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Frequency

Sightseeing in Florence day 4: meeting Kate in Rome, skip Tuscany sky for a bit, moving on to Eternal City. Was on the way to train station when the sun rises at 07:35 AM, finally I see the daylight!

What a coincidence that her flight from Russia landed Rome during my stay in Florence, the train distance is only 1,5 hours, our half day in Rome planned 🙂

Kate really understand the ultimate point, this is what I’m talking! People who knows how to take pictures and how to do a boot camp whilst travelling! We are in the same frequency! Rome wasn’t built in a day, but with her plan, we’ll try to see it all hahaha

If you haven’t been to Rome, it’s a must as in M.U.S.T! It’s where every street feels like a storybook. I am fortunate I was with her, she never gets annoyed at my comment “oh, what’s that?” her responses were always “let’s go closer, make picture there”, it could be very south if I go with other people. That’s my girllll!!!! you got me and you got me good 🙂

Trace back our more than 20K steps:

What else other than….. Trevi fountain! oh hello Baustelle Julius informed me about the upcoming events, jubilees ~ the holy year in 2025, caused Rome under numerous construction and restoration projects. This is the Trevi Fountain without any water guys, nevertheless you can’t take away the beauty of it. I asked her to take picture of only building, she was… you could also do it, then she got my point “you asked me because i’m taller?” yessss! if I do the picture I will get the fence only haha

Next on our list is Pantheon Rome, while walking I found an interesting Pillars, undoubtedly she is ready with her camera + squat position. I like my first photos, she replied let’s do it one more time until I like it. #That’s the spirit!

I went in to one of ancient Roman buildings, renowned for its massive domed ceiling. With the oculus – about 9 meters diameter, it allows natural light to illuminate the interior. It has symbolic meaning which represents the connection between the temple and the heavens. Wooooo amazing hey!

The outside view of Pantheon equally astounding. You can feel this building does have history! beckoning you to come inside, you will bow to.

We walked passed two historic landmarks ~ under constructions too haha church Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza: a church symbolizing wisdom and learning with famous spiral-shaped lantern; Piazza Navona: an ancient stadium turned into a square with three Baroque fountains ~ Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, Fontana del Moro and Fontana del Nettuno.

I did zero research about Rome, I just went there because of meeting Kate. We stopped seeing the view at on of the Ponte until I questioned something…..

  • Kate…. that building… is it where Angel & Demons movie takes place?
  • I don’t watch the movie but it’s Vatican
  • Are we going there?
  • Yes we can go to the border, you can see from outside. Vatican is in Rome.

I AM GOING TO VATICAN CITY!!!! #Beyond believe.

Still on the journey to Vatican 😉 another landmarks show up: Castel Sant’Angelo / Castle of the Holy Angel which has serve a lot of function since it was built 2000 years ago from mausoleum, military fortress, papal residence, prison and now it’s a museum.

In front of the Vatican ~ still under Rome jurisdiction, there is Piazza Pio XII, a public space before entering the sacred boundaries of Vatican City. Kate took sooooo many picture until I got the IT picture.

In the end asked Sissy to removed all of people in the background mwahaha, my fav is the Air Jordan style 🙂 What do you think?

Stepping on at Piazza San Pietro / St. Peter’s Square which is one of the most famous squares in the world, located in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City! Let me repeat: I am LITERALLY ON THE GROUND OF VATICAN CITY!!! The place where Papa Francesco holds Mass! Felt a rush of emotions words barely capture, realizing how lucky I was to be here. The place I’d only seen in “Angels & Demons” was now right before me, it was no longer just part of a movie, rather a vivid reality, a tangible experience, one I could see, feel and remember forever. In some way, I was in a sense of disbelief realizing I was truly here. #Lost of words.

I remember when I was 16 years old in Bandung, my housemate, she is a Catholic, she was very very proud ~ borderline arrogant way saying “I’m going to Vatican” I was just listened. 17 years later, here I am, witnessing this majestic building. Never have I ever thought I would be able to be present at this awe-inspiring square.

