Feeling Warm at Heart

I think I’m having one of the best parts of my life in the last one-third year of 2009. Especially talking about my life in Germany. These happy days are still continuing until today, dreamfully for good.

I’m so grateful that I’m surrounded by so many good friends and I’m so thankful that I think I am loved or at least cared about. Never in other town in Germany I found so many nice people that I can count as my best friends, the ones that connect so well with me, since I’m not the kind of person who can easily feel close to many people. My father even told me that I’m cold. I think it’s true :p Though this doesn’t mean that I’m not friendly, hehe…

I will never regret that I come to this city. It might be one of my biggest luck. My friends in class are mostly great and my Indonesian friends are incredibly awesome.

So, thank you friends for being my friends ♥

A Stupid Apartment Life: Fire and Heart Attack

About a month after I moved into this student apartment, the fire alarm rang so loud around 2 o’clock at dawn. I was just in the beginning of my sweet adventure in the land of goose feather pillows, which suddenly changed into an ear-breaking thumping nightmare. I thought I falsely set my alarm clock and began to curse on myself before I realized that it was actually the fire alarm, the first one I’ve heard in my life, EVER! Then my heart started to race so fast and I moved around the house trying to figure out what I should do first. I collected my passport, wallet and cell-phone, then counted whether I should necessarily bring everything I could put into my small backpack or not.
I waited stiffly for somebody rushing up in the corridor or for some noises from the people hurrying out of the building, but it was very silent. I counted to ten, still nothing happened outside my door. “Damn, are these people sleeping like corpses or are they dead already?” I thought to myself. Finally I heard a door swung opened and I peeked through the peeping hole. A guy, all dressed up, walked towards the staircase. So I started telling my stupid self again, smart guy gets dress up first before going out into the cold winter snowy night. So I quickly grab my pair of jeans and jacket and rushed out.
Huh…? It was so deserted outside. Not quite like what I’d imagined before, where people got scared and clumped tied together. I found no more than 5 people down there, some just raised their heads from the balconies and they all looked super relax. Oh, so this is how civilized people face disaster: stay very calm, I thought to myself again.
The alarm stopped ringing, I saw no firefighter, everybody went back inside, so did I. The end of the loud night, but I could hardly get back to sleep again.

About a month after that, the fire alarm rang again on 6 o’clock in the morning and I had to force my eyes open. This time I was smarter. I dressed up first and took my important belongings with me before calmly walked outside. Then 2 months after that the damn alarm rang again. I started to get frustrated and swore at the idiot person, whoever he was, for smoking in the building or playing prank or practicing the fire evacuation exercise or whatever the hell it was.
On the fourth time, I made friends with a neighbor girl who speaks 7 languages on our way out in the emergency staircase and waved a happy-good-morning greeting to two friendly firefighters. Somebody told me afterward, that those were all false alarms because the system was broken. Not so related, but I also then heard a creepy true story about a murder happened in this building some years ago.

Today, around 6.30pm I smelled something burning in my room. I thought maybe a neighbor overcooked his food. I was putting on some facial masker when the fire alarm started to ring. Oh, noooo……. After a long peaceful living period in the building, please don’t give me any false alarm again, so I thought. I was going to take shower when I remembered something. Huh, wasn’t it smoke that I smelled? Heck this time it’s for REAL!!! Now there’s no more relaxation session before going outside (Oh, btw, it’s wintertime again. I find out that the alarm only chooses wintertime to ring). I still pondered about taking my computer out with me or not. But I didn’t want to look so damn panicked that I bring all my stuff with me when nothing actually happens. So I decided to only turn off the music and take a sip of hot tea I just brewed and go out. Oww, there were slight smokes in the corridor, I started to shiver. This is real… this is real…
I met a friend outside, so I was pretty happy. I haven’t seen him for quite a time anyway and it had to be the right time to meet again. We witnessed how the smokes reeked from the top floor (where he lives). I was freezing even though I wore 2 jackets. He was worse. It was his first alarm experience, so he just jumped out of his room wearing only slippers. Hahaha… evil me laughed on him.
I prayed a bit for the sake of my new computer and my other stuffs that I love so much. Then I suddenly remember about my limp neighbor. I didn’t see him peeking out from his balcony. But his room was dark, so I guess he was somewhere save in vacation. Then I realized I couldn’t be that selfish and started to wish for everybody’s safety.

