DVDs purchased on my last morning in Jakarta--mixed in with some that past Fellows just gave me--here's looking at you, Fame.  Yeah, I feel semi-guilty for purchasing these. (Sorry, Dad!) But they will help me survive all that alone time in the coming months. 

I still have a couple photos to post, but they are from this weekend, so I wanted to separate them a bit. This past week was without photos, because, you guessed it--I actually started my job! Taught and lesson-planned like crazy Monday through Friday. I diligently took photos of each of the 230+ students, so I can try to study them and learn their names, at least by the time of the midterm. I hope. Wish me luck in the coming weeks!