I managed to put one feet on Vatican + one in Rome hahaha I promised myself I will come back to both Rome and Vatican, do the research so I can be inside! #Me want! One more thing to look forward too.

This dazzling experience leads me to hungrrryyyyyy we just eat somewhere, pasta in Italy = never wrong. We enjoyed the view of what we have accomplished so far from Janiculum Hill, we have walked quite a bit heyyyy! At Trastevere we could see Zara’s national war hero haha.

It’s not finised yet people, we still have got some hours before our trains departs 🙂 Kate took a silhouette picture of me inside the Church of Our Lady of Consolation near the Forum Romanum / Roman Forum a.k.a Ruins. Although the Forum now is archaeological site, back then it served as the political, social, economic and religious center of ancient Rome; lived beyond the Imperial Era of Augustus, Vespasian and Trajan.

It is forbidden to miss the most iconic symbols of ancient Rome and a masterpiece of engineering and architecture: The Colosseum we are saving the best for the last 🙂 we were talking the fact that it was a gladiator contest places, however at that time it wasn’t consider inhumane. There is no time to go inside, we just saw it from the hill.

Let me correct it, the Gelato is the best for the last! We were separated after this on Rome train station 🙂

Kate, it’s been five years, at the same time it felt like no time had passed at all, we were picking up exactly where we left off. Thank you not only for our tour in Rome, for the real conversations we had, and for being the friend I can reconnect with, no matter the years in between. I wish you all the best as you settle into this amazing chapter of life in Italy! Buona Fortuna!

‘Till we meet again 🙂

Tips: buy the ticket of Pantheon online to save some time waiting in line for ticket office. I bought the entrance on 13:00 and get in at 11:00. We asked them, she said OK, they didn’t really control the time. It cost 5 Euro but online fee 0,95 Euro so 5,95 Euro.

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Phone

As we all are well equipped with Smartphones, we are familiar that our phone create memories using Photos available in your Gallery. It is a pleasant felling to know your friend’s phone made a collection of your own photos.

From Julia, it was a mix between work & pleasure located in Shanghai and Germany. Preserving memories from our Saturday’s habit at our no longer existed place-Zapatas 🙁 The controversial M1NT Club with its shark tank entrance to which I remember Thorben was so against it.

Apropos Thorben, second video was from his phone, displayed mostly pleasure, in form of delicacies #Yum! nom nom… or parties 😉 located in Shanghai and my hometown.

It’s enjoyable to be reminded of the past times; what did you do, ate, happened to you, your whereabouts.

Tausend Dank for still having my pictures in your phone!

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Vitamin A

Australia, second home to so many Indonesian 🙂

How many? let’s see how many I can meet during my short stay in Sydney:

(P.S. one of them is not an Indonesian, you’ll know who #wink)

Betsy

First time I met her was really back then, on my 2nd year of primary school in Bandar Lampung, SD Xaverius Pahoman. Never will I ever miss that bloody school! So so so strict! Can’t remember how many hats I have because every Monday we had a ceremony where we must wear hat and I forget it from time to time so I need to buy it every damn time or else I’d go to detention.

Enough with that school, back to Betsy, she was my classmates, I remember she was the smart one 🙂 Last time I saw her was in year 2016, she was a newlywed. Now I met her again, she’s already have mini Betsy + mini Andy = Bethany!!!

Bethany wasn’t even chill, she can already run, thus she ran all the time. We, the grown up ones were the one who worried if she will hit something. While we had our Lemonade drink, when she’s not running, she’s eating her grape raisins and chocolate, she does have a job to keep us busy 😀

She was fast yet easily get distracted. Betsy said “this is what happened when you walk around with toddler, never really know when will you reach your destination”.

Let’s see what could Bethany do next time we meet again…. perhaps fly…. to Germany? haha you have one aunt here Bethany! Someday it’ll be your time to visit me 😉

Leyfa

Mamacita! Thank you for seeing my post on IG otherwise I wouldn’t know you’re in Sydney too! Brendan say nothing about your whereabout when I told him I’m going to Australia.

Archery has brought us together, I still keep all the clothes you gave me, both the <3 Leyfa Por Favor is Coming and Mamacita needs a Margaritha. I’ll keep wearing it, the only way I see I’m not wearing it, is if I frame it.

