Oh dear... am I a pretty bad blogger, right? I had planned to write something every few days and now it's been weeks. In my defense, I had visitors from Germany for the past five weeks and I am only now starting to settle down again. But today, I have more to tell :).
A lot has happened in the past weeks. We spent two days in Ubud, a long weekend in Uluwatu, and another two nights on Gili Trawangan. I had to say goodbye to my friend Laura and shortly after, I had visitors from the next girls, Rina and Nona. I took my mid-term exams in uni and had a scooter accident. I ate a lot - good and sometimes not so good. I partied a lot, but I also relaxed. And most importantly, I still haven't shown my running shoes the paths between the rice fields!!! I have seen so much. And it's not even halfway yet. I am incredibly happy that it's not even halfway yet. And now, I'll try to summarize the past weeks as concisely as possible.
Ubud was a dream. Charley and I already visited this enchanting place during our trip last year, but for Laura and Anka, Ubud was a completely new Bali experience. Because as much as I love Canggu - you don't really get to see the actual culture in that hipster village. But in Ubud, it's completely different. Despite all the hustle and bustle, there is an incredible serenity in this place. Everywhere you smell incense sticks and dreamcatchers sway in the wind. The yoga schools are lined up, and every house has a small, private temple. In Ubud, you can really unwind. Among other things, we visited the Monkey Forest and took a leisurely stroll through the rice fields.
Uluwatu always blows me away. We've been there for day trips before, but since it takes about 1 1/2 hours each way by scooter, I spent a long weekend there with a few friends. Uluwatu is all the way down south in Bali and an absolute surfer's paradise. Even though I can't surf myself (I wonder when I will finally get motivated to learn..), it's just so much fun to watch all the pros gliding over the turquoise waves and absorb the whole relaxed atmosphere. But the best thing about Uluwatu are the beautiful, mostly deserted white beaches. Since the area where we live looks more like the North Sea than a beach, it's always even more beautiful to drive to the south and feel like you're in a postcard.The Pantai Melasti is my absolute favorite place in Uluwatu. Regarding Gili Trawangan, I can say that the island is crowded with tourists, but still has its charm. Most visitors are relatively young and come for a few nights to party there (which was similar for us), but the beautiful thing about Gili T is that on one side of the island, there's a lot of nightlife and partying, while on the other side, there's complete tranquility. So, depending on the mood, you either go left or right. I had a great girls' weekend - which also included two guys - and saw the most beautiful sunset I've seen so far in Indonesia. Now that I've already taken my mid-season exams, I should probably talk about the serious part of my semester abroad and mention the university. I don't think you've really noticed yet that I'm studying here, right? :) To be honest, even I notice very little of it. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. When a week goes according to plan, I go to university for 2 1/2 hours each on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. But the usual rule is that professors finish after 1-1 1/2 hours, or there's a public holiday and I only have 2 out of 3 days of uni. The mid-term exams fit into the schedule quite well: we were allowed to use all our materials in each exam and the professors even left the room during the exam. I'm currently trying to figure out exactly what the 1,850 € tuition fees were for. It definitely wasn't for the painstakingly prepared teaching materials by the professors, as our scripts are partly based on Wikipedia articles :).But: If there were no university, I wouldn't have to set an alarm in the morning and I probably wouldn't drive by my favorite rice fields at 8 o'clock in the morning, which always make my heart melt every Thursday. And so, at the end of this post, as almost every day, I ask myself: 'What kind of craziness am I experiencing in my life?'. Ten-year-old children zoom past me on scooters, as if they had gotten their driver's license right after learning how to walk. Rice farmers stand in fields at 35 degrees Celsius and 75% humidity, with a contented smile on their kind faces. Two meters away from the V I L L A where I live, men sleep on a wooden bench because they have no home, and they greet me every evening when I come home with a warm 'Selamat Malam!'. Life can be so simple, why did I make it so difficult in the past years? That's it for today. Next week, I'll be back with an update from our new home. We're moving :) ...
