September 23, 2007

my cousin D

On Friday night I dreamt about my cousin D. Gue ngga hadir di pemakamannya, dan gue belom pernah ke rumah ortunya, tapi this dream landscape is definitely one I've had before, dan dalam konteks yang sama yaitu rumah ortunya. Lucu yah, rupanya subconscious gue mempunyai sebuah image of what his parents' house is like, dan memori gue ingat bahwa I've dreamt about this before.

In any case, I couldn't stop thinking about D. He was my second cousin, and counting all the years I've been away, we'd hardly seen each other. My memories of him are few, but vivid.

Like that one rainy afternoon with a family party going on and I escaped the clutches of genuine-yet-choking family warmth, seeking refuge in the empty terrace overlooking the small fish pond (a malaria source, if anything!). Not long after, D came to join me. We didn't speak, much. We sat there in our silent understanding that family gets too much for us sometimes. I was glad for his company.

I remember the pitter-patter of the gentle rain, the light of the approaching dusk desaturating the colors of the day, our bare feet on the tile floor, the tip of his cigarette glowing orange in the semi-darkness, the smoke dissipating into the air like ghosts of our past, his white teeth as he smiled, the breaths we took almost in synch.

I wish I could have captured that moment, tangibly, somehow, and then D would be alive in more than just my heart and mind.

Posted by Yasmina at 05:02 PM | Comments (1)

August 20, 2007

Roadtrips with friends

Found these four sunset scans while I was looking for old project files. Karen had scanned them in for me.

It was us on one of our random roadtrips. João, Laszlo, Karen and myself. We ended up in Brugge and Zeebrugge this time. It was frikkin cold on the shore that day but the sky was eternally blue and Karen's jacket was so bright, this visual memory still freshly etched onto my memory. I had a very tasty French onion soup that afternoon, on a beachside bistrot.

I miss us. I do, I do.

Posted by Yasmina at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2007

Labour Day Weekend

A bit of a delayed post since this week the handsome-and-talented husband and I were both working away from Milano.

Tuesday, May 1st was Labour Day so we ran away to Riomaggiore for a 4-day adventure on coastal fishing villages. We didn't do much. It was a weekend of waking up late, having coffee, orange juice and croissants on our large sunny terrace that looks down on Riomaggiore's main square, then going down the smooth pebble beach for sunbathing and swimming in the sea for the entire day, before heading home and dressing for dinner, either taken in our balcony again or at the quiet trattoria by the train station.

How wonderful it is to swim in the sea! I'd forgotten how nice it is to plunge into cool blue waters, how the salt crusts on hair and how afterwards our skin would smell of salt mixed with sun lotion. For three days, we parked ourselves on large smooth boulders on the waterside, so we could lie with our feet in the water and watch crabs mating.

On Tuesday, our last day, the sea was the clearest it had ever been. I could see straight down to the rocky sea floor, and see the fish swim in between my feet. By this time, Robert had turned a lovely shade of brown, his eyebrows slowly turning blond. He's all shiny and smooth, swimming between the boulders, like an oversized otter, and he struggles to climb on the jutting rocks only to dive into the cool waters again.

Unfortunately this week it was back to rainy, gray weather in northern Italy. Robert was in Germany for work and I was in Torino working for three days until Friday. It rained almost non-stop and this depresses me; after a lovely weekend full of sun and love, it was hard to be away from Robert and having awful weather.

Posted by Yasmina at 12:33 AM | Comments (1)

April 09, 2007

Pasqua 2007: Firenze

This Easter weekend, Robert and I ran away to Firenze. Unfortunately, Robert was feeling poorly and by Friday evening, when we arrived at the Alberghino, he'd developed a fever.

After spending a delirious Friday night in bed, Robert felt somewhat better on Saturday morning to go on a relaxed walkabout. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise, because it we ended up taking things easy and discovered the quieter, untouristy parts of Firenze.

Firenze
I think Firenze should be renamed to "Little America" or "Little Britain" during Easter weekend. Il centro storico was full of domestic and foreign tourists. On Easter Sunday, you can clearly differentiate the Italians from the tourists: the Italians were dressed impeccably in their immaculate Sunday best. The tourists were all either L.L Bean catalogue variety or MTV Springbreak special; unfortunately, not all dependent on age.

It's a lovely city, but it's way too touristy. Just as I hated London during the summer tourist season, and why I prefer Rotterdam over Amsterdam, I didn't like Firenze for precisely this reason. Milano can get quite touristy but I've never had shopkeepers in Milano greet me in English. Hummm, maybe I'm developing this Milano-vs-other-Italian-cities complex...

We gave the main sights a miss and headed to Giardino Boboli. First tip of the day: queues to Palazzo Pitti and the main entrance of Giardino Boboli can get extremely long. If you go up Corso San Giorgio to where Giardino Boboli and Bardini neighbour one another, there is another entrance with a biglietteria and hardly anyone queues there.

Robert and I lay on the grassy hill overlooking Palazzo Pitti and Firenze. It was wonderful and we fell asleep in the sun like lazy house cats. The park started to fill up around lunchtime, so we left and went to Giardino Bardini, which was smaller and quieter and had an equally stunning view of Firenze.

Sunday morning, we went to the Duomo to see the Scoppio del Carro, an Easter ritual of blowing up an elaborate wagon decorated just for this purpose. Loud bangs, lots of smoke and sparks of fireworks ensues. It was all fun and good to watch, as the crowd gets really enthusiastic. This is followed by a procession around the city center.

After a heavy Sunday lunch, Robert and I hiked up to Villa Strozzi. We found the lovely gardens and again spent some time lazing in the sun. There were families on their Sunday afternoon walks and I noticed people were a lot friendlier and interactive; there were eye contact and cheerful greetings of "Buona Pasqua" and "Buona sera".

We then walked through the hills and olive groves in the dying Sunday sun, with breathtaking views. It was such a lovely Sunday stroll that I felt better about not renting bikes and cycling through the countryside as I had originally planned.

The food
We received a lot of recommendations from friends (thank you Tango, thank you James). We did find all of those places in town, but in the end we didn't eat there. We'll save those places for our next (more) museum-oriented visit, in the fall.

Too bad Robert was still sick so he could hardly taste and smell any of the food he ate! That's torture of the worst kind (for me).

We ate wonderful Tuscan dishes: faraona all'uva con crema di patate (guinea fowl stewed in grapes on creamy potatoes), polenta con al ragu di cinghiale (polenta with ragu of wildboar), ravioli di zucca con amaretti (pumpkin ravioli with amaretti), sformato caldo di patate con ragù di carni bianche o pomodoro (a molded potato flan with a tomato and meat ragu), bistecca alla fiorentina (yay for extra-rare beef!)... Everything was SO good, I was very happy...

Back in Milano
We're still glowing from the weekend we just had... April will be a busy month with Salone del Mobile Milano and plenty of our designer friends flying in and crashing at our place... I love having friends visit...

I'm looking for our next little holiday at the end of April: we're going to Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre for 4 days! Yippeeee....

Posted by Yasmina at 09:35 PM | Comments (5)

March 23, 2007

sementes

I found this on Flickr whilst looking for papaya images. See sometimes, when I'm hit with a certain memory, I have to quickly get a visual reference and savour the emotion.

In this particular case, I was IMing with a friend in Indonesia, talking about fruit and I remember the breakfasts my father would make for me.

My father would slice papayas into blocks in a bowl. Sprinkle a little bit of sugar and squeeze fresh lime over it. Sometimes he does this before I even wake up, so he chills it in the fridge. Sometimes the bowl of papaya is already waiting for me on the dining table, but nothing really beats this feeling of opening the fridge and discovering there is this delicious bowl of papaya specially made by my father for me.

