Summer Break

Summer Break is officially under way. Usually when I spend summers in country, I have some grand adventure planned. Like the time I lived on Sumatra for a month. Or the time I went to South Korea. Or the time I backpacked around West Java.

This summer though - zero plans. Like really. NADA. I have two and a half months of nothing to do. So I decided to just accept whatever reasonable offer comes my way.

Coach a bunch of Indonesian students I've never met who are going to a math contest in South Korea?
Sure!

Teach TOEFL English?
Sounds great.

Come to  your Chinese grandmother's birthday party and give a speech? In Indonesian?
Uh, I guess it'll be good for me.

Tutor some students who are trying to skip a level in math?
Piece of cake!

Travel by train to West Java for your father-in-law's 75th birthday bash and sleep at the family compound for five days?
Perfect.

Randomly travel to another city by motorbike on a weeknight to see a movie?
Yes, please!

Crash a wedding?
Anything for free food!

Because, I mean, WHY NOT??

Then I had the following (slightly summarized) conversation after church today with my pastor's two kids - Sha and Lem - which took things to a whole new level.

Sha: Hey kak, have you ever been to Bromo? [BTW, if you don't know what Bromo is - GOOGLE IT RIGHT NOW.]
Me: Nah. Have you?
Sha: No. But I want to go. But not alone. Wanna go with me?
Me: Yup. When do we leave?
Sha: Friday. I think Lem is coming too.
Lem: But can we invite someone else? I don't want to be the only guy.
Me: Ask Sigit. He's right there.
Lem: His wife is pregnant. I don't think she'd like that.
Me: You're so picky. I guess we have to find someone male who doesn't have a pregnant wife. Hmmmm.... Whooooooo can we invite? Let's at least make sure he's good looking.

Enter Lilik, our worship leader.

Lilik: Hey, what's up guys?
Sha: We're going to Bromo on Friday.
Lilik: I'm in.
Me: I guess you'll do.

And that is basically how it happened. So I'll be travelling to Bromo on Friday and staying the weekend there with my worship leader and my pastor's two kids. I'm not super close to any of them, but I have a feeling I will be after this trip.

In other news, I'm memorizing Javanese vocab words in the hopes that if I can start to understand more of the language, I might actually be able to speak it someday. And I taught myself how to embroider this week. Thank you, internet.

Oh, and just in case you didn't really Google Bromo like I told you to, I did it for you. You're welcome.