Sort-of Recent Photos

OK, tons of pictures headed your way! The first few go back about a month, so bear with me.

I was asked to give a speech for about 80 incoming freshman in the English Letters department of my university. They had a kind of "camp" for the weekend, and I came up for Saturday morning. I spoke about my experience as a freshman in the U.S. (you can see my PowerPoint of a typical dorm room up on the wall). I think they understood...some of it.

Rapt students. Yes, I AM that riveting.

After the presentation, we drove to a hot springs area (sadly, I don't remember the name of it!) and walked up a really steep hill. You can see Bu Wahju in the background on the right, Pak Milal on the right, and a student who was catching a ride with us, Ovi, in the foreground.

Posing in NATURE (said in Robert Goulet's voice).

I stopped on the way back to buy roasted corn from these ladies.

Flash forward to the following weekend.We met Steve (a Fulbright Researcher) and his wife Sakti for dinner. Very nice people. Sorry I don't have a picture of them yet. But they took us to this cool park, Taman Bungkun (I think?), where everybody hangs on Friday night.

Saturday night: dinner at Mango Terrace for Nina's (the girl on the left in the center) birthday! This was a gathering of Fellows and ETAs. Really nice to catch up a little.

After the birthday dinner, Jen and I went to see a traditional East Javanese music and dance performance, in which Steve was playing. These are some of the musicians. 

These ladies danced and sang. And had gorgeous clothing (which you can't really see here, unfortunately). 

Sakti, Jen, and me enjoying the show.

We took a free bus tour on Sunday, and saw these girls practicing traditional dance at one of the cultural centers in Surabaya. 

On Monday night, Steve and Sakti invited me out again (they're so nice!) to see a Ludruk, or traditional performance, similar to the one we saw on Saturday. Except this one was a live performance for the radio station RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia). It was really cool to just sit in the back and quietly watch the performers.

Then I got "kidnapped" to come to this pesantren (Muslim boarding school)! This is a cute calf I saw walking around the premises in the morning. 

Cute students at the pesantren. 

Then we went to the zoo on Sunday! Despite the fact that the Surabaya Zoo was apparently written up as the worst zoo in the world, where apparently the animals die at an alarming rate. But it's the biggest zoo in Indonesia! So a couple of exchange students and I went. It wasn't quite as bad as I expected. Although the chained-down elephants made me cry. I did not photograph those. 

Apparently there is a fish whose Indonesian name is Grace Kelly? I was really confused by that. But at least it's a classy-looking fish.

Cotton candy (purchased for 50 cents and tasting pretty different from American CC) and Komodo dragons! Could there be any better ending to the day?