Oh man, I'm really homesick right now.

Posted by Yasmina at 02:54 PM | Comments (1)

February 02, 2007

VOX QotD: Next On My Itinerary

What's the next country you want to visit? Submitted by Schomer.

Braziland India. Japan is pretty high on the list, too.

However, this year, we are already planning+booking trips to:
1. Hungary in June: I've been here before, but the husband hasn't been, and we're going for the wedding of our friends, Laszlo, who's Hungarian and Lesh, who is British-Indian.
2. Turkey in June: we both have never been here, so we're excited to come; also for the wedding of our friends, Anton, who's British-Turkish, and Kata, who is Hungarian.
3. Indonesia in August: family visit to fulfill our duties as daughter and son-in-law, but we are also hoping to travel a bit rather than just seeing family and friends in the city.
4. Singapore stopover in August: how can we go to Indo without visiting friends in Sing?
5. India in November, still tentative: the continuation of the Hungarian-Indian wedding of Laszlo and Lesh.

Sounds like a good year.

I wish every year I can visit at least 2 new countries. It's hard because we're in Europe now and we've been to most places here. I am getting a bit sick of Europe, although I love Italy. Scandinavia is definitely interesting, but I see them as more of city-weekend breaks, rather than a place for holidays.

I feel terrible about Brazil because one of my good friends, João, lives in Rio di Janeiro and he comes to visit us nearly every year. The visiting score right now stands 4-0. We keep putting off Brazil for other travel plans. I really hope we can go soon to Brazil for a vacation there and see him.

Posted by Yasmina at 04:34 PM

December 17, 2006

it's done!

So last night we had an informal graduation ceremony, and the final exhibition. It was packed and soon I was tired of talking about my project; I should have prototyped a repeat button with a voice recording on it. Oh, it felt, somewhat anti-climactic.

My Arduino blew up at 3 am that morning (after I thought everything was done), and without my knowledge, Robert had taken the spare Arduino to his office in Monza. So in a panic I had to email Massimo and Giovanni, asking whether they had a spare Arduino lying around at the studio.

Luckily, everything turned out OK. Here's some photos... taken by Hector and Mika...

We skipped out of the exhibition early. Giovanni, Robert and I went to Rosso Pomodoro to celebrate with Napoli-style pizzas and beers. It was delicious! I'm glad Giovanni was there to celebrate with us. Afterwards, we were supposed to party with the rest of the graduating class at Trattoria Toscana but dinner didn't finish until half past midnight and we were knackered so we went home. :-)

Yay me! It's over! It's been an amazing year, learning so much, meeting creative people... I'm sad because everyone is leaving and thinking about life in Milan without them is painfully unbearable...

Another chapter begins, I guess... :-)

Posted by Yasmina at 01:29 AM | Comments (5)

October 09, 2006

Trespassers of Social Boundaries

Referring to this post of mine, I ponder upon ideas of social boundaries and its trespassers in online communication channels.

In response to the above post, A talks about giving 3 strikes before they're out... My good friend, M, once talked about only continuing friendships only with people who keep up the same effort and block out the others... My final project talks about the emerging behavior of scopophilia (combination of voyeurism and exhibitionism) in social networking and developing solutions for revealing, concealing and camouflage: opening up, closing and hiding communication windows.

All deal in some ways with trespassers of social boundaries...

The more I analyse it, the more rules and exceptions I come up with in social interaction, specifically in my case of last week: like, I don't expect a reply when I send out a mass email with general news or so, but I expect something when it is an individual email with specific personal questions.

Also, if the online relationship mirrors the offline relationship, upon which the online contact is based, I tend to be more forgiving. For example, my friend L is terrible at returning calls when we were living in the same city, so it's OK if he doesn't reply to my message now that we're in different countries. But when it's someone who is dependable and constant with the offline relationship, and their online behavior is the opposite, I become puzzled and stumped. Especially with the ease of emails/Flickr/IM these days, it's easier to offend by a non-reaction.

During the Applied Dreams workshop this year, one of the teams came up with a project on Social Boundaries, certain rules that apply and get broken. Shame I can't find it as reference for now, but if I find it, I'll link it.

OK, back to the project drawing board.

Posted by Yasmina at 10:31 PM

July 26, 2006

under the tuscan sun

edit, 060727: I'm back in Milano but only for a night, as tomorrow we are catching a 9 am flight to Amsterdam, where Robert and I will be chilling out with our friends for a week... Ciao ciao...

Wow, what a week! I'm loving it here... meeting interesting people, eating yummy food, waking up to the amazing view out of my bedroom window, even the heat is not as intense as Milano, we get cool breezes at night. We slept with the windows open and one night ended up with a bat flapping round our livingroom, poor thing...

The presentation went well, I thought. We always have to present last so on Monday I felt anxious all day, but once I slip into the presentation mode, I just get comfortable. Feedback was positive so we're happy.

Last night we went to Siena, to Piazza del Campo, where we had a refreshing apperitivo *make mine a mojito* and watched people. Dinner was absolutely amazing! I had a Tuscan specialty pasta: pici, which is like spaghetti but thick. Pici all'anatra for starters. Then I had veal with chestnuts.... Ooooohhhhh heavenly veal with chesnuts... No picture would do justice... The veal was perfect, rare and coated in a super-duper-delizioso (chestnut?) sauce, with pieces of tender chestnuts.... omg, to die for...

More news when I get back to Milano. Right now, I need to prepare for this afternoon's presentation :)

Posted by Yasmina at 01:21 PM | Comments (1)

July 16, 2006

bread porn: lazy sunday bread

Saturday afternoon is usually the time when Robert and I go round the neighborhood getting our weekly shopping done. Sure, during the week, we nip to the shops once or twice to get fresh ingredients, but Saturday is when we do the full-neighborhood tour: the greengrocers, the butcher, the supermarket, the bakery, the gelateria.

The promise of Robert's homemade bread, made us skip the bakery entirely yesterday afternoon. Whether it's raisin bread, or croissant, or plain white bread, Robert's homemade breads is always made with love and always comes out perfect...

Delicious bread porn by Robert on Flickr...

Posted by Yasmina at 02:57 PM | Comments (2)

July 03, 2006

sunday at the lake

Robert, Joris and I woke up early on Sunday *surprise, surprise* and spent a lazy day on the shores of Lake Como. We took a train from Milano Cadorna to Como Nord Lago, then a fast wingboat to Menaggio.

We spread our towels, slathered sun lotion, and swam in the lake. Or rather, the boys sawm and I bobbed in the water. The water surface was warm, the water colder as I dived to the bottom. I like swimming in the lake; it's not salty like the sea and no salt crusts in my hair afterwards. I miss swimming. I should swim in Milano.

Afterwards we ate gelato and went for a nice stroll in Menaggio, looking at all the beachfront properties. Then, we explored Como's walking streets. Shops were having massive sales but we sat in a bar and had a drink before dinner.

We're awfully lethargic after our afternoon in the sun. And poor Robert is terribly sunburned too... oh dear... I gave him temporary treatment in the form of calamine lotion and an ibuprofen, but tomorrow I must get some kind of aloe vera lotion or so from the pharmacy.

You can also view photos on Joris' Flickr page.

Posted by Yasmina at 12:28 AM | Comments (2)

June 12, 2006

weekend away

Last Saturday, Lili, Ana, Robert and I ran away to the Ligurian coastal town of Levanto... We spent an afternoon basking in the sun on the beach before Ana headed back to Milano. It had been a while since I'd swum in the sea and I'd forgotten about the salt drying in your hair, and the salty taste of your skin after swimming. The water was cold, fresh. It was great.

