Yes I don't speak Italian so I have next to zero idea if the title makes any sense but I promise the post will!!!!!!!! :P
This morning I woke up to this hilarious selfie from him (he's probably going to hunt me down and viciously impale me for displaying it here). That's the random cheap t-shirt we found in the mall yesterday after we got Fransje's present, hahahaha.. He's obsessed with Clash of Clans so he bought it in a heartbeat right after laying eyes on it. You do you, Boo. :D
Here's the rundown of today's plan: have breakfast at home, head to Depok with Adek, hang out at a coffee shop near her faculty, visit Mama's friend's sister's bakery to buy cookies he'd bring back to NL which is also in Depok, have lunch at my favorite soto restaurant also in Depok, pick up Adek after class and group work at 2, take the train directly to the Central, watch one screened movie at Erasmus Huis at 3.30, have dinner nearby, watch another movie, and go home. Compared to yesterday, today's plan sounded way more feasible although just as packed.
And here's what the title suggests (read: tries to say): sometimes our plans would work, sometimes they wouldn't. Yesterday the universe conspired with us, today the universe conspired against us. That's just how it is, the balanced life. Okay sorry, but let this girl live. :D
To start off, neither of us could wake up that morning. Not only was there not enough time to prepare to leave so early, but that would also mean we wouldn't get to have breakfast, which is a big no-can-do. Adek had to leave without us and we ended up going around 9, arriving at school around 10. Although it was such a late start, up until this point things were still looking great.
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| Luis always questions Asian taste in clothes, he couldn't resist taking this selfie with an exchange student |
Both our drinks were super yummy, he had iced chocolate caramello and I had iced cappuccino creme brulee. For light bites, we ordered banana flame. While the drinks are self-explanatory (and pretty predictable), the snack was slices of bananas with grated cheese as topping and drenched with pineapple sauce. Really interesting. We were such in a good mood, thanks to the chill and romantic ambiance of the cafe. Again, today's quite forgiving, we were given a second chance at starting the day, that's what I thought till the moment he held my hands and we left the place. We were so ready to take a taxi and taste delicious cookies and have dilemmas on which ones to get. But that was when the disaster took place.
The hailing a taxi part was a no-brainer, obviously, but we couldn't find the address of the bakery, not even on Google Maps or Waze! Mama tried to contact her friend to confirm the address but she didn't pick up her phone nor did the husband. It was really frustrating to be just as clueless as your taxi driver, being totally lost in the rural, less developed area of Depok. People we asked had never even heard of the bakery! After what felt like years sweeping the same neighborhood a few dozen times, we decided it was not making any sense anymore. We found a random snack store to wait on the news from Mama, although all the way to this place there was no other taxi in sight, meaning we didn't even know how we were supposed to get back to civilization, but we had no other option besides winging it.
Finally Mama texted me the bakery owner's cellphone number she got from her friend's husband. Still half-munching my MSG-filled snacks, I ringed her and found out that.................... she had just started renovating the bakery. That the store had been closed temporarily. That she would not be baking anything for a long period of time. That there was nothing to buy, basically. We were devastated and felt so foolish at that time, but looking back now it's actually hilarious reminiscing that moment. :'D Luckily, there was an angkot passing by. We jumped in without thinking, haha, what more to think about anyway? The ride out was veeeeeery long, but here's where an angkot comes in handy: the maximum fare is only 5k per person in one route hahaha, I mean to compare it to what we spent for the taxi! For nothing, mind you. We couldn't be happier once we knew where we were. :') Took another angkot for a little over three minutes and we arrived at the soto place!
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| Soto Bu Tjondro saved our soul! |
After the well-deserving, super-satisfying lunch (and a funny video I made of the full/sleepy Luis), we headed back to my school, we were meeting Adek in her faculty! She was lookin' cute as always and really proud introducing us to her friends. We were supposed to leave directly to Erasmus Huis to catch a 3.30pm movie thinking Adek had had her lunch, but she hadn't! While accompanying her, Luis, being world's biggest fruit lover in the world as he is, had a hard time ordering fruit juice from a place Adek recommended. He finally decided on strawberry-banana and how coincidental, that's also Adek's favorite combo! Luis loved it so much that he just had to go for another one. To this day I can't wrap my head around the so many things Luis and Adek have in common.
Taking the train was such a great idea! It's so accessible from school, has a route to the central, is very convenient during non-peak hours, and much faster and practical than other transportation methods we could have taken to the cultural center. It was super empty that we couldn't resist to take weird selfies. :P
Although we only needed to take one busway to Erasmus Huis, as expected, we were already too late for the 3.30pm show. But it was okay! We booked the seats for the 6 and 7.15pm shows and left to grab an early dinner. Sate Khas Senayan was nearby so of course we opted for that, hihihi.. Scrumptious! Never not.
Oh! I have a funny story. After the dinner at Epicentrum, we were thinking of getting into a taxi. However, it was exactly after office hour and Kuningan is one of the major business districts, meaning that the traffic in the area was HELL. There was no movement in both sides of the road, except for busway lanes. The problem was, we had to wait soooo long for ours! Worrying we might lose another show by being late, we jumped into the other AC bus that (illegally) also took the busway lane. This one requires us to pay more in addition to the busway fare, but even this bus was CRAZILY PACKED. We got in and literally had to squeeze ourselves so that the door could close. Not sure why but the lights were off inside the bus so it was really, really dark. It was such a new, absurd experience for Luis and naturally he had so many questions. However, the guy just couldn't wait till we got out of the heavily swarmed bus to ask me things. Literally every 30 seconds he would call me, "Sayang," followed by his question of that period. While I'm sure not a lot of Indonesians speak English, I'm also sure some people in the bus do, hahahahaha. It's not that I was embarrassed or something by his questions; like I said, it was only natural for him to ask me those questions. But he really didn't mind having a conversation while being pressed in all sorts of direction with me in almost a pitch black, super crammed bus! Hahahahaha.. I mean for me to be seen with a foreigner guy already draws in death stares, now add making him ride this pathetic bus and having a long conversation about the experience! I almost wished I could have disappeared into thin air, hahaha.. (Baby, if you're reading this, I still love you, haha!)
The movies we screened were LennoNYC and Woody Allen, two documentaries of each of the public figure's life. We absolutely loved them especially the latter, such a refreshing end of our long day! We took taxi home around 10 after both movies were done where Adek slept the whole way through. Today was definitely a lot on the challenging side, but at the end of the day, this experience is worth a lot and just adds up to our favorite memories pile.
