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Are We There Yet?

Am I on the way to Dortmund? Yes

Do I have a pitstop? also Yes!

After I tested negative, I can have a go to my next step which is…not yet Dortmund…wait for it… Schwelm! and why Schwelm? because it’s Julia’s home 🙂 Since the contract of my apartment is not yet ready and staying in hotel is expensive, Julia was so kind to offer me to stay in her guest bedroom with one condition only which is the German testing center has to confirm that I am negative to Covid-19 and I got my greenlight on 31st of Aug.

She picked me up from the hotel in Burscheid, all luggages are inside and off we went to Schwelm!

We had the famous ice cream and it taste so good! I had 3 scoops hihii rafaello, and two other things that I forgot something with berry either strawberry or whatever and perhaps chocolate, they have sooo many different flavors, unbelievable!

They also have a very “weird” vegetables, I’m sure I have never seen it my whole life mwahaha this vegetable is definitely too big! and what breaks my heart is you don’t even use the greenpart, you only use the stem T.T poor big veggies gone to a dustbin

Okay, enough with the food, time to switch the focus to other stuff. The city center is divided into old and new but they are so close to each other, they have some funny buildings 😉 and on the first weekend of Sept usually they have Heimatfest for the whole weekend and on Tuesday 6th of Sept they closed the festival with a firework which unfortunately due to Corona it got cancelled. But, Moritz told me that in the old city center they still hang some clothes as part of the tradition and Julia showed me about that part of Schwelm.

So what did the Schwelmer do when they don’t have Heimatfest? They have their own Heimatfest! haha Julia brought me to her crazy Wilde 14! and why 14? because there are 13 neighborhood in Schwelm and they are the 14th 🙂 it was such a bright day in day time but when evening comes OMG people, layer please! I kept putting layer after layer brrrrr

There were 2 parties one after the other that Julia invited me to, first is the party in Mara and Bjoern (it’s impossible to pronounce haha) and second is the birthday of Katrin (sorry if I typed your name wrongly I only know how to spell my own sister’s name mwahaha) even though my Germans are really really low but they all so nice to me. Thank you Julia for introducing me to your crazy Wilde 14!

After the first party we really have to fight with our own innerer schweinehund to get ready for the second one 😉

ready not ready…

After the second party, we were looking forward for Sunday!! to just do nothing other than having a big breakfast….

Julia and Moritz went out in the afternoon while I lost against my innerer schweinehund but I joined them later in kind of late afternoon because my stomach is calling and I joined them to have early dinner 🙂

I stayed at their place for 10 days! and I get too comfortable because they always have food such as ice cream and chips!!! Thank you Julia and Moritz for being such a great friend and a perfect host!

Yes, that is rice 😉
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Supporting Theory of Sleeping Beauty

Why would a disney movie ever filmed a princess that her job was only sleeping? Because according to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy needs, sleeping is one of our physiological needs, one of the essentials one. Who would have thought that this disney princess have a strong support from the famous psychologist and philosopher??? and I couldn’t agree more! When I landed Germany around 2 weeks ago-wohooo! can’t believe 2 weeks went just like that, I had a massive jetlag, I tried to stay up but in the end I just gave up…. and for how long I was asleep? surpriseee!

I think my whole jetlag sleeping history I never reached 12 hours 05 minutes, most of them either 10 or 10 and a half hours of sleeping but this time was an exception that really took me by surprise, including the hours of deep sleep, it’s amazing!! Usually in a normal time I only have like 40 mins of deep sleep, and that heart rate of 46BPM? That’s the lowest heart rate I’ve ever have! am I right Thorben? haha so if I maintain to have around that rate I will not have a heart attack when I turn 30 yo right? 🙂 usually my normal heart rate was at least 90, even when I just sitting, crazy but when I do my sport, it won’t go up thaaatt much maybe around 100-110 so those 46 bpm in other way scares me too haha

From the day I landed Germany until I got my negative corona test result which took me 4 days after my arrival, I stayed in one hotel in Burscheid-I always stayed there everytime I went to Germany, my lovely Schuetzenburg 🙂 the hotel is so cute! the staff-Marco is so nice and Penny is just directly in front of the hotel so it’s very convenient!