In the evening, we walked up the hill to the castelo and watched the sunset. We had a birthday dinner for Robert at Scaramouche Cave, owned by the theatrical Massimo. The food was excellent and Lili and I shared a chocolate fondue for dessert.

Sunday started out hazy but as we approached the fishing village of Corniglia, the sun stopped being shy. We sampled wine at an enoteca and I discovered the wonderful *serak-serak basah* voice of Folco Orselli, who sounds like a jazzy, slightly less-angsty, Italian version of Tom Waits, and whose CD became the official soundtrack to our trip ;-)

Being on the beach, driving through Cinque Terre and the little villages, was truly a lovely way to spend the weekend. I wish we were there for longer. Robert and I promised each other we would do one roadtrip a month, at least, while we are living in Italy. He wants to move out of Milano and live in the mountains.

Posted by Yasmina at 07:06 PM | Comments (4)

May 06, 2006

eating my way back to italy from indo

OMG, that must have been the longest journey I ever made from Asia to Europe. I left Jakarta on Friday, 12.20 Indonesian time, arriving in Singapore at 14.55. My Singapore-Amsterdam flight didn't leave until 23.45, so I went over to Thalia and Ari's place, hung out a bit before going to meet Rani and going to East Coast Park to eat some chilli crabs and other yummy crustaceans. The food was super-duper good; the crabs were perfect and tender and spicy, the prawns and squid crunchy, the kailan not too soggy, not too crunchy in their garlicky deliciousness.

I was in my cut-off jeans shorts, sandals, linen tunic, drinking beer by the beach on Friday night. Some 13 hours later, when I arrived in Amsterdam, it was 4C outside! Eeek! It was 07.15 when I arrived, and my flight to Milano was at 19.20. I deposited my luggage in the lockers and made my way to meet Gerard.

Gerard was so sweet, picking me up at the train station and taking me to his parents' house so I could have a nice hot shower and a nap. I felt terrible for barging into their homes like that. I wish Gerard and I had more time to hang out together, but he had loads of work on, so after a while he drove me to Rotterdam, to Laszlo and Lesh's.

Laszlo and Lesh's new apartment is supercool, light and airy with skylights and the double glass doors leading to the terrace balcony. I was happy to have had the time to hang out and catch up with Laszlo because we didn't manage when I was in NL last March.

We then walked into the town center to see what celebrations were going on. The stroll through their neighbourhood was a great experience: so much to see and touch and smell. Vendors were barbecuing lamb sausages in the street, various shops selling Afros and incense and plastic multi-colored beads.

We stopped off at this Turkish sweet shop where we bought pistachio and nut-honey pastries. That shop was fab! Imagine, a shop that just sells delicious Turkish sweets. I could have bought entire trays of sweets.

In town we visited Lisa and Damian, who had a market stand selling secondhand stuff for the day. We drank beer and went on a walkabout through the secondhand market. There were some nice pieces but also a lot of junk. I ate a dodgy bratwurst sandwich in the center of town, and we are the sweets we bought earlier from the Turkish shop and they were so so so good I wish we'd bought more.

Around five I got back to the airport only to find my flight was delayed till 23.00. Buses from Bergamo to Milano don't run that late so I rescheduled to a morning flight and stayed over at my parents-in-law. I ate a lot of my mother-in-law's potato salad, which is the best potato salad, I swear, drank Hoegaarden and smoked eel sandwiches. I was sad in the delay of seeing Robert again but at least my belly was full of yummies.

Sunday morning I finally made it to Milano. Boy and girl together again :)

Posted by Yasmina at 07:28 PM

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 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... :)

Posted by Yasmina at 12:20 PM | Comments (4)

February 15, 2006

cozzy-wozzy

spending time with my cousin, his wife and their four-year-old son brings to my mind several things:
1. why robert and i don't have kids [yet]: it's best to borrow other people's kids because when you get tired or they start behaving less than sweet, you can return them to their parents. omg, what a night i had to endure... put it this way, when i was four, i no longer needed a stroller, i could feed myself and somehow my parents managed to instill table manners in me at that age.
2. i really don't like shopping with other people: it's the designer in me, i don't just go into any shop, i look for certain objects of desire when i shop abroad. and i hate being kept waiting for over an hour, in the cold, carrying my laptop+ipod+schoolstuff in my bag.
3. i don't make a good tour guide, in the conventional sense: again, i avoid touristy places and i like to find cool hip places that are out of the way perhaps, but well worth the visit. i mean, my classmates are never disappointed by the places i suggest and lots of friends usually ask for recommendations for city breaks, so they can't all be wrong. oh, but they're all designers. so now i'm wondering if i'm being elitist.

but but but

it reminds me

how much i love my cousin

my cousin is visiting me with his wife, vonny, and three-year-old son, matthew. cippy and i were close as children. he is the son of my father's younger brother and before my parents had me, they spent all their time babysitting cippy and taking him round at weekends.

cippy and my dad has a close relationship that even i get jealous of. in a lot of ways, he was the son my dad never had. cippy went to law school at UI, the same one my parents attended in the 60s and 70s, and he considered following my dad's footsteps at the department of foreign affairs. something my dad always wanted me to do. but i went to art school instead.

cippy is a couple of years older and as children we grew up close to each other. cippy and i spent weekends at my grandparents where we played together. we also alternated weekends with tante ann and oom djoko, who at that time, did not have denny yet.

*yah, cucu dan keponakan kesayangan gitu deh... sekarang gue juga masih ngerasa gue anaknya tante ann dan oom djoko, sampe nyokap gue sendiri jadi jealous... dan pas gue kuliah di london, kayanya gue lebih sering nelpon eyang kakung daripada nelpon ortu gue sendiri*

i've been away in europe for eleven years now, and i always feel like i'm the long-lost relative. sure, some of my other cousins have gone to university in US and australia but they'd never been gone as long as i have. i drop in and out of my cousins' lives, always maintaining a comfortable relationship in a really weird way.

for the brief times we're together, i think they expose themselves to me more than to other members of the family. maybe it's because when i am with a cousin, i give them my full attention, and my time is exclusively theirs. and they think i'll go away with their secrets and problems and emotions in a bottle in my pocket and not tell a soul *which i don't*

cippy and i never really knew each other as adults; it makes me sad. but i am glad he is here.

for three days anyway ;)

Posted by Yasmina at 01:08 AM | Comments (4)

January 30, 2006

miss yasmina

i miss miss yasmina!!
and no, i'm not mr. K (though some people at work tend to mix us up... ;-)

the bloghacker, haha

Posted by at 03:00 PM | Comments (6)

January 21, 2006

friday night at mine

robert is in milan for the weekend, and we're really ecstatic to see each other. mr and mrs k together again, at least for a couple of days...

friday night, i invited a bunch of people over to my place for a spot of dinner, drinks and socialising. it's just that last week we ended up going out for drinks and this time, i thought it would be nice to stay in and socialise instead. plus, i wanted robert to meet everybody.

turned my bedroom into a "chill-out" lounge, putting cushions on the floor for people to sit on, as well as the double-bed, the coffee table laden with snacks and candles, and with the help of the nice warm glow emitted by the orange nessino table lamp from artemide, which was left in the apartment by dario and barbara :)

music was streamed from my iPod, as well as our home radio station in eindhoven, which robert set up the night before, so now i can make my own playlist from the music i have in our dutch apartment, yippeee :)

together with eva, i cooked a sausage stew with potatoes, and carrots in a creamy red-wine-and-tomato-sauce, saffron risotto, egg tagliatelle with pesto, buttered spinach, a huge salad, and trays of hors d'oeuvres with cheeses, coldcuts and seafood. everyone came over with beer and wine and a chocolate cake and we had a feast!

so the first dinner party (of many more to come) was a success! :)

tomorrow we are planning a day out to como, which hector is organising. we're catching the 08.20 train from garibaldi, omg, what an ungodly hour for a sunday. i hope we wake up in time.

