Saturday, February 12, 2011

J_42, 43 & 44: Wine and politics, end of days, and presents and accounted for (chortle)

Hello troops!

Well, here it is. My second to last post, and the last one I will ever write in Jakarta (for the next little while at any rate). I fly out of the country in 9 hours, and I leave my kos in 7, at 2am (sigh).
But I get ahead of myself. Let me take you on a journey with my words. Back to Thursday, at any rate.

Details are hazy because the last couple of days have been pizacked, but as I remember it, I worked from home for most of Thursday, having developed a minor cold and not feeling particularly up to trudging into work.. I got quite a bit of stuff written before heading to the New Zealand embassy drinks in my best gears, on the back of an ojek. Having swapped some change with two surprised looking office workers, I headed up to the drinks, to find a whole score (or even 25 oh ho ho) of people there and loads of Kiwis. Helena hadn't arrived, and Sarah wasn't going to, being stressed with the special section, so I wandered up to the military guy from the embassy, who was talking to a famous ex-pat journo. The military guy, never one to disappoint a first impression, said hello unenthusiastically and then took off as I was replying. I guess the dislike is mutual. The ex-pat was hard work but opened up a bit when he realised I wasn't an idiot, or a suck up (I think). Helena then arrived and we proceeded to have a good yarn to several random people, including a software salesman, whose product was used mainly in the oil industry ("Don't talk to me about global warming - I agree and my kids are always on at me"). The embassy held a quiz with various prizes and I'm sorry to say I failed miserably, EVEN at getting the scale of the Christchurch earthquake, despite having LIVED IN CHCH at the time. Ay yah!

I tottered home, full of good wine and glow of warmth that we'd received from an overflow of praise - I told the ambassador it was nice to have an honest diplomat, he said I'd asked very good questions.

Alas, the night was not over - I had remembered on the back of the ojek that I was supposed to write a side bar for this %#$% section, as WELL as a 1200 word piece, and this realisation had caused me to swear loudly (and thus the ojek to swerve violently) and to panic about exactly what I had due. I also remembered a travel competition was due around about now, and looked up the dates to find it was due midnight Friday NZ time - so 6pm the next day here. I don't know why, but it seemed like a good idea to enter, so I stayed up until 3am, writing my article, my side bar and the 1500 word story for the competition.

The next morning, I probably don't need to tell you, was not pretty. However I made it to work in goodly time and tuned up my competition story, before sending it off and wishing for luck. Then it was time for the closing ceremony at ACICIS, which really just involved a speech from the director of our University, and then a group discussion about improvements to be made. I got my certificate in Bahasa (95% booyah!) and then headed back to work early, to finish off my side bar. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to check over my first story, before I headed home for a cream bath with Helena. I chose chocolate this time, and it was once again a fantabulous experience - once I asked the girl to stop rubbing this particular place on my skull she seemed to have an obsession with, since it quite quickly became raw and painful.

Again time, my nemesis, was against me, and I had to cut the cream bath short (cue running out of the salon with wet, chocolatey smelling hair) in order to get dressed up and jump in a taxi to get to Facebar, to meet my mentor for drinks. I espied (a word!) the Australians trying to flag a taxi down on the main road and they crammed in mine, a mutually beneficial arrangement since they'd had no luck getting a ride, and I had no idea where I was going.

At Face, our mentor bought us all two rounds of drinks (woo!) and we got to know him a lot better than we ever had over the past four weeks, since I told him several elaborate schemes he should employ with his interns next year (including popping up randomly behind them and demanding to know why they were using the particular programme they happened to be on at that time: "WE NEVER USE FIREFOX, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" and then throwing the whiskey glass in his hand at the wall and storming out of the office) which he promised to video and then send to us.

I said goodbye with a much better impression of him and headed off on the back of an ojek to keep my reservation for 30 people at an Italian restaurant. I started getting nervous when the ojek guy got lost 3 times, but luckily the head of the course was as organised as ever and had gotten there first with her husband. We ordered starters and wine, and gradually other people began to trickle in - sigh- after our mains arrived. However, it was a really nice night, and so good to see everyone relaxing and getting along after a very short 6 weeks.

When we FINALLY sorted out the bill, for which I had to do my best Nazi impression and ask everyone to PLEASE remember 20% additional tax, I said goodbye to those who were heading off to bed, and went to a bar down the road. It was pretty lame, lots of older people schmoozing, no dancing, and really lame re-mixes, so I had a dance or two and then decided to head home, having had about 5 hours sleep the night before.

So this morning I slept in, got up and packed all my belongings - I had THREE bags full of rubbish, which was fairly disgusting, and managed to get all my belongings back into my pack. Then I headed into Semanggi one last time to meet Peter for lunch and have a chat with him, but completely forgot to ask him about his week away in the excitement of discussing BluRay DVDs (don't ask). On the way to Semanggi, I handed over my blanket, some biscuits and my tea bags to another beggar lady with a baby - hopefully she'll use them, or sell them. After a delicious lunch at the mall, I farewelled Peter, having been told visiting NZ was not too likely since he'd seen Greymouth, and agreed to email instead. Then it was off on my mission to find presents for everyone back home, and I'm sorry to say gang that there are bound to be people I just haven't been able to get anything for. I'm sorry, but that mall is a PLAGUE of commercialism and I got stuck in it until 8pm tonight. How I loathed myself by the end, AND all the shop attendants. Shop girls here (invariably girls) have a terrible habit of a) calling out "Bule sialam" (don't know what sialam is, but bule's annoying) b) standing RIGHT beside you when you're looking at things and c) insisting on trying to sell you whatever you're looking at. They will push you aside to get it off the rack, ignore your questions to tell you it's very cheap, great quality, and then laugh at you with the friend who for some reason is in every shop, sitting behind the 'counter' eating something, or looking extremely bored. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a little bit bitter. (SARCASM)

Anyway I got what I could and escaped, having had a phone conversation with Michelle about dinner (couldn't get to her, might see her at airport, lovely lovely LOVELY (NOT SARCASM) to meet her and Chris if we didn't), and had dinner with Sarah, where we discussed life, the universe and our blasted section. I also ran into Jack and Trish when I was leaving, and farewelled them - visits to Australia are in order I think.

Then it was home, to have a shower (it's INSANELY hot here) and put my presents away, and finally, FINALLY get on to checking this article, re-writing the sidebar to be 'cheeky' (as requested by editor sigh) and then maybe have a nap before catching our taxi at 2am and saying goodbye to Jakarta at 5am.

The projected plan is to arrive in Brunei at (maybe) 9am (?!) and then get a tour of its sights, thanks to Helena's friend's sister ('s dog's uncle's teacher's piano tuner), then sleep, jump on a plane and watch movies until New Zealand, midday Monday.

So I will update on Monday when I'm safely home, my last ever (travel?) blog post. Until then, adios Jakarta, you chaotic, smelly, crazy, awesome beast.

LESSONS LEARNT 42, 43 & 44:

- Diplomats put on a good show
- Jakarta is unbearably hot at the moment!
- It's been an awesome course, with some amazing people. I'm sad to see them go.
- If you come to this city, you can't help but have a great time.

2 comments:

  1. The shop girls are actually saying Boleh which is May I ..the last part is probably a variation on 'sell you this' or help you'

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  2. Ha, oh dear, those poor girls. It's lucky I invariably say 'Makasi', even when in a foul mood!

    ReplyDelete