Her place is in Dee Why, this is the moment where I realized Sydney is big! Because Dee Why is one hour and ten minutes away from City Center and the whole time I’m in the bus, I kept asking myself, where the hell am I?? Say no more, it’s worth a travel to see you!

I’m so proud of what you’ve endured, achieved, became and will become. Wishing you and Charly a great life in Australia, you are welcome anytime in Dortmund. I know, tragic ehhh from Shanghai to Sydney then to Dortmund hahaha

Queen

My brain and beautiful influencer, Q! This girl is so damn busy you can’t really catch her, her schedule is like a jetsetter! I already texted her a long time ago that I will be from X date to Y date in AU, got not a reply from her until I’m already in Brisbane. AAAAAA need to meet her before she spread her wings elsewhere!

I thought I’ll meet her for lunch before I come to see Leyfa for dinner but I lost my glasses so I switch the plan. I met Leyfa on lunch time then her for dinner or else I can’t see the way for me to be back to City Center in the dark time without my glasses hahaha

I always a bit insecure with her because she’s so pretty, I told her to just be chill and don’t wash her hair hahaha #I know very important, anyway she violated my request. She’s appears gorgeous as always 🙂

We reserve a table, what I mean is we came and say to the waitress “a table for 3 please” so we didn’t even reserve nothing haha while waiting for her +1 to come, we went to Darling Harbour #Sydney mandatory place.

+1 came, it’s eating time at Bar Totti’s #nom nom

From all the places in the world, Shanghai’s Church Courtyard is the place that connected us. It is so weird to type it in one sentence, a church courtyard in Shanghai #yeap, still weird.

You have brain and beauty, you studied medical, you are officially a doctor for f#$k sake! entrepreneur too, what’s next? have some projects in Europe please!

Mario

My highschool friend Yoyo! Sophie need to thanks him, without him I wouldn’t find the Southern Wild Co. Candle she asked me about 😉

He showed me the highlight of Sydney other than Darling Harbour (as I went there with Q already) met in Town Hall, ate the famous cake, went to The Rock. Said to him “Yo, took pic of me that looks like I’m abroad” he understood the assignment very well.

Then went to Ibis to take my luggage thank you for carrying all my $h!t, took shower at his place, airport #tough schedule.

SMA Saint Aloysius Bandung met us up, Parahyangan Catholic University met us up again although he was in a different Fach than me, honestly even from high school we were already different, he chose science while I chose social. He and his wife are the smart couple, they met on a accounting competition, the hell was that?!?!

He visited me when I still in Shanghai I guess it was year 2017 then now I visited him, next…. you and your wife need to come to Germany!

Thank youuuu friends for all the time you spare with me, do remember to contact me if you ever go anywhere in Europe. It doesn’t have to be Germany or Dortmund precisely, I know there are much better options hahaha I can promise you that I will try my best to catch you up in any part in Europe.

Love you all and really wish you the best in each step of your life!

#Peace out

Until next time 🙂

*Btw I don’t like to show pictures of an underage children. Thanks to Flaticon, I got it covered. Grape raisins icon from Raisins icons created by Freepik – Flaticon

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Our Family Experience

It was started when Thorben posted the pic of me and him with the “adoption” title and somehow 6 of his colleague congratulates him on the adoption, they don’t think that Thorben legally adopted me but they thought that Thorben supported my education or whatsoever haha and then Children’s day is coming and his company has a family day where the company allowed their employee to bring their children, spouse, girlfriend to Disneyland! When Thorben said it he wanted to take me as a child to Disneyland and of course I said yes! I mean it’s Disneyland for free, what can you expect but at that time they haven’t set the date or if it will be fixed that they will have family day on Disneyland…. until this message came up:

But in the end I couldn’t get the kid ticket because of course I didn’t fulfill the requirements of a kid 😉 but since Marina and Thorben are working in the same company therefore they can bring a +1 soooo here’s our family experience! Featuring parents: Thorben and Marina, kids: brother Freddoy and sister Marlyn 😉

We were supposed to arrived at Thorben and Marina’s home at 7:30 but since the day before was a Hungover League day and somehow I woke up late so I arrived at their home at 7:45 and we arrived Disneyland exactly when the park open at 8:30.