Posted by Yasmina at 11:21 PM | Comments (6)

January 08, 2006

don't panic [me at my most vulnerable]

bones, sinking like stones, all that we fought for, homes, places we've grown, all of us are done for. and we live in a beautiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do, we live in a beautiful world. oh, all that I know there's nothing here to run from, 'cos yeah, everybody here's got somebody to lean on

i'm listening to coldplay's "don't panic" that i've just bought from Apple Music Store and i'm still uploading content into my new video ipod. thank god i didn't get the ipod nano because there is just no way that my music would fit in there... i totally didn't realise how much music i had on my powerbook and in our home server. thank you to my former colleagues who presented me with an Apple Store cadeaubon. :)

i was talking to my advisors last week: gerard, who was on business trip to hong kong but responded to my message anyway, which puts him on the list of "people to call in the middle of the night to help bail you out if you're wrongly jailed for drug-trafficking in thailand" and joão in rio de janeiro. both men convinced me that i was not going to die without robert in milan. :)

i know i'll be going out and meeting new people and enjoying my life in milan. i can deal with missing robert. it's just that i wish i could share this milan-and-domus experience with him. me running around in milan, new people, new projects, fun and creativity, photography, extreme silliness, yummy food, all those bars and restaurants that i've got to try... i want robert to "get it", you know?

ah well. i guess we'll all float along anyway. i'm really looking forward to starting classes next week! :)

Posted by Yasmina at 01:40 PM | Comments (6)

December 15, 2005

christmas packets of ultra awesome-ness

happiness! today i received not one, but two packages in the mail! omg, i have really generous friends, i am counting my blessings! christmas is starting early for me this year, i think, heheh...

the first package came from thalia in singapore. she has started a new project called the avocadolite farm, which is a collection of mini crochet characters that she made and designed herself. her husband ari, is in charge of writing each character's stories. the mini figures are available for purchase on the site. each character is one-of-a-kind and has their own unique stories.

quick! adopt them before they run out!

the second package came from kathya in germany. kathya the überfräu-oh-mighty-chef made us a batch of homemade dark-chocolate-dried-cherry-pecan cookies, packaged in a beautiful christmas tin, with a lovely accompanying card. time for milk and cookies for me then!

in the last weeks, i've also received packages in the mail from adam in new york and from patricia in sweden. :)

seriously, guys, thank you SO much for everything. your happy packages just made my day (and robert's too)... i hope he gets home soon, otherwise i'll eat all the cookies...

*sprouts wings and flies off to the clouds*

Posted by Yasmina at 01:03 PM | Comments (5)

December 13, 2005

thomas + chocolate-chip muffins

baking chocolate chip muffins with marie and thomas. marie downloaded a really yumm muffin recipe from the internet and they came out really delicious! light and fluffy and chocolatey!

robert and i came over with bagel sandwiches to have lunch at marie's. she and david had just had a second baby, a little brother to thomas, called oliver. i should have photos of oliver but he was sleeping so i didn't take any. he was such a quiet baby, sleeping in his pram in the living room, even though we were cooking and eating together and thomas was running around the apartment hyperactive on chocolate-chip muffins.

Posted by Yasmina at 11:38 PM

December 11, 2005

'tis the season to be baking

last week i went over to visit cathrine and little ebbe and spent an afternoon baking traditional norwegian gingerbread cookies. it was fun! although we were a bit silly for forgetting to buy any cake icing to decorate the cookies with. we did have cookie cutters though, so we made different shape cookies.

the cookies came out really well, and i've been munching on them whilst enjoying my afternoon tea. it's been so cold lately outside, and homemade gingerbread cookies and herbal tea is the perfect companion for when i am curled on the couch, reading my new books: jonathan safran foer's "extremely loud & incredibly close" and banana yoshimoto's "hardboiled | hard luck".

Posted by Yasmina at 10:06 PM

September 04, 2005

a phone call home

today my grandfather turns 92 years old. alhamdullilah, so far he enjoys good health, a long (spiritually-) rich life full of friends and family. usually we have a family gathering to celebrate with traditional javanese tumpeng and lots of yummy food. i miss this very much.

jadi tadi nelpon ke jakarta. pas semua orang lagi kumpul. biasa deh, jadi the phone was being passed from one person to another. it was so nice! members of my dad's family just have such good hearts, this infectious energy that absorbs you like a sponge and hugs you in their warmth.

a snippet of conversation with my granddad:
eyang: hoe laat is het in eindhoven?
me: tien uur.
eyang: waar ben jij nu?
me: ik ben thuis.
eyang: met wie ben jij daar?
me: robert.
eyang: waar is hij dan? *probably wondering why robert hasn't come to the phone*
me: hij slapt.
eyang: voelt hij niet zo goed?
me: nee, hij is fijn. waarom?
eyang: *the early-rising early bird* het is tien uur, of niet? waarom slapt ie?
me: *gubraksss*

eyang kakung sekarang hampir selalu berbahasa belanda dengan gue. gileee, masih fasih banget bahasa belandanya...

________________

a snippet of conversation with my uncle:
oom djoko: oom udah liat foto-foto ngunduh mantu kemaren. di castle. kamu ternyata liliput ya?
me: *gubraksss, my uncle just called me a liliput* ...
oom djoko: si xavie lucu loh! kamu kapan bikin xavie-xavie belanda?
me: *mulai stress* kan mau sekolah dulu, oom.
oom djoko: oh, ya udah, latihan aja dulu, produksinya ntar kalo udah selesai sekolah.
me: *gubraksss* ...

________________

a snippet of conversation with my aunt:
tante ann: as, sori kemaren engga dateng ke belanda. denny udah mulai sekolah sih.
me: engga apa-apa tante, tapi ntar dateng ke milano yah?
tante ann: jadi ya kamu pindah kesana?
me: iya, bener lohhh ditengokin ya? kan udah dua taun engga ke eropa, jadi taun depan ya.
tante ann: iyaaaaa, pengennn...
me: *starting the propaganda, tante gue addict prada soalnya* kan di milano bisa shopping... apalagi monza deket milano, jadi ntar denny + robert disuruh karting ato nonton F1 di monza sementara kita shopping...
tante ann: *thinking of prada outlets* kalo gitu summer depan kali ya?
me: *mikirin semua barang yg akan gue titipin: majalah femina, pempek, rendang, etc* ...
________________

a snippet of conversation with my cousin:
tjippy: apa kabar lo?
me: baek-baek. happy birthday yah...
tjippy: hehe, tengkyu. gimana nih? elo udah berisi?
me: *gubraksss* hahh? kan masih disarungin!
tjippy: hah, kok disarungin? kan udah legal?
me: *semakin stress* kan gue mau sekolah, dodolll!
tjippy: oh, iya yah, lupa gue...

Posted by Yasmina at 11:45 AM | Comments (6)

August 21, 2005

missing my mom + dad

robert and i went to meet my parents at schiphol airport friday night. they were flying back to indo from their vacation in portugal and were on a transit for a couple of hours at schiphol. traffic was terrible and i was freaking out that i wouldn't see my mom and dad. we made it in time, though, and went for a coffee together.

*sigh* i miss my mom and dad. and my sister. and little xavie. :(

my dad fell in love with the new mac mini when we visited the apple shop last week in eindhoven. so we bought one for him and gave it to him at the airport. he was really pleased.

i spoke to my sister this morning and she had picked up my parents at the airport and that they were all home safe and sound and were all unwrapping the presents we bought them. i bought xavie a miffy tent and he didn't quite get the concept of a tent. so he stood inside the tent, and ran around the garden with the tent over him; like a giant house-shaped snail.

