So yesterday was my last jobless day. Oh wait a minute, that was not quite true. I was still supposed to be working for EF English First Tegal. But anyway, it was my last free day and I was inclined to have the maximum fun as much as possible. (Though I'll still feel like I'm on holiday anyway for the next two weeks. Since now I'm staying at Panorama Cottages -- where my office is -- for free while my Italian employer and his fiance are going away in Gili Trawangan for 2 weeks. And I am still on my training period for these two to four first weeks so I'll be working only until lunch time.)
Yes, you read it right. I'm on the training period. No matter how experienced I am in teaching or graphic-designing, I am a new-born baby in journalism.It is still 07:29 in the morning now, though. So I haven't figured out yet how exciting or how boring the new job will be. I'll know it in 2 hours. Fabio's ex-assistant will do the training.
Anyways, I spent my last weekend with Pam and Felix most of the time. It is a good thing to have to distract my mind from thinking about the guys who have passed my way these past few weeks. It still feels weird to adjust myself to a different state of mind and situation in almost every week. And right now, it feels weird not to see Mark around. I wouldn't say that everything always went smoothly when he was here. But I wouldn't say that it was bad at all, either.
Oh well, let's get to the point of this post. I had quite some fun this weekend. Friday I took Mark to the airport and byed him. I directly went back to Seminyak to Fabio's place with all my suitcase and other smaller bags. He and Inga (his fiance) had waited for me there. In overall, I quite like the small room in the attic that I am staying now. It's actually Fabio's personal gym, but Inga had turned it to be a more comfortable place with some well-designed lamps and a basic mattrass and pillow. They left for Gili the next morning.
Saturday, I met Felix and had a late lunch with him. He looked and sounded troubled, though. Apparently there were some problems with his girlfriend, which surprisingly had something to do with me! Strange. I don't feel I know the girlfriend that well to be one of the causes of the problems. I only met her twice and she seemed to be OKAY all the time. Anyway, that was his problem to solve. I was all ears, though.
Later on, Felix and I went to Mc. Donald's Kuta to wait for Mariza and her boyfriend to come. I needed to give her her flashdisk back. She didn't recognise Felix at first (long term memory loss?). Then Pam joined us, too. So yes, it was quite a crowd.
In the evening, after Mariza and her boyfriend left, Pam, Felix and I went for another meal (it was really killing me to eat so much in a day. Cause oh! I ordered another late lunch at Mc D too!). We went to this cool place on Oberoy street (not sure if it's the right spelling but it sounds like that) to a Morrocan restaurant that was featured on TV the other day. The prices were high, but they matched the taste of the food and the surrounding, I think. There were also belly dancers, with whom Pam was practising the dance! Pretty fun..
Sunday morning Pam and I were looking at some places that rented motorbikes. To our surprise, most of them had no available motorbikes. While it's actually the beginning of the low season! We found one finally for Rp 35,000 (is it a bit overpriced for a low season?) and headed to Nusa Dua. I was going to teach Pam to ride this motorbike.
I refused to sit in the back of the motorcycle and instead watched and instructed Pam to do this and that for her first lesson. She was very nervous at first, but she felt more comfortable later. I could see her excitement every time she made a progress. I have to say it was a pretty good first attempt of her, considering she can't even ride a bicycle very well!
We went to Ubud in the afternoon/evening. I met Felix' other friends -- Yuki and Ina from Jakarta, who just happened to have a vacation in Bali now, and Yuki's Australian friend, Mark. YES, another Mark! I can't believe how uncreative these parents are when it comes to giving a baby a name! I definitely won't call my son Mark later.
This Mark, however, speaks Indonesian so very well. He's funny, too. Everyone enjoyed everyone's presence and though at the beginning of the dance show I felt so sleepy and tired (there were speeches for the whole first 2 hours! and I did indeed sleep on Pam's shoulder!), the dances were pretty nice. They had to be. All this performance was conducted by Guruh Soekarno Putra, the son of former first Indonesian president. That explained why the ticket was so expensive. Gotta thank Felix for the treat, though. :) Dank je wel, Meneer!
Guruh Soekarno Putra
Balinese dancer
A bit about the other people... Yuki laughs all the time. A sweet personality she has. The laughs were in a good proportion, as in they more like contagious than annoying. So that was good. She works at ABN AMRO Bank Jakarta. While Ina is amazing.. Being 37 she is now, single, free, very well-educated and friendly, I could understand why Felix had a huge crush on her a few years back! That also explained why Indah, Felix's girlfriend wouldn't want to come with us to the dance.
It was a good evening. But they dropped me back to Panorama pretty late, too. I was tired but it was a good tired. What a way to end a vacation. :)
