April 26, 2006

random stuff before leaving

I'll be back in Europe this weekend. Singapore stopover should be long enough for es kachang and katong laksa with Indrani, Thal+Ari and Yos.

Arriving in Amsterdam on Queen's Day of all days. I'll be sure to wear my orange Nike Waffle. If I can leave the airport, I'm either partying with Ally&co in Amsterdam centrum or I'll be hanging out with Gerard at his parents' and playing in the lake.

I want I want a Love-Hate T-shirt.

I'm going to miss my mom and dad and sister and little Xavie.

I'm all giddy from the thought of seeing Robert again :)

Posted by Yasmina at 07:15 AM | Comments (7)

April 18, 2006

head on over to ...

... my Flickr site for being peeping Toms.

Nothing interesting happening. Or maybe I just don't feel like writing anything. I don't feel like anything right now. It's weird. Like the colors here are so vivid they're blinding, yet at the same time they're fading.

Actually, school has started so I am sitting behind my iBook a lot, Skyping into the lectures. I have a feeling it is going to be a nightmare because we're five hours ahead of Italy. Late nights.

Posted by Yasmina at 12:16 PM

April 13, 2006

hospital days

Delayed posting because I stayed in the hospital Wednesday night and today and I couldn't figure out how to get online. No images (yet) because I'm sneaking dialup connection from the hospital desk while the nurses are not looking ;)

*copied and pasted* Wednesday night, April 12th 2006

It's been an eventful day. Started out with lunch with some Flickr friends at Jittlada in PIM2 Jakarta. OMG, the food was SO tasty and delicious and I was pretty hungry and we were endlessly chatting that I didn't take so many photos. Huie is going to kill me now, because she specifically asked for food photos.

We had Thai green curry with chicken, red beef curry, chicken wrapped in pandan leaves *omg, heaven in a green wrap*, Thai fried rice with pineapples *I ate some before I remembered I was allergic to pineapples* and mango salad, which I'd never had before and the flavor and texture was interesting because they'd coated the mango in a light batter that reminds me of the batter on dim-sum taro balls. Of course, we had the obligatory tom yam soup as starters.

Dessert was interesting because I never had that dish before. It's singkong with a light coconut cream sauce. I don't know the English word for singkong, must look it up, but it's a sort of potato, I guess. You can just fry slices of it as a snack, or ground it up to make all sorts of sweet and savoury dishes. I think it's a plant that is particular to the region of South-East Asia. You can also eat the leaves, which tastes slightly more bitter than spinach; I love the leaves stewed in coconut milk, a dish called Sayur Daun Singkong.

It was an educational day into Thai cuisine for me today. Thanks to Satya and his dad, for taking me to lunch today! :)

After lunch I met up with this girl, who I met through GF. We ended up in Starbucks, at Citos, where we drank frappucinos and talked and talked and talked and talked until Mr.GF himself decided to show up ;)

After a week of fresh fruit juices, I really wanted a cold cold beer, so we went to a pub and resumed the conversation there. Then, a bunch of other guys turned up and we just started drinking.

I'm now hanging out with my grandfather in his hospital room. He's generally OK, just a bit of Delhi belly really, but he's 92 and doesn't recover from these things as quickly as the rest of us and he tends to get dehydrated, hence the overnight stay in the hospital. I've rolled out my bed for the night, the sofabed, and I'll keep him company till one of my cousins relieves me of duty tomorrow night. I'm sitting in the dark, typing this, listening to my grandfather's gentle breathing.

I don't know why, but hospitals, especially the ones here, give me the creeps. I swear that they are all haunted, especially the central hospital, RSCM, in the Menteng area of Jakarta; built during the colonial Dutch times, I'm positive many pre-war headless Dutch ghosts wander around its halls at night. Or some scary Indonesian ghosts, which, in stories, are almost always a woman, with ghastly pale skin, long flowing black hair and blood red lips, wearing a white dress and having some pretty serious unfinished business with a former lover or husband's jealous mistress.

Check out Thalia's Beautiful Ghosts Around the World series.

I guess I'm just one of those people who don't like hospitals; even when they are bright and clean and shiny.

Posted by Yasmina at 07:41 AM | Comments (2)

April 08, 2006

bleh... paperwork...

Heh. Well, the bad news is that it's taking longer than expected. Will have to postpone my return flight back :(

The consolato in Amsterdam told us the wrong thing (getting nulla osta at Questura, instead of the Comune) so now Robert has to get the nulla osta and FedEx it to me... Tuh kan, kalo tau gitu, gue stay di Belanda deh...

However, we're wondering why we need a nulla osta since the Questura told us we didn't need one since Robert is an EU citizen and if you look into the esteri.it website, the family members of an EU citizen doesn't need one. Nyebelin kan? Bener-bener deh, tangan kanan ngga bicara sama tangan kiri nih namanya...

The good news is that broadband here work fine, both at my parents' home and at my dad's apartment in the city. So I guess, if I have to miss more of school, I could manage by hooking up through Skype. But people wouldn't want to be on my team, I guess, since it is not easy working like this. And working remotely here is going much worse than when I was in NL, because of the five-hour time difference :(

In the meantime, I am doing my own people research and looking into the mobile phone culture here in Indo, which is definitely interesting and livelier than in Europe. I'm taking loads of photos for all the moodboards and scenarios and I wish I'd brought my other lenses.

I love being in the tropics though, the natural light just makes all my photos amazingly vivid. It's warm and I wish I'd brought more skirts and sandals.

It really is good to be home. Spending time with my parents and sister and nephew. Also seeing a lot of my cousins, and other relatives. Everyone just wants to feed me. It's so sweet!

So far I have eaten pempek Palembang (thinking of Kat as I ate it), cwie mie, bakmie GM, bubur ayam, sayur daun singkong, ikan asin, ati ampela goreng kecap mentega, and drinking lots of fruit juice.

P.S. Gue kangen kamu banget, Mr.K!

Posted by Yasmina at 05:48 PM | Comments (1)

April 05, 2006

I am gone

Will be back in a couple of weeks, I guess...

This is for you, Mr. K ♥ ♥ ♥

Posted by Yasmina at 09:07 AM

April 03, 2006

omg, addicted!

Thalia and Ari made this new game as a new addition to their Avocadolite Farm. Major work avoidance stuff!

Oh, and this image is especially for Huie... :)

Posted by Yasmina at 09:57 PM | Comments (1)

April 02, 2006

João and Yasmina: together again :)

Saturday morning I picked João up at Schiphol Airport. I was SO HAPPY to see him. The last week I'd been somewhat lost without Robert, and feeling estranged from friends and feeling stressed out with all the paperwork, the move and schoolwork, and I just want to get back to Milano, and then I see João, and we just picked up where we left off and everything was fine again... :)