*kebayang ngga sih, ada tenda miffy jalan-jalan sendiri di halaman rumah, with two little bare feet sticking out the bottom... kocakkk, seperti keonggg, huahahaha*

Posted by Yasmina at 03:08 PM | Comments (5)

August 02, 2005

letter to vientiane: praise you

Fat Boy Slim got it right with his words:

We've come a long long way together,
Through the hard times and the good,
I have to celebrate you baby,
I have to praise you like I should

You know who you are. We've come a long way, baby, as Fat Boy Slim would say. Twenty years of friendship, spanning three continents, and you were always around the corner. I would not be here if it weren't for you.

Thank you.

For everything.

Posted by Yasmina at 12:22 AM

July 27, 2005

toys wonderful toys!

I went to De Bijenkorf at lunchtime today and they were having a special Miffy/Nijntje 50th anniversary. All those wonderful toys! I ended up buying some toys, for my toddler nephew, Xavie.

Nijntje Tent:
My parents gave me my first tent when I was 3 and I camped out in the livingroom all by myself! I'm so proud of me. I hope Xavie will have endless hours of fun playing in his tent, as well.

Nijntje Memory game:
Made by Ravensburger, from special thick cards, with prints of all Nintje characters. My parents started me pretty early on Ravensburger memory games (mine was not Nijntje, but the other Dick Bruna character, the farmer guy) and I think this is where I get my visual/photographic memory from.

It's a favorite game with us, so I think my parents would get fond memories of us playing this in Geneva, except this time they are playing with their grandson.

Wooden xylophone:
I love wooden music instruments for kids! This one has the bars in different colors and produces such nice sounds *I think I pissed off the shopkeeper a bit as I played the xylophone today* I love that this is wooden as well. I'm sure we'll find out soon how musically-inclined Xavie is :)

Dislike for plastic toys:
Too much cheap plastic stuff for kids in the shops these days, I can't stand them. I never go into toy stores like Bart Smit and Toys R Us because they don't sell beautiful wooden toys *this is the designer in me talking, toys must have aesthetic values as well as educational values*

I go to a lot of independent toy shops that sell traditional wooden toys; there is a wonderful big one in Antwerpen that I can spend hours in. One of my favorites is in Den Bosch. I like going in there with my mother, and she'd laugh as she remembers all these toys she'd got me when I was young. My parents bought my sister and I mostly educational + constructive toys.

The plastic toys I had were the Lego/Duplo variety, and back then, they were the real building block stuff. None of this pre-fabricated Star Wars or Harry Potter Lego sets. We just had squares, rectangles and flat pieces. I made dolls, or robots, depending on my girly-tomboy mood, from my Lego pieces. :)

Nijntje Pool:
I very nearly bought a small circular pool for Xavie, but I stopped myself. My cousins gave Xavie a pool for his birthday, and even though the top ring on the pool has a leak (so he can't lean on the sides of the pool), it works OK. My dad sent me a really cute nekkid picture of Xavie in his pool *15 years from now, Xavie would kill me if he finds out I posted his nekkid baby pictures on my blog*

My sister takes Xavie swimming almost every weekend at the country club, and she says he loves the water. And when they are in my dad's apartment during the week, they swim in the swimming pool of the apartment complex. He's such a waterbaby, I remember bathing him and he just loves to splash water.

p.s. Don't sue me; Nintje images above are copyrighted to Dick Bruna :)

Posted by Yasmina at 02:05 PM | Comments (2)

July 25, 2005

baby boy!

Naya was nearly five months pregnant when she and her husband attended my wedding last March. Yesterday I woke up with a jolt that this is four months later, and that she was probably a proud, happy mommy by now.

SMS from Yasmina to Naya, late Sunday night:
Naya, r u mommy yet? Udah waktunya kan Nay? Boy or girl or twins nih? Salam dari Belanda, Yasmina + Robert.

SMS from Naya, 25 July 2005, 20:23 WIB:
yasminaaa pa kabar? yes, i'm a mommy now :) it's a boy, namanya fadhly. kayak fuad tapi bule. lahirnya kecepetan min, beratnya aja blm sampe 3kg wkt lahir, kecil deh

SMS from Yasmina to Naya, 5 minutes ago:
Nay, congrats ya mommy + daddy baru! Ntar bagi fotonya ya Nay? Gpp kecil, gw dulu cuma 2.8kg pas lahir. Asal sehat kan, Nay? Lots of love from Belanda!

Woo hoo... I am so happy for Naya and Fuad :)

Posted by Yasmina at 02:55 PM | Comments (4)

July 19, 2005

my cousin sami

sami is six months older than me. growing up, we'd always been close. unfortunately i didn't see him much while i was in indo this year; i was a little bit mad because he didn't come to my wedding. but i met him for lunch after returning from bali so that was good.

anyway, sami got engaged to this girl and they'll be getting married later this year. i'm writing these stories for her, so she knows what she's getting herself into ;)

sami the typist
sami and i were maybe eight years old, he's as round as ever and i'm skinny like a beanpole; yes, i was skinny once. he was sleeping over and at this time i had my little newspaper business going; my mom gave me her old typewriter as a gift. i made drawings and stories on paper, photocopied them and sold them to family and friends.

anyway, on saturdays i had piano lessons. so i made sami type all the stories while i was away. i paid sami Rp.50 for one paragraph. he also asked to be paid in food (ice cream or a bowl of noodles or siomay, i think). typical.

geez oh man, sami was a really S-L-O-W typist. *rugi di mie bakso dan es cendol deh gue* i hope he's a better typist now that he's a lawyer, imagine all that paperwork a lawyer has to do.

sami the bouncer
around this time, my parents owned a really bouncy spring bed. so sami and i used to jump up and down on the mattress all the time, which annoyed my parents to no end. and because sami is a totally round kid, and weighed twice as much as i did, i didn't really need to bounce. i'd just wait for his weight to land and that was enough to propel me into the air. ;)

sami the antar-antar semut
i'm sorry there is no english translation for antar-antar semut. we were in highschool and he came over to stay for a few days with me. when it was time for him to go home, i went with him on the train and slept over at his house for a few days.

then he took me back to bogor. then we went back to jakarta. this continued until school started and his mom finally drove me home in the car.

sami food fiesta
we love to eat. we eat when we meet. we meet to eat. sami and i have had weekends where we went on an eating spree: sushi, sashimi, doner kebab, shawarma, lasagna, fettucini carbonara, spare-ribs, roast beef, roast potatoes, salad with blue cheese dressing, ice cream, pempek palembang, bakmie GM, indonesian roast lamb *kambing guling*, jajanan pasar, laksa, nasi goreng, es teler, all in one very gastronomically satisfying weekend.

so i am really happy that sami ends up with someone who loves food as much as we do.

a list of places i would like to take sami + angki in europe:
- thai market place cafe on portobello road, london
- japanese pancake world, amsterdam
- belgo, london
- lulu's, rotterdam
- bonjardim, lisbon
- oporto, to sample port wine and eat sardines
- kulu-kulu sushi, london
- belgian food in lier
- waffles and mussels in antwerpen
- lisson grove in london for fish n chips
- cinque terre in italy for yummy italian seafood
- the lakes near halle, for german food
- zierikzee in zeeland, NL, for dutch seafood
- more to come...