Since I didn’t make an announcement about me leaving to Germany prior my arrival in Germany, then…this is the time. The second day after my arrival was full of texting and sending pictures to my big family and what I meant by big family is really big family! you would never imagine how big Asian family is 😉 I told my sister that she need to help me with replying all the messages because I really can’t handle them, besides… I want to have a walk to the city center of Burscheid which is…. only 10 minutes away from my hotel haha

The population of Burscheid is only 18K haha! it is a massive cultural shock for me to be in a such not crowded place 🙂 I felt the air was much cleaner and fresher, the town is very neat and just very cute 😉 and literally no people around mwahaha! I was told a theory about finding where is the city center, try to see if there is a church, then you arrived at the city center.

It was such a cold Saturday so I can’t really stay outside for so long then I thought that on Sunday it will be more hype just because it’s Sunday! but I was dead wrong! On Sunday the city center is dead dead dead!

Stefan worried if I ever be bored during my stay in Burscheid but to my surprise I didn’t feel bored at all! I need some days to recover from jetlag and adjust myself physically and mentally to bring some awareness that I’m not in Asia anymore! To this day, I still find it very surprising 😉

One city is down, more to go! 😀

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Documentation, documentation, documentation!

Why documentation is really important? one of the most reasonable reason is if something won’t happen in the near future 😉 and what is that? at this moment the answer is FLYING!! and more specific is flying on a BUSINESS CLASS! wohooooo

My parents bought me a business class from Garuda Indonesia for me to fly to Germany, hmmm wait let me rewind…. this is not my parents bought me but more I asked for it mwahaha! but but but! I asked for it for a reason! that is the luggage, economy class only allowed to bring 30kg while business is 40kg and if I sit on economy and pay for additional luggage then it won’t be that much difference from paying business in the beginning 😉 so I can officially said at that moment, it has more advantages to sit on business class *thumbs up!

Since this is technically my first time on business class, I took every benefits possible mwahaha, first they helped me to check it, so I didn’t put my luggages on the check-in counter, biatch please 😉 I just sit down on the couch #like a boss!

Then I got to their lounge, their lounge is a bit disappointment because the food wasn’t that much…. but the shower room helped to balance it, yes people! I took shower before my flight! so I came to the plane clean and fresh 🙂

Boarding! I was so happy to find where my seat was oooooohhh my the chair is so big and definitely have enough space for everything! “Do you want to drink?” yaisss, bring me fresh orange juice! they claimed its fresh instead of coming from the boxes of juice.

Ofc it wouldn’t be enough without selfie on it, you can see the chair is different right? haha!

  • Mask-on
  • Mask-off

Then the stewardess came and ask “do you want to have a dinner?” ofc! why does she need to ask? gimme gimme gimme! I chose salmon salad, salmon with quinoa and a surprise dessert 😉

My oh my I had a really nice evening 🙂 next, I lay down 180 degree and slept zzzz but I woke up at some point just to find #twinkle twinkle little stars

Then the sun come out, I had another juice and a breakfast-a nice one too 🙂

What a nice experience! and somehow the selfie doesn’t seem enough hihihi so here is another one, yesterday was selfie in the evening and now is in the morning 🙂

After that, I arrived Schipol airport and waited for 3 hours before my next flight by KLM, since the flight from Schipol to Duesseldorf only about 40 minutes, they don’t have TV 🙁 but they gave me cinnamon roll, just one whoaaaa! but the flight is too short to do or eat proper meal 🙂

Thanks Mom and Dad, I’m sure the moment Corona is over and you are allow to fly to Germany, you will buy the first ticket there, so… see you!

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Tribute To The Beatles

You say, “Goodbye”, and I say, “Hello, hello, hello” (hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye) That’s just a bit of lyrics from “Hello Goodbye” by The Beatles and this is exactly how I feel right now, every story has two sides, one side is a “Hello” and the other is a “Goodbye”.

On 28th of August I landed Germany, I was so nervous but not afraid-nervous, I was hyper-nervous, too happy to be here. When I accepted their offer back in May, I only informed sooooo few people, as few as my sister, my parents, Markus, Thorben and Marina. Because I don’t want to be too excited as the situation with Corona was still very absurd, the German Embassy closed until further notice, Germany still closed their border for international flight but I don’t lose hope, I put one foot in front the other and keep going. And fast forward to 27th of August as my last day in mother land and going to Vaterland haha!

Once I landed at Duesseldorf Airport, I’ve done my corona test there for frei! yuhuuuu! in love with this country already 😉 after that “Hello” to my two helpers that put a significant contribution on my relocation journey to Germany!