Marina is sooooo well prepared, on the taxi she’s already make a fast pass account for all of us so by the time we arrived at the park we can get the fast pass, she downloaded the APP so that we can see the waiting line for each attractions, she knows where we need to go etc etc. 30 mins before we arrived the FP for Soaring already at 3-4 PM and by the time we arrived it was sold out! so we got FP for another roller coaster 7 dwarf something like that and they were like “Marlyn it’s because you’re late” 🙁 huaaa Marlyn got blamed#1

We arrived! and there was a line of course what else can you expect and Freddoy made a documentation of every queuing that we did haha Thorben was the one that least excited, dunno why.

My goal was just to ride the Tron! so that’s the first things we did! We waited for like 50-60 mins for Tron and it was so cool! I really like the idea that we sit in a motorcycle kind of ride and Freddoy was scaring me he said that I need to talk to the staff because I can still moved my upper body and he said that my lock wasn’t right and for some seconds I believed him until the ride is finished and he said he was joking, I was holding to the tron so tight! haha We were all thinks that Tron is so cool because we have the indoor and outdoor roller coaster so we wanted to ride it again but wait until the sun came down so it’s kind of dawn and with the lamp and so on must be so good! so we decided to come back again before the fireworks, meanwhile we went to other attractions 😉

Because Woody’s attraction and Peterpan’s was kind of close with Tron then we also visited them, we wanted to visit Woody’s first but somehow we found Peterpan’s first so here we are for Peterpan’s. From the app it was written waiting time 45 mins but turns out it was 90 mins! Sth must happened with the machine because it’s just too long. We realized it too long after we played so many games and the line wasn’t really moving! And yes people, Marina and Thorben prepares the game as well! haha Thorben brought card game Dobble and Marina’s got a game on her phone called heads up where we need to “Act it out” whatever’s written on the phone and one person guess it. There was a very funny act when the things that Marina need to guess was “Making OREO” we tried to demonstrate it until Thorben just made us on a line, Freddy-Thorben-Me. Freddy is Latino so he’s got a tan skin and me is from South East Asia so I got a yellow skin and Thorben is from German so he’s got a white skin and to make it worse Marina understood it! mwahaha she said “oh, oh , making an OREO!” and we were just laughing 😀 Freddy said “Idk which one is worse, that Thorben did this demonstration or the fact that Marina understands it” but I found it was really really funny! We really attracts the attention due to we were loud and they also videotaped us while we were playing this game and I wish they could record the oreo things haha

Then we went to Woody’s Ranch 🙂 it was a funny attraction and we were kind of get it directly really really less time in waiting. It was funny in a way that the cart really bumped us to left and right and we even jumped in to Woody’s twice!

After woody’s there was a parade! We didn’t watch the beginning of the parade, it was toy story-Zootopia-Finding Nemo-creepy Prince and Princess and the one that Freddoy’s like MULAN!” I couldn’t see the parade that clear because there was many people in front of me and I said “What is this that I’m seeing?” and Thorben hold me on his shoulders so I can see what is going on and I did say hi to the characters 😉

After watching the parade we just walking around the park on the way to have a very late lunch or very early dinner, depends, on the Cheesecake Factory. But we were taking pictures first on the famous castle 😉

Then in front of this castle there’s a very funny Donald duct statue, the grumpy one and Thorben said “Take a pic of me with grumpy Donald” why oh why you need to be grumpy?! #puppy eyes

  • Grumpy Thorben
  • Smiley Daisy and Grumpy Donald

And we also taking a picture of a Laowai that take a picture for Laowai’s 😉

Next one was Pirates of The Carribean! OMG! There is no words to describe how cool is this attractions! The effect, the sounds, the way they made you feel that once you were underwater and then above the water was amazing! Thorben said to me that we were really under the water but meh! don’t believe it 😉 It is really really amazing guys, you need to go for it! Either with or without FP, I think it’s still worth the wait, well we were lucky the waiting line for this wasn’t so long maybe also 40 mins-ish.