Posted by Yasmina at 02:48 PM | Comments (2)

July 04, 2005

fourth of july weekend

we did so much this weekend i don't even know where to begin!

the story of kathya + yasmina
so kathya and i became friends when we were maybe 12, living in the washington d.c area. we liked the same music, hard rock stuff, we even went to see *gasp!* poison in concert! huahahaha, now i cringe when i think about poison and the band members' hairdo.

i moved away when i was 14 and lost contact with kathya. earlier this year kathya found me through friendster, and we discovered that we live near each other; she's about 3 hours away from me in wiesbaden, germany. how cool is that?

so thirteen years later we are back in each other's lives! kathya and her husband david came to visit us this weekend, and it was so so good to see them! it was not at all awkward or anything, just this nice rediscovery of each other, and of local food, hehe.

the eerie thing is that kathya and i grew up to be similar type of people: we're chocolate addicts, we're totally into food, we like stubble on guys *ahem, our husbands*, we pick our scabs, we sometimes walk around with our cameras permanently attached to our faces.

boekie woekie
this is my favorite bookshop after fnac chiado in lisbon, and foyles on london's charing cross road. boekie woekie, on amsterdam's beerenstraat, stocks limited edition, one-off books from artists and photographers. i love their stuff.

i took kathya and david here, after we'd walked round the other bits of negen straatjes. my ritual is to get a newspaper, have brunch at nielsen's across the street and when i'm done, i go into boekie woekie and see what new things they have in stock. i love the little delicate illustrations on the books; you're buying art, not books. i love the pocketbooks and reading them on the train on my way home.

this time i bought two small photo books of someone's journey to china. i love picture books.

food, glorious food
where do i begin? to tell the sweet love story that is older than the sea, the simple truth about the love he* brings to me, where do i start?

* = food, not robert, huahahaha

kathya and i are so so passionate about food. i think if i wasn't doing design, i would be cooking, cooking and cooking. i was joking with kathya that she should move to amsterdam and we'd get ourselves a brownstone house on one of the grachts, have a cafe/bar downstairs and a design studio on top. so if i got hungry i could run downstairs and kathya would feed me, hehe.

this weekend we consumed the following:
1. tom ka soup that i prepared
2. poffertjes with ice cream (i had mine only with butter and powder sugar)
3. david had strawberry tarts after the poffertjes
4. a box of chocolate from the boulangerie
5. lots of white beer with a slice of lemon, i love you hoegaarden...
6. bulgogi salad with naan bread (me)
7. roast lamb salad (david)
8. some sort of seafood in a cream sauce (kathya)
9. 'death by chocolate' chocolate cake (kathya)
10. pistachio parfait (me)

-----------

11. breakfast of fresh croissant, banana smoothies, mon chou cream cheese spread, orange juice, tea, coffee
12. osaka-style okonomiyaki with marinated beef, onions and spinach (me)
13. osaka-style okonomiyaki deluxe with everything (kathya)
14. hiroshima-style okonomiyaki with salami and cheese (david)
15. green tea milkshake (kathya & david)
16. cocktail of vodka, calpis and 7up (me)
17. more white beer with slices of lemons
18. tiramisu
19. rendang
20. gado-gado
21. ayam goreng pazri nanas
22. sate kambing
23. nasi putih + garnish (srundeng, acar, sambal goreng kentang, kerupuk udang)

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24. breakfast of fresh croissant, banana smoothies, fresh strawberries with cream cheese, tea and coffee
25. tahu isi dengan saus tausi (stuffed to fu with tausi sauce)
26. ayam bungkus rebung (chicken wrapped in bamboo shoots)
27. jellyfish with duck and cucumber salad
28. nasi goreng
29. ho fun (kwetiau) with cha siu and roast duck
30. chow fan (cakwe dibungkus pake bahan mie trus disiram kecap asin)
31. prawns and mango wrapped in pastry, with a mayonaise sauce
32. deep-fried prawn balls (in indo: udang mayones)
33. turnip cakes with chinese sausages
34. fried salted squid with chili
35. ...

hey kath, did i get everything or did i miss something?

for food pictures, check out kathya's flickr page

we went to amsterdam specially for the okonomiyaki. we went to this place, which is run by joachim, a german guy from ulm, and his japanese wife (who greeted us in bahasa indonesia, what a pleasant surprise!). joachim gave a great thorough explanation on the history of okonomiyaki whilst we watched him cook our food, as well as talking about our personal backgrounds. it was such a great experience, this is one place you should not miss when you are in amsterdam. :)

anyway, kathya and david have left me now, and i was sad to see them go. we didn't manage to get all the food spots i wanted to take them to. i hope next month they return to NL for a longer time, hehe...

have a good week everyone!

Posted by Yasmina at 10:32 PM | Comments (2)

June 14, 2005

speech accent archive

haha... i found this site a couple years ago and i always enjoyed listening to other people's accents. last month i was talking to panji and we decided to record our voices and send them to each other.

the text we had to read was this:
please call stella. ask her to bring these things with her from the store: six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother bob. we also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. she can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her wednesday at the train station.

little background on panji: panji is indonesian and he has lived in indonesia, US, singapore and currently living in australia. fluent in bahasa indonesia and english.

bit of my lingual background: first language was french, second language was indonesian, third language was english at 10 years old. lived in genevé, washington d.c, london, and eindhoven. i don't really speak dutch very well, but i understand most of it *selective memory, hahaha*.

then today i was fooling around at work, showing people cool websites and i got etienne to record his voice on my phone. etienne is dutch, speaks both english and dutch fluently.

if you want to send me yours, i'll put it up here as well!

Posted by Yasmina at 11:52 PM | Comments (7)

June 07, 2005

monica

look what i got in my office mailbox today! look! look!

the story of the manneke pis postcard:

flashback to 2002. it was one of those nights after work where monica and i were running late. we had to pick up the car, and drive to brussels to pick up alexis who was arriving from london. we stopped by the sillems' home in achel for dinner with faisal, kohar, reinier and hassan, then a mad rush to brussels airport. we sang along to a finley quaye cd. the traffic mannequins on the belgian highway freaked us out *believe me, if you've driven in the dark on a belgian highway and seen one, you'd know what we mean*

we got to the airport and alexis' plane hadn't even arrived yet.

so we waited and we spotted this photo booth that made postcards. 2 euros and a few poses later... tadaaa! a postcard from yours truly... i love how mon sent this token of that night... i miss you mon!

Posted by Yasmina at 06:47 PM | Comments (6)

June 05, 2005

remco

happy happy happy birthday remco! let's go to indonesia again this year so you can drool over the beautiful indonesian women, hehe... *it wouldn't hurt if you made the first move, you know*

lots of love from, yasmina + robert

Posted by Yasmina at 07:03 PM

June 02, 2005

denise

*hey everyone, it's my friend denise's birthday today!*

happy happy birthday denise! para bem! hope you have a really fab day! looking forward to your birthday celebration tonight.

we're glad you finally made it to NL! here's to many more adventures together!

beijinhos,

yasmina + robert

Posted by Yasmina at 04:00 PM

June 01, 2005

the month of june

a friend a day... let's hope i have enough time to write an entry about one friend each day in the month of june... i've met and befriended so many interesting individuals in my lifetime, that i'm not sure i can fit everyone into this month...

hehe. maybe those friends i've lost touch with would google their names and come up with this site and bring us back together. here goes.

