Fasting Month

Oh no, it's been weeks since my last entry, and I haven't written anything like I mentioned in that previous post. However, the water still runs very little, the dry season is longer than we thought. And starting three days ago for one month, the schedule in the house has changed. It's the fasting month, and we do not eat nor drink from sunup to sunset during the course of the month. Relax...we've got the habit since we were kids here ;-) So it's not something that makes us feel weak or unwell. Not at all, though some people might think so. I still go to work as usual, and because I keep active the whole day, time goes really fast and suddenly it's time to eat. OK, we won't eat much because we will go to the nearby mosque for the night prayer. After the prayer, the 'party' can start ;-) And again, since the water's still so little, I still don't cook. For the first day of fasting Fina and I went eat at a street food stall in the neighborhood. Standard food consists of a bowl of rice, one side dish and several kinds of raw or cooked vegetables. And hot chilly sauce!

A reason (not) to write

Well, I have one reason why I haven't written much lately. In my first entry I wrote about cooking and so in the next entries I even posted some pictures of the food, and it was a real fun. Until the day the water in our house run so little. It's been dry and no rain for quite sometime now and it seems like the houses in our neighborhood have to compete with those hotels and office buildings in the area who use water jet pumps. This situation results in days and evenings of eating-out, since we really need to reduce our use of water at home. Too bad. There's no apple-pie which is as special as our home-made ones ;-) , and so, since I didn't cook, I felt like I had nothing to post...

But hey...complaints didn't change anything, and as usual we're challenged to invent other fun ways to continue living :-) I'll write it in my next entry later.

Anyway guys, Fina is already home again in Jakarta and soon she has to post her story and the pictures she took during her trip in the UK ;-)

In the meantime since Wolfgang already posted some pictures of Stockholm archipelago, I'm 'inspired' to post as well some interesting pictures of Stockholm...(now I got that fernweh, too, Wolf...)

Happy weekend!

impressions from Sweden...

So how to end a Sunday evening, I thought. Maybe write something in the blog...

That year in Sweden caused something I never thought I would experience before... fernweh (there is no real translation for this word; it means - literally - distance-ache, but you could say its the longing to be somewhere else, away from home). Travelling has never been something I was really interested in before... but now things have changed.

Perhaps I did not realize back then how animating it is to just go out into nature and .. walk. Now I am reading into literature about trekking and this is definitely the way I would like to spend my next holiday. My dream is to go to South Africa (where my brother is currently doing his PhD in chemistry...) for trekking. I thought of this February, but already found out that more planning is needed than I thought. Also, of course, it is not really recommendable to travel alone in certain regions (and not only because of lions or hyenas). So it would be best to get some practice before going for it... but somebody wrote already about the importance of having dreams.

Anyway, maybe I get back to the topic which is Sweden and I just intended to post some pictures I took while in Stockholm in July. Enjoy!

Typical Swedish coastal landscape (tour to Utö in Stockholm's archipelago)

walking in dry moss... the moose like to feed on these and they left their "signs" everywhere...

The youth hostel or vandrarhem I stayed in on Fjärdlång (an even smaller island in the same area). I just love those wooden houses in red...

the entrance, after the veranda. Some things about Sweden are most fascinating. One example is how places like this are run. There is no reception; you pay for your room at the local (and only) shop - a grocery store (where they also serve breakfast if you apply). You are trusted to clean your room after you and - of course - not steal anything (like the books in the shelf on the picture or kitchen stuff, the television...) and it actually works. It is unthinkable at home - with that Swedish trustfulness you would be ripped off in no time. But there, rules are obeyed out of conviction, not because you could face punishment.
A view of the archipelago. From the top of a hill on Fjärdlång. Who would have guessed this scene is from so far in the north?Till next time, cheers W.

Happiness, great friendship, and good luck!

When we had our Swedish guests early this year, they brought many frog figurines for giving as souvenirs and, before handing the gifts, one of our guests would give a 'speech' about frogs being symbol of happiness and great friendships.

So that's what I got in mind when, just by chance I stopped by a souvenir shop in a mall not far from where I work. I was on my way out of the mall after finding a pair of walking shoes when I noticed a nice quilted batik shoulder bag. I went in to ask the price of the bag, but suddenly, my eyes caught three wooden frogs 'sitting' on the edge of the shelf. And I didn't know why, the look of these three frogs made me laugh, big laugh!



The guy in the counter told me that frogs are symbol of good luck. I told him the story I told you above. But more than that, what the guy in the counter didn't know (and I won't tell him by any means!) is that I got a whiff of memory and that's what made me smile and laugh, it was this picture:




Somehow indeed now thanks to that experience I believe that frogs are symbol of happiness and great friendship, and hopefully as the guy in the counter said: good luck!

ps: seeing the picture of the frogs above you might understand that I decided to buy them, and now they're sitting on top of my computer's detachable loud-speaker, next to a painted Dala horse. Another reminder that the other picture was taken in Sweden...!