Little did I knew, they even prepared me welcome gift… I would like to say box but it is not a box so a welcome gift paperbag-sounds more environmental friendly too 😉

Then they put me in a hotel to wait until my corona test result came out which should be beginning of next week, after that I told Thorben and he said “it’s time to announce the Disturbed Family!” haha yes Thorben thank you for keeping the secrets away from them for so long 🙂 Haissshhh this is the hardest moment, the “Goodbye” part, they are more than just friends, they’re my family and even better they all are distrubed and (such an) ass-ociates 😀

It took me some time to write them and even some time to look my phone back after I pressed that send button. Thank you for all the messages, such a heartwarming one and I knew I will never have the balls to say goodbye to all of you.

However, since my goodbye is through text, I don’t think it is a proper goodbye and mostly you guys are European anyway 😉 I’ll come to your home invited or uninvited mwhaha to have my “Hello” moment with your parents, Hello Sir / Ma’am, I’m a friend of your son / daughter 🙂

Germany, you are such a whole new world, a hundred thousand things to see and I can’t wait to reveal it one by one 🙂

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Daddy-Daughter’s Moment Gone Right

Hungry…. I am so hungry…. I have no foods for my own…. Oh I’m so hungry…. that song from Akon with a little bit of switching some words was exactly how I felt last Sunday. It was already passed dinner time but I have no appetite but hungry yeah how to explain. I was hungry but I had no clue of what to eat and what do I want to eat, not that I didn’t have food on the table but I was not willing to eat it.

I kept opening the fridge to see something that I can grab a bite, I did had some snacks but not a proper meal. I was kept asking “whats to eat?” and my father also gave me some suggestion: McD in front of our home? pasta? this? that? but I still don’t want it and he said “my fried rice?” and my eyes were wide open YESSS!!! he said “but we need the seasoning from Indomie noodles” so I checked whether we have it and yes we do!

My mom was in her room at this time watching a live streaming video so she didn’t know what me and my father doing. He said “okay, seasoning is here, we need egg, ketchup and tomato sauce” and it’s everything that it takes haha in less than 5 mins my dinner is ready 😉

He said these are the emergency ingredients that I should have no matter what, where and when.

For my whole life, I probably only seen him in the kitchen cooking like less than 10 times. That’s why it’s worth to take pictures of him doing the cooking! Without a doubt I know that he can cook, he just lazy of doing the dishes because we don’t have a dishwasher! and nope every other household also don’t have it, it’s not common here in Indonesia.

Thanks Daddy for saving me from “starvation” 😉

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Not Marina Kern #wink wink-Part 4

Cakes time!! my sister already said “why you keep eating all the time?!” well this is what we do when we have too much time, we need to keep ourselves busy and baking is one of them! First, you need to get all the ingredients and tools out, second you need to make the dough, third you need to patiently waiting until it’s ready and fourth you need to wash it all and surprise surprise! half day is gone and you have the other half to enjoy it 😉

This time we made a steam sponge cake, my mom wanted to make it so it looks like a watermelon that means we need 4 colors, red / pink, white, green and lighter green. And in order to make it, it will be a little bit advanced pssst just a little bit because we use the mixer! haha finally we are using some tools. Since my dad is the son of a baker in our little village, he knows how to mix the ingredients well and this steam sponge cake recipe is already in his brain since forever.

Here we are with all the ingredients 🙂 3-3-3. 3 eggs, 300ml of sprite and 300 gr of wheat.

And the process of scaling, mixing wheat and sprite and wheat and sprite etc until its finished began! In the end it will get fluffy and so satisfying to see haha

We separated it into 4 different colors then put it into a cup that will go to the steamer. We don’t really have the so called steamer, so we just use the pot that we already have and made it as a steamer.

Tat tararamm after over 15 mins we tried to see how it goes and it went down the hill! What?? such a disappointment after decorating it so that it will looks like a watermelon and it failed! what was the reason?

hmmm! it was because of the pot! then on the second batch we didn’t put too much on the cup so that it will have some space to “erupt” and be a sponge cake.

Yeayy succeed!! Although the sizes are much smaller than what it should be (if we have the real steaming pot the size should be doubled) but it still looks beautiful! So what did we do about it? we doubled the number mwahaha

My mom still the one that insisted to make it looks like a watermelon, my dad and I were the one that kind of randomly putting the colors as it will looks good anyway haha!

What’s next?! haha peace sister!