Posted by Yasmina at 07:23 PM

May 10, 2005

a little story about berlin

dear monica,

we miss you! it was good to skype with you last weekend. hope we can catch up again this weekend, if you are back from travelling.

berlin was fun! i liked berlin; definitely a liveable city, although they do have very strange tram stops. basically, the tram rails are in the middle of the road instead of next to the sidewalk. the tram stop however, is still on the sidewalk. so when the tram pulls up, we have to cross the street to get to the tram, and all the cars stop to give way. must be quite frustrating to drive in berlin...

there was this thing called designmai which is similar to the london design festival so we did make it to some of the exhibits. nothing really caught my eye though; there was a lot of clever objects but nothing that made me stand back and think, "wow! brilliant!"

it was so good to see karen again. i miss this comfortableness of being with someone you've befriended for a long time; we were talking non-stop the entire weekend, and sometimes i wonder if you also have this feeling in chicago, when you're meeting new people all the time, that you start to miss the old friends, people who know what you're like when you come undone, instead of new people asking you the history of your life. you know what i mean?

we ate a lot of german food: flammküchen, kaasspatzle, maustachen... yummm... stocked up on hanuta, duplo and paulaner (bavarian beer)... at one bar, we tried tannen zapple which is beer made from pinecones... sounds weird but it tastes good...

you can see highlights of the berlin trip here;. i've been too busy to post these days. plus robert and i haven't been taking a lot of photographs lately; we're on a photography slump, i think.

anyway, have a good week.

lots of love,

yasmina

Posted by Yasmina at 05:35 PM

May 04, 2005

karen

a few things about my friend karen: she lives in berlin, we share the same birthday, she made me love stereo total, she has a bright red peacoat that helps me identify her when she is walking in the street, she looks like a 1920s film star, her eyes are infinitely blue, she's so talented but doesn't realise it.

the last time i saw karen was around october 2004, about six months ago. she'd come riding into town on the weekend before monica moved to chicago. patricia also came down from sweden to see monica on that last weekend.

saturday, after karen had arrived, we went to the design academy degree show. i was so pleased to see karen and patricia and ended up having a great big catch-up on what's been going on in our lives; all of this heavy conversations around patricia's move to sweden from bogota, my conflict with my sister, consoling my parents, etc at the design academy bar, with a pint of beer in hand.

that night four girls went into town. we started at plaza futura, moved on to de rechter for some dancing. then finally de hoogste tijd for more dancing.

you know when you're dancing with your eyes closed and you don't care about who's looking at you, and you just want to sing along with all your heart because you're so happy? know the kind of feeling i mean? it felt so so good to be out with karen, patricia and monica again.

it felt like that first summer, cooking at elckerlyclaan, going swimming, riding our bikes, partying, daytrips out of town, weekend drives to belgium.

soooooo..... yay! hooray! we're going to see karen in berlin this weekend and she has promised us that we will go eat bratwurst, stock up on duplo chocolate bars and go on photography shoots! :)

Posted by Yasmina at 07:06 PM | Comments (2)

April 29, 2005

finding mr.v

Flashback to 1992. Northern Virginia town, near the US capital of Washington D.C. The weather getting warmer, school would be out for summer vacation soon. We were fourteen. I discovered that i liked kissing. More importantly, I liked kissing him, hahaha. So we kissed and kissed and kissed. :)

Fast forward to 2005... Thirteen years later, we found each other again! Ahhh the wonders of Googling... He's still in Virginia, still sweet, and he seems to have a very enjoyable life right now, and I'm glad for that...

So, here's a song for Mr.V. I couldn't have said it better than Beth Orton with her Daybreaker lyrics.

We lay on our backs in the grass
Silently watching the rain clouds move by far too fast
You said it was a night where anything could happen
But nothing was gonna last
And we're doing fine now yeah we do
We don't feel sad or bad or blue and you know
We ain't never defeated
Not broken inside all that is fine
Yeah all that is fine

Have a good weekend everyone.... Queen's day weekend this weekend... :)

Posted by Yasmina at 05:12 PM | Comments (1)

January 14, 2005

dinner at laszlo's

went to laszlo's for dinner in rotterdam wednesday night. took the train with anton after work. it was nice to see anton on his own. during the one-hour journey, conversation went from wedding proposals, relationships, world religions, individual faith, sufism, dreams, vertical-horizontal relationships, subud, latihan kejiwaan, spiritual journey, quantum physics. phew!

i love conversations with anton. they are never boring, or mundane.

i had never been to laszlo's flat in rotterdam's south bank; he moved last summer. joao came from brazil especially to paint laszlo's living room *haha, personal joke, sorry*

laszlo has no furniture, except for his round table and four red eames chairs, but the emptiness of the living room was just perfect. i want my living room like that, so i can do my latihan and move as freely as the latihan takes me. i noticed he'd changed the photos on the wall strip with pictures of lesh and himself on their trip to brazil.

dinner was so so nice. anton, kata, lesh, laszlo and myself. rice, lamb curry (with plantains and chickpeas), salad with yoghurt dressing, tiramisu ice-cream, apple-cinnamon yoghurt, plenty of robust red wine.

i was explaining the procession of the traditional javanese wedding and the gestures and symbols that the rituals represented; anton loved the idea of siraman, cleansing your soul before entering marriage.

we called monica in chicago and shouted our messages on her voicemail so she'd get it and have a laugh when she came back from her lunchbreak. we miss you, mon!

kata demonstrated how to do a one-hand cartwheel, which she learned this week in capoeira class. soon, she and anton were doing cartwheels in the livingroom.

talk shifted to dowries, in arabic and indian cultures as well, wedding rings, not having kids *haha*, biochemistry, the work anton did in the cancer research lab, proteins, the process of isolating them.

all these rich images flowed through my head, our cells as multicolored ribbons, kind of like a line blending in xara-x *been reading too much GF threads*

we should have more dinner evenings like this.

have a good weekend everyone!

Posted by Yasmina at 12:49 PM

November 10, 2004

happy bday joão

querido joão,

feliz aniversário, meu amigo! para ser original, não comprei um presente para te dar, hahaha. tenha um dia realmente grande!

beijinhos,

yasmina

Posted by Yasmina at 12:02 AM | Comments (4)

November 07, 2004

missing monica

bye monnnnnnnnn... i miss you already... come back soon!

edited version
this is not the original post. i got spammed by comment spammers and somehow my entry got deleted and was replaced by their casino-promoting message instead! :(

Posted by Yasmina at 12:06 AM | Comments (2)

November 04, 2004

levitating monica to chicago

so tonight's monica's last night. we are having a little gathering at her place tonight, for which i'd made the invites

the movers came for her stuff yesterday so we'd probably be sitting around in a yogi-like lotus position on her floor all night; hence, the levitating theme.

it's really hard to say farewell to someone you love so much; it doesn't get easier at all, even with my years of experience in moving around. i don't think it can ever be easy. the reality that she's leaving tomorrow hasn't really sunk in yet.

oh but anyway, dubya won, so that means mon will probably be back in europe within a couple of years, haha, just kidding mon, if you're reading this ;)

ok, i'm off, must pick up a bottle of wine at the shop before i go to mon's.

Posted by Yasmina at 07:15 PM

October 31, 2004

see you later alligaters

so joãoand denise returned to rio today. blah. a month goes by so fast. :(

i got a really cool goodie bag from denise, filled with all these nice brazilian things with really nice packaging: mini book, sketchbook, soap, tea, etc.

have a good week everyone.

