faraway

Our weekend this week was fulled with socialization with friends.

Firstly, I would like to mention here that at the beginning of July we finally bought a car, Nissan X-Trail. We call it “our first big investment”. After we saved money for 4 years, finally we could afford it. Jerome is very happy with that car and me too since I also contributed my saving too. And as you can guess, this car has been the focus of our private lives for the past four weeks. Of course, this car has kind of changed our lives. Getting around is easier and we are much more easier to go out of town. Well, Jerome promised that he will post a story about our car include the pictures someday.

As I mentioned before, this weekend we were very busy. In Friday night, we attended a 14th anniversary of YAPPIKA at Hotel Cemara. The party was very entertaining, the presented their documentations about their journey in past 14 years and during the dinner they entertained us with music. We met our old friends. We also met Eep Syaifullah and his wife, Sandrina Malakiano. Zach was very enjoy the party and wanted to shake all people that he met. He said “Hi, I am Zachary.” He was really cute. He tried to imitate us.

On Saturday, we went up to Bogor. Jerome’s boss, Paul and Stephanie, invited us to come to their rented-villa in Desa Cilember. Nice villa, the building seems like dutch-style building with old-antique furnitures. It had three big beautiful bedrooms with big bathrooms. There was outdoor-swimming pool with beautiful views (rice-paddy fields, villager houses, and river). Of course with fresh air, no pollution. Hm … unfortunately we forgot to bring our camera, we can not show you how beautiful that place.

Except us, Tom and his dog (Hurley) also came and they stayed overnight. Then, we spent our time chatting, lunch outside, swimming, playing with kids and hurley, and playing billiard. Zach and Lawrence (Paul and Stephanie’s son) was very good when they played together. They shared the toys. Zach was really like the pool (read : billiard), he tried to play it but the stick was very big for him so he just played with the balls.

In the late of afternoon we decided to go back to Jakarta. During our way back to Jakarta, Courtney called us. He just got back from Canada and Yogyakarta and wanted to get together on Sunday but fortunately we got an information from him that Maggie was going back to Toronto on Sunday morning. So we decided to have dinner with them, at least for saying good-bye to Maggie. We picked them up and then we went to Plaza Indonesia. We decided to eat sushi at Sushi Tei Restaurant. We instantly finished all the foods, maybe because we all were hungry. At 9.30 pm, we decided to go home and of course we wish Maggie with good luck for her future in Canada. Seemed that she was little bit nervous for going back to Canada. Anyway, good luck Maggie for your new lives in Canada and hopefully can see you in January next year when we visit our family in Toronto.

On Sunday, we woke up very late, at 9 am!. Then we had our breakfast and afterward just hanging around in the house. I read my book (Petir by Dee), Jerome played his new game in his new work laptop, and Zach played with his dinosaur toys. At 2 pm, Courtney came and then they (Courtney, Jerome and Zach) went swimming at downstair. I just read a TEMPO magazine when they were swimming. Then we had a chat while Zach was still swimming by his self. We stayed at the pool for 2.5 hours.

And then, Jerome and Courtney went to the Darmawangsa Squire to buy our weekly necessities and get our dinner. Meanwhile, Zach had his early dinner before he went sleep. After his dinner, Zach immediately fell asleep. He slept through the night.

Jerome and Courtney bought special beers (I can not remember the brand). They drank it during the dinner. After dinner, we just had a chat about games, work, and our friends. Courtney left our house around 10 pm. After he left, I watched Oprah show. It was about Jon Steward, the host of Daily Show. He is very cuteeeeeee and funny.

That was a story about our weekend. Very tired but fun!

Galuh, 8 August 2005 at 5 pm