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Not Marina Kern #wink wink-Part 3

My mom seems to be the one that is very happy with me being at home because my father is in a diet so he has many food that he couldn’t eat therefore she wasn’t really willing to try to make something as she doesn’t want to be the one that need to finish it all. But the situation is different now, I am here and she said “It’s good that you’re at home so I can try make everything that I wanted to and you can eat it” well… bring it on! trust me if this pandemic is over, I’ll promise myself that I will travel everywhere and won’t be at home until the foreseeable future haha 😉

Nothing can go wrong with Oreo I guess, so we made Oreo pudding 😉 and making pudding is really not hard mwahaha and hardly go wrong so it’s always a safe dessert option.

While me and my mom on the kitchen making this pudding, my father was making his own “green bean ice” in the living room and watching Narcos at the same time. He looked the video on youtube and make it without considering how much it will be and he really made a lot and he said to himself perhaps he will be able to finish it all in upcoming 2 months.

But that was what my mom wants…. so mommy got what she wanted, daddy also made his own dessert, what about moi?! I looked on how to “bake” a cake without egg and without an oven, so it was only using microwave. We have 2 types of microwaves, first was the very old probably over 30 years old of microwaves that I’m still surprise it still hasn’t kaputt yet and our brand new microwave! which…has a purpose as an oven! surprise surprise 😉

I followed Emma’s Goodies on youtube as her recipe looks very easy and all I need to do was to mix all the ingredients like flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, melted butter and warm water. Then… put it into a microwave for 5 mins! I like it!

To my father’s surprise the cake turns out pretty well! He’s the son of a baker in our little village so he always think cake needs egg, a mixer and the list goes on and on an on. Well, daddy now it isn’t! haha

With all of this, I’m officially saying goodbye to Summer body this year #adios!

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The Willing Victim

Dear Netflix, one song just right for you: right from the start…. you were a thief, you stole my heart…. and I your willing victim…. #dam dam daradam. I let you see the parts of me that weren’t all that pretty (ofc, who will looks pretty when you’re binge watch the whole season in one day haha)

I have been obsessed with one TV series during this Covid-19 pandemic. Sneak peak what is it?!

I don’t have Netflix account for the 7 years time I was in Shanghai because I need VPN and meh the internet with VPN is not fast enough so I don’t feel the necessity of having the account. But now the situation is different, I’m in Indonesia, I don’t need VPN and I’ll be jobless soon so why don’t I watch something at Netflix? At the beginning I only want to watch Narcos Mexico 2 which released on Feb 13. I knew my sister is on Netflix and I asked to use her account, turns out it wasn’t hers, it’s her fiance, my kokoe- Dom that has the account. He shared it with my sister and now with me! haha He thought I was the “Kids” section but no no I have my own section!

Honestly speaking I’m not a big fan of TV series so I didn’t realized that Money Heist was already there since few years back and I knew it because it was on the home page of my section and they automatically played the trailer and I said to myself “why not?”

When I watched it on the first time the audio was in English and with English subtitles- Yes! I do need a subtitles! I realized the voice of the actors doesn’t match with the text but only some words, most of the words were matched so I still didn’t realized that it wasn’t an English series. Then I started to searched on google about actor who played The Professor and Berlin then I realized it was a Spanish series! From then on I switched the audio to Spanish 🙂

I like their song “Bella Ciao” and it stuck in my head for a looonggg time, although it’s an Italian song but… the Spanish version is also beautiful! Mixed with the scene when Professor and Berlin sang together and when Moscow succeed on digging the tunnel that deserve a four thumbs up! The song got stuck so much until I willing to learn how to play it on a keyboard 😉

And then I kept continuing to Part 2 and Part 3 and following their instagram and found out that Part 4 actually coming on April. Since I’m not familiar with Netflix before I thought they will release one episode per week… at least that’s how I remember from Game of Throne Season 8 where people keep waiting every week instead of binge watch it. But they released it all together! wohooo 😀

My second fav characters after El Professor is Berlin! I’m sad that he’s dead on Part 2 but on Part 3 he reappears so I’m sure I will see him on Part 4 and again, the song “Ti Amo” stuck in my head and guess what? I learned how to play it as well 😉

Thank you La Casa De Papel for having an amazing songs and thank you sooo much for marijan piano and musichelp youtube account that post a tutorial on how to learn that. I owe you bunch!

I really can’t wait for their Part 5 and I don’t know when will they release it and it’s such a tortura to wait for it. Well… until then we can all enjoy the hype of instagram filter about la casa de papel from netflix_in 🙂

Hmmm what name should I choose?

