sweet, sweet sanur - my final days

Vanessa finally made it to Bali on Monday and I must say it was a serious relief to see her. I won't even get into how awful her trip here was, but I will say that Delta Airlines should compensate her with her own plane. Anyway, she's here and I'm thrilled.

We went straight to Ubud from the airport and checked in at Artini (seriously, I love this place). We went straight into the shopping and pretty much didn't stop until literally three minutes before we left on Wednesday. Tuesday night we went to see a traditional Balinese show called Kecak where instead of instruments, they have a chorus of 100 men chanting, singing, shouting and using their voices for percussion. V and I were completely blown away. It was one of the most moving things I've seen and heard since I've been here. They performed a piece from the story of Ramayana, had two girls do a synchronized dance with their eyes closed, and had a man perform a piece playing a boy in a trance who thinks he's a horse. They dumped a very large bag of coconut husks on the ground, lit them on fire, and the man kicked and walked on the flaming pieces of coconut with his bare feet. It was madness. I'm now completely obsessed with finding recordings of Kecak.

We left Ubud on Wednesday (with more souvenirs than I know what to do with) and headed down South to Sanur. Now this is the beach scene that I've been looking for on this island. There are a lot of fancy hotels lining the shore and we are not being harassed nearly as much as I had been in Kuta. It's nice to get a break from it. We traveled down here with a few of my tour mates that we hooked back up with in Ubud. We didn't have any hotel reservations, but happen to find a place recommended by Lonely Planet called "Flashbacks" that is the most perfect place for me to spend my last days here. V and I are staying in this adorable cottage with an open air shower and stone sink. I love it!

We spent yesterday checking the town out, walking along the beach and eating delicious Balinese food. Today we did much of the same. We were lucky enough to have one complete day of sunshine and thought we would take advantage of it and hang out on the sand. Unfortunately it was crazy windy and every time a gust came through, we were pelted by a thousand tiny grains of sand that stung like mad. I think we were out there for 35 seconds before we made our way back to the road. Regardless, it was a beautiful day and we spent much of it walking around in the sunshine. This afternoon and evening we ended up taking a taxi to a temple here on the island. Tanah Lot is a stunning "temple on the sea." The temple is small, but has a huge presence, and sits about 100 feet from the mainland. Because the tide was low, we were actually able to walk up to the temple and go through a blessing ritual. We stayed to watch the sun set over the ocean while snapping about a million pictures. Oh, and we also held an enormous holy snake. Right.

Vanessa leaves tomorrow night and then I have about a day and a half left on my own before I leave. I have to say that I'm nervous about leaving the comfort I've found in traveling and re-entering the life waiting for me back home. It's not even really the same life I left, which also scares me a bit. I'll need a good chunk of time to recover from all of this. I'll need every one's patience when it comes to how much I'm going to want to talk about EVERYTHING I've seen and experienced, all the time. I'm looking forward to seeing you all. I'll post again when I'm home, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks will have an online photo album up that I'll post a link to.

Thank you all again so much for your emails and comments. I'm glad I was able to communicate my adventures through stories and pictures on this blog. Check back in the coming weeks for "Ahhhhh, I'm home!" posts and links to pictures.

I'll be seeing you all soon!

Much love.

M

Moving on

I've spent the last week here in Kuta, and I have to say I'm ready to move on. Everyone I spoke to before I got here warned me that I wasn't going to love it. They were right. There are very few tourists here due to it being the wet season, and the fact that many Americans and Australians just don't come here anymore after the bombing. Because of this, the store owners and hawkers are relentless. It is impossible to walk down the street without being harassed every two seconds. And someone, somewhere, at some point, taught these guys how to say the word "darling." It's all they call us, and not in a good Southern gentleman kind of way. Gen and I have to walk down the streets with our heads down, careful not to make eye contact with anyone. It's manageable for about a day, then it gets really old. So, I'm leaving here tomorrow and heading back up to Ubud.

I've done less in this last week than I have in a very, very long time. The weather hasn't been great, either way too hot to go outside, or raining like crazy, so we haven't spent much time at the beach, or really out of the room. We rented a DVD player, bought about a million bootleg DVDs, and watched them all. It was quite nice, actually, to just sit and do nothing for a while. I must say, though, that I'm getting a bit of cabin fever.

Things sort of worth mentioning:
Gen and I ate a lobster. It was messy.
We went to a bar and watched very drunk men fall down. Very funny.
My room is infested with ants. I called the front desk three times to ask if someone could come in and spray. A worker showed up with a can of odor remover and a broom. Needless to say, it didn't work.

Unfortunately, Vanessa's flight has been seriously delayed due to bad weather in NY, so she didn't come in yesterday like planned. Instead she'll be here tomorrow (Monday) around noon. The upside is that the airport is on the way to Ubud, so I'll just pick her up and take her straight there. I'm bummed that she's missing out on a day and a half of her vacation, but I'm sure we'll still have a great week.

On a different note, some very exciting news came my way yesterday. A friend of mine from school, Cam-An, was hired in January for a temporary counseling position at Santa Monica High School. She emailed me a few weeks back and told me that there was another temporary position opening up there, and she wanted to know if I was interested in it. "Of course!!!" I said. She told me they were looking for someone for the beginning of March, but since I'm back until the 11th, I figured they would just look for someone else. Nope. Turns out they were willing to wait for me. I was a bit unprepared and didn't have access to my resume, but managed to email my past supervisors and got letters of recommendation from them. Next thing I know, I get an email from Cam-An saying they want to do a phone interview.....from Santa Monica! They were willing to call me all the way over here to interview me for the job! After a couple unsuccessful attempts with phone lines and time differences, I interviewed for the job over the phone this past Thursday night (at midnight!). The exciting news? You guessed it. I got the job!!! I start pretty much immediately after I get home. I can't even explain how excited I am about this. It's crazy to think that I have a job waiting for me. As of March 12th I will be employed by Santa Monica High! Go me! Oh, and Cam-An, if you're reading this, I know I've said it a thousand times, but I owe you big!! You're the best!

Anyway, I'm off to try and enjoy my last night in Kuta. I'll write again when V's here!

Love YOU and you and You and yoU and YOU