Thanks to the 4 fire trucks, a number of overly calm firefighters (I almost accused them for lounging), some policemen and paramedics, we had a happy-ending night.

Still, I can’t think of anything good about living in a high building. I should finish writing about my earthquake experience while I was on the 17th floor of a skyscraper during my vacation in Indonesia.

Tripped on the Tripping Trip

I went to Indonesia last semester holiday. It was really a culinary trip. I already gain some weights even when I was still inside the airplane. Olala… I got meals at least 4 times during the 16 hours flight.
On the first flight, the stewardesses served us the last meal on the plane just before we landed, and right after I saw my father who picked me up at the airport, he said, “Let’s go and have some dinner. You must be hungry.” I was like “hihihi….”
As soon as I got to my father’s house I reached the weigh scale and my eyes were almost out of their sockets. 2 kilos more! In just some few hours! OMG, I think the gravity doesn’t really play its role on the weigh scale. You see, my country is exactly on the equator, so I should be less weighed in Indonesia than when I was nearer to the upper pole.
Well yeah, my stomach felt so stuffy when I was on the sky, not only because of the food but also the gas. Oh, I was quite polite not to let it out in front of the strangers, and the public lavatories always kept me from releasing stuffs freely and comfortably. So I was quite miserable at that time. Then I accused the gas of taking part in adding some grams on me.

My country is the paradise of food and snacks. I especially love snacks. So when I got home, I ate everything that I missed, everything that they don’t have in this foreign country. The country that invented black forest, but has no idea of what bolu kukus, lemper, kroket, risoles, pisang bolen, gehu, lumpia semarang, lumpia goreng sambel kacang, pempek, lotek, gado-gado, gudek, tempe mendoan, jagung bakar 5 rasa, martabak, kue pancong, kembang tahu, ronde jahe, nasi campur gardujati, kuo tiek, ketupat sayur, sate padang, bakpao, es sarang burung, batagor, baso tahu, ketan bakar or es kelapa muda are. Ohhh….. there are lots more, I can’t list them all. Anyway, I ate all the things I mentioned (and a lot more, I forget what else I ate) in that 1 month holiday :D
The snacks they have here in Germany are just strawberry pie (hell, they don't have strawberry cheese cake!), Möhren-Kuchen, Butter-Bretzel, Butterkuchen and Spinatstrudel. Yeah, they all taste good, but there are too few choices, so I got bored. It's even hard to find chocolate cake in the bakery. I mean the REAL chocolate cake with all chocolate layers and all chocolate sponge like brownies or so. I remember as one day I really really craved for a chocolate cake, and I strolled down the city to search for it, from one bakery to the others, until my legs went numb, then I gave up. In the end I went to the American's Starbuck and spent almost 4 Euros for one small piece of delicious chocolate truffle cake.

Before I headed to Indo, my friends here already warned me in advance, not to eat too much there and become "double Santi" as I come back. One of these friends always calls me as "Santi, the girl who never stops eating", which is not true! So I needed to prove it to her, that I'm not the one who never stops eating. But I'm not the type of person who can ignore temptations, so I ate everything served before me and just tried not to be overly gluted.
At last, before I got back to Germany, I successfully maintained the extra grams not to reach more than 2 kg (the scale needle kept depressingly swinging right and left).

Then I met the girlwhosayssantithegirlwhoneverstopseating. She observed me from head to toes and finally said, "Aha, new dresses, new style.... good.............. Yeah, you look fatter................ Your haircut looks ugly!" Hahahaha.... great. At least the fat was not the top of the problems.

Then I met my other friends whom I hadn't met for 2 months and they said, "You look skinnier!" Though I was jumping around at heart, I humbly replied, "Oh, really? I added 2 kilos" with a sheepish smile. So they said, ah... maybe your outfit fits you really well.
GREAAAAT.... I thougt. First, I've never been slim nor skinny in my life but they said I looked skinnier. Second, they were the first one in months who thought I lost some weights. Hohoho... I hope they will always leave their glasses at home. Third, my new outfits look incredible!

I'm not the type who likes to go on diet, since whenever I tried to, I usually gain more rather than loosing some. But my eating schedule is a mess, so it kinda helps me to go back to my previous shape. Now I still have one kilo left from the trip.