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Not Marina Kern #wink wink-Part 2

Ha! Here comes the desert time 🙂 silly confession I just realized that the whole time I was making a pudding and not a cake mwaha! so indeed “Not Marina Kern” title is really suits as what she does is baking with the oven like big oven at her home and what Marlyn Praseli does is making a pudding-oven free 😉

This time we wanted to make a zebra pudding, why its called zebra? because that’s how the youtube chef called it mwahaha and as usual the ingredients are super easy to get, that’s the advantages of Marlyn’s dessert, no fancy thingy attached.

My mom was the one that doing video hunting of how to make it then she wrote down the recipes. My part was always cutting bread before put it on a blender and what happened with the left over bread? just eat it! don’t let it separated by its friends they need to be together on my tummy 😉

I really like when I had to mix the pot because after some time you can smell the smell? hee?? there is a scent or flavor or whatever it’s called and it’s soo yummy! And due to the natural color of the zebra, which is two so we need to make another one with the chocolate. Then we need to put it layer by layer so first is the white, next put the chocolate in the middle and keep going until it goes up.

and it’s ready! hihihi well not ready ready but semi-ready as we need to wait for it to be a bit cool down then put it on the fridge. Usually I will only be able to eat it after half day of putting it there.

And yasss! now is officially ready to be cut and let them all go together to my tummy so they can have meet and greet with their long last friend!

Uh yeah! although the stripes of the zebra was uneven but meh! doesn’t matter, this pudding will be gone very soon and need to make another one 😉

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The Insurance Jargon

“One for all, all for one” for some reason it reminds me of the jargon that insurance company always use haha! due to Covid-19 we are not able to meet our uncle, aunts, cousins etc, not that we always meet each other without Covid-19 anyway haha #facepalm from time to time yes but not every-time, we have life to live haha! But this current situation made everything escalates to a higher level and a feeling of “need to connect” got a high priority.

My mother’s family is really big! She’s the 5th child out of 9! damn! I never understand the old jargon saying “more kids, more happiness” well maybe I understood some part of it, if you know what I mean 😉 #wink wink.

From her side I have 2 cousins that is in Australia and my aunt and her husband that is living in the USA but the rest is in Indonesia. We wanted to have a zoom call but we are actually more interested with my aunt and her husband that is in USA because we haven’t seen them since forever! they haven’t even installed zoom and don’t know how to use a computer, obviously they are like over 60! So, while waiting for them we do our own zoom testing and the one who participated always the same haha! #we are all the WFH-ers

Since I’m the one that is more familiar with zoom so every-time I’ll be the host but I only have 40 mins of free group call, don’t know why maybe it’s old account? because all of them that sign up now they have unlimited group calls… hmmmm

Anyway, I posted the link on our WA group and the one who joined always my cousin in AU, Santy in SG and my two uncles in Jakarta and this happened many times so we kept asking “is there anyone joining the call” but we got ignored so many times! haha because all of them waiting the eldest aunt to installed zoom and then make the video call.

I think it took my aunt 1 whole week to succeeded installing zoom and we can make the final call. Yes it is a final call because again, back to the jargon, one for all and all for one that I interpreted as once is enough! haha

My sister never replied to any of my link before but for this time she’s joining! but still not all of my uncles and aunt joined, people! sometimes its really hard if you have such a big family…

And what was the result of having 6+ people joining the call? CHAOS! as everyone talks at the same time and one said “ha? what did you say? I can’t hear you” while the other “who else joining, I want to watch soap opera”

And on the top we all have 11 people joined the call and the result is APOCALYPSE! since I’m the host once I silenced everyone and make the announcement “we can only hear if one people speak” but when I un-muted them all somehow they forgot this one and only rule pffffff to take a screenshot for them was always a struggle but finally we got one last shot!

Wogh! while my 40 mins was gone, we all said bye but the one who still wants to gossip will stay using my cousin’s number and where I was? I was gone as well!

Suddenly I was tired right after the call fiuhhh it consumed much of my energy! haha but thanks God the rumor of Zoom is unsafe and people can hacked it even though I’m sure nobody will hacked us, even if they succeed on hacking us, we have no valuable things to be hacked, no money and no info haha so mind as well the hacker quit by themselves. Some people started to uninstalled zoom, pity that the efforts of my aunt to installed it will never happens again haha! but lucky me! as I am and will not ready to have the second one! 😉