Posted by Yasmina at 11:38 PM

October 27, 2004

milo leendert frans

i have a new friend! his name is milo leendert frans de regt. he and his parents came over for dinner tonight and milo let out a really big BURP!at the dinner table.

milo is a real sweetheart, likes my red wall, likes belly rubs and after dinner, he enjoys sleeping on my sofa *see below image*

Posted by Yasmina at 10:52 PM | Comments (2)

October 25, 2004

monica's farm

*specially dedicated to monica and her collection of little crochet animals*

to the tune of old mcdonald's
miss bueno had a farm, ee-ay ee-ay oh
and on that farm she had a trippy elephant, ee-ay ee-ay-oh
with a trip-trip here
and a trip-trip there
here a trip, there a trip
everywhere trippy elephants
miss bueno had a farm
ee-ay ee-ay oh

all together now!
miss bueno had a farm, ee-ay, ee-ay oh
and on that farm she had a goose, ee-ay ee-ay oh
with a quack-quack here
and a quack-quack there
here a quack, there a quack
everywhere goose quacking
miss bueno had a farm
ee-ay ee-ay oh

this is the x-rated part
miss bueno had a farm, ee-ay, ee-ay oh
and on that farm she had made the animals have weekly orgies, ee-ay ee-ay oh
and sometimes she'd get her super8 out and make the director's cut, ee-ay ee-ay oh

Posted by Yasmina at 09:05 PM | Comments (2)

October 22, 2004

the elckerlyclaan bunch

yay! patricia's here! i haven't seen her in years. after she left the netherlands, she went back to colombia to finish her degree, and worked there for a while, but now she is doing her master's in stockholm, so she decided to pop round for the weekend! yay!

tonight i am having iftar with monica, patricia and robert at juffrouw tok's because i am really desperate for some piri-piri chicken.

karen is also arriving tonight from germany. knowing her, she is probably catching the latest train from berlin and arrive here really really late, enough for one last drink at the pub before closing time.

tomorrow we are going to the design academy degree show, and maybe cooking together in the evening. sunday laszlo has invited us over for brunch (uh-oh, i'm fasting, bad timing) and a day out in rotterdam. joao is still here, we've been working together on a project and his girlfriend denise is joining us from rio; i think she's arrived this afternoon and is somewhere in amsterdam.

yay! this is just like before. summers in elckerlyclaan, going out swimming, cooking together, drinking in town, going dancing, making movies, going out for day trips, exhibits, etc. yasmina, laszlo, patricia, monica, karen, joao, together again. i'm happy. :)

have a good weekend everyone!

p.s. i wonder where giovanni and dario are?

Posted by Yasmina at 06:06 PM | Comments (2)

October 08, 2004

out of town visitors

yay! joão's here! we picked him up at airport on sunday afternoon. he'll be here for a month or so, and from next week onwards, we will working together on a medical project, which should be fun! yay!

the question now is: where is laszlo? running around the brazilian amazon in a hazy cloud of love? ;)

***

yay! gaya and joachim brought me fresh supply of hanuta. they stayed here for one evening en route to london from frankfurt. it is really good to catch up with them.

gaya is my "food" buddy. we are always having conversations while we are engaged in a cooking activity. or else we talk about food. or new places to eat. or shopping for food. we just live to eat and cook.

***

suffering from cold and sore throat. however, the OSG for the 2005 mobile phone is not going to write itself, so am at work, with scarf wound round my neck, constantly drinking tea, eating mandarins, chewing strepsils, and armed with a box of tissues.

oh well. one more day to go. have a good weekend everyone!

Posted by Yasmina at 12:24 AM

August 12, 2004

getting married

no, not me and robert. i should be so lucky, har har.

it seems this year is a year of friends and family getting hitched. two of my cousins got hitched last april and may in indonesia; alas, i didn't make it to both their weddings. another cousin got engaged in july, for a january 2005 wedding.

i better make it to this one, otherwise it would be the fifth family wedding i'd missed, and then i'm going to get bad karma and no one will turn up at my wedding.

a second cousin also getting married in january. i saw him and his family in surabaya last month and his mom invited robert and i to come along for a traditional javanese wedding. sounds good, so i am coming to that one as well.

naya; called me in indo, after she got back from NL, and said fuad proposed and they are setting the date for december 26th. uh oh, i might not yet be in indo at that time.

and when i got back to work 2 weeks ago, i got an email at work from richard, saying he was making an honest woman out of his girlfriend len, har har. the wedding will be in london, at end of september, he wrote, and it would be fab if robert and i could make it?

we booked our tickets last night, for a long weekend in london, and we have reservations at hotel pimlico AKA gaya's flat, LOL. and then who should it be, if not gaya and her man themselves, who had a small civil service in london last week. she called me last night to tell me. wow! congratulations!

my next topic: indonesian weddings. complicated guest list, several traditional ceremonies and costumes to get through, mystery relatives turning up, and a whole lot more.

Posted by Yasmina at 11:46 AM | Comments (1)

June 20, 2004

dear panji

dear dear panji,

this weekend, naya came to visit. we started chattering away from the second we met at the train station, all the way home in the car, and all through coffee and snacks. the pecan nut roll and croissants even got burned in the oven since we were talking so much and weren't paying attention.

taking no risks of burning lunch, we went into town to eat dim sum , and we ordered beef ho fun *spt kwetiau cah daging sapi gitu*, prawn wontons, squid fried in chili and salt, chinese-style canneloni with prawns, prawn fritters *spt bakwan udang*, prawn siomay, and beef wontons *pangsitnya bikin sangat ngiler ngga*. how much do you think we love prawns? and you know what, jie? this chinese place serves lemon ice tea in the gang-selot style; just like it was at school! *semuanya enak bgt deh, jie kekenyangan deh kita*

robert joined us for lunch but he couldn't handle two hyperactive girls gossiping away so he ran away to do some errands and left us to go shopping. :)

somehow, we only ended up in three shops: hunkemoller, h&m, and de tuinen. i bought some yummy delicious-smelling bath and shower gel and bubble bath. typical girly things, i guess. this is naya being very "ceria" after the shopping because she managed to get some really pretty and yummy things during the afternoon's shopping session. you have to ask her yourself if you want to see what she bought. ;)

we got home and watched the football game between the dutch and czech team. naya's mom is czech and robert, obviously being dutch, was rooting for the dutch team, so i was sitting uncomfortably between them during the game. i just basically clapped and did a little dance everytime a goal was scored; the two of them kept frowning at each other. for dinner, we had homemade chicken soup and smoked eel sandwiches *jie, bhs belandanya broodjes paling, it's so good, pernah coba smoked belut ngga?*

naya and i had a very girly evening, where we continued to shop online, haha. ;)

we stayed up talking, shopping and watching holiday pictures on TV *streaming dari media server kita, jie, aduh seneng deh punya media server, nerdy bgt yah* this is naya dan robico looking very sleepy.

sunday morning, i made fresh croissant for breakfast. *diterusin dengan ngobrolin resep makanan, jie, gila ya, maklum cewek, mau gimana lagi?* if you were here, maybe you'd gotten sick of us. although the food would have kept you happy. ;)

i made bubur ayam while naya watched the process. apparently she is planning to make a very special bowl of bubur ayam for a very special person back home ... wonder who that could be? ;)

naya ate a lot of bubur ayam *sampe kekenyangan sendiri* and we also had ice cream. *wah enak deh, jie, si naya sampe bawa rantangan bubur ayam balik ke asramanya* :)

naya had to catch the train back to nijmegen in the afternoon, and we took this little picture before we left the house, to send to you. :)

so i hope your weekend was as good as ours, that you weren't sitting behind your computer all day, that you are also eating healthy and this is the point where we start to patronise you. sorry.

so we'll end this story and hopefully we'll see each other soon so we can make more stories!

best wishes always, *salam kangen*

yasmina & naya

Posted by Yasmina at 09:16 PM | Comments (1)

June 18, 2004

laszlo's birthday

happy birthday laszlo! yes it was actually june 17th which passed 1 hour ago, and i didn't remember until 10 pm, but still ... happy birthday and many happy returns! you rock my world! we (me and robert) love you to bits!

Posted by Yasmina at 01:04 AM | Comments (2)