I know it’s been a long time. Not having internet at home was one thing, but when the closest hotspot (the Supermal) didn’t have internet for three weeks, it really threw me off. But now I’m back to tell you about my more recent adventures in Indonesia. I suppose that before I do that, I should just remind you all that Greg and I are fine and unaffected by the more recent disasters in the country. If you haven’t heard of those more recent disasters, don’t bother looking them up. I’m just saving you the stress!

After a stressful year thus far, Greg took a day off work and took me on a surprise vacation for Ayyam-i-Ha. I had the choice of it not being a surprise at some point, but I like surprises, and didn’t find out where we were going until we got to the airport. Actually, even knowing the name of our destination city didn’t help me at first (“Where’s Mataram?”) but I found out eventually. We went to South Lombok near the town of Kuta (not Kuta, Bali) to a Novotel resort. It didn’t seem like my thing at first, and we had to complain about our room, but by day 2 it was an incredible and relaxing vacation. We were there for three nights, and after our complaint, were able to stay in our own thatch-roofed hut very close to the beach and to the amazing raised swimming pool. We spent the whole time walking on the beach, reading, swimming, and eating. The beach was off of a tidal bay, so when the tide was out there wasn’t any water. But when the tide was in, you could swim very far from shore and the bottom was only 6 feet under. It was beautiful. I finally was able to swim a few strokes of butterfly. We ate breakfast on top of a hill, and got to try weaving (both of us) when a woman came to sell cloth on the beach. It was really fun, but very hard on the shoulders.