I think we went to fill ourselves with corn and turkey leg and before our real food from Cheesecake factory! Owh we still able to watch Tarzan shows 🙂 I like the shows, Marina said Thorben was sleepy and he almost slept but I always scream so he woke up and started to clap his hands automatically mwahaha come on Thorben, Tarzan is a good show! you need to wake up 😉

Then, it’s time for the real food 😉 Our stomach is calling! When we sat down finally on the restaurant, this is the moment where I really feel that I’m so tired, my legs and back was aching and when I ate the bread it’s kind of a realization that I was hungry! the whole time! but I didn’t fell it on the park.

Then we came back in, we wanted to do Tron again but after we fill ourselves it’s not a very wise idea to sitting on the motorcycle like that so we went to Pirates again! and still amazed even though I already know what happened. Then we want to a buzz world sth like that where we need to shoot the Z target, I was sitting with Freddoy he shot 1Million stars and I was only 830,000 ish but not bad 🙂

We went to the 7 dwarfs and it was also a funny roller coaster ride 😉 Freddoy was holding his phone but I’m afraid that at some turn the roller coaster will get crazy so I was like “Freddoy! hold your phone” haha

Then the sun is kind of gone already so we went for our TRON! tarararam! but due Tron was on the other side of the park and I need to have a pee break for a while, only me 😉

The waiting line for Tron wasn’t that long and I was so happy that I can get the first row, Thorben and Marina was on the second row and with all the excitements and ready to scream! the lights on the side of the rail was on and it was time for accelerate and suddenly we got stopped and the lights on the side already on the end of the rail so we think it’s time to accelerate! prepare to shout! but…. we are still there…. I looked at Freddy and asked “Were we stopping on the first time we got to Tron” and maybe it was stopped for few seconds… but it changed to minutes… and up to the point where there was announcement that sth wrong with the machine and they want us to wait. So Thorben use this moment to take picture of us, we got a really cool picture though.

And we said “save your phone Thorben” be careful we might accelerate after this like a surprise attack! But after few more minutes….. there was nothing going on until another announcement saying that “this ride is temporarily suspended” I was like NOOOOOO huaaaa I was on the first row! and Thorben said “Marlyn, it was your pee break! otherwise we would have gone to the train before this one” huaaa Marlyn got blamed 2#2

So the staff manually opening our safety equipment and ask us to stay on one line because the rail is narrow and we got out one by one.

As a compensation, they gave us a FP to go everywhere and at that time it was 20 or 15 minutes to 8PM and the fireworks was at 8:30 PM and Soaring was on the other side. So we ran like hell and it was rainy also, so dramatic! Freddoy gave us direction but it took us longer and Marina kept saying “I’m the one that have the map, it’s the wrong direction” mwahaha well, kids you know 😉 and our last queue for Soaring! we were on the first row also for this one! wohooo

Finally it was fireworks time! We didn’t get the spot of the main entrance castle, we got the side spot but I think it’s still cool! And Thorben got a task for me, he said “Marlyn, you need to shout as loud as possible to ruin all of these people’s video” mwahahaha and then there was a time for Frozen song and everyone was singing it 😉 And after few minutes of watching the shows I asked Thorben if I can go to his shoulders again mwahaha so I kind of blocked other people behind me #sorry for not being sorry 😉

The laser show, fireworks and real fire flame was amazing! Rest in peace environment #quote from Marina’s 😉 but it was magical! Thank you Marina and Thorben for taking me and Freddoy to Disneyland 😉 not only that you choose us to be your +1 but also during the whole time we were on the park, you already planned where to go and what to do during the waiting line, I’m sure if I don’t go with you I probably wouldn’t do half of what we’ve done…#ooppsss also our mother’s Disney expert analyst Boramy! haha We did quiet a lot in one day and I think I can say that my pee break also give us the blessings mwahaha otherwise we wouldn’t watch Soaring 😉

Let’s do another family day again! 😀

I am readyyyyy 😉