Europe Diary

Another year has passed, and it seems as if it was yesterday when I was in Seattle, (after dinner at Jade Garden, Chinatown…to be precise) contemplating whether I should go to a house party, or join my dear friend Marini, Putri and Steven to celebrate New Year at church with the IFGF family.

Oh jeez, I can still see myself standing in the crossroad between King St and 7th Ave, being as indecisive as ever, confusing everyone. At the end, I decided to go to the party, but for some reason, found myself driving towards Northgate Church instead. This probably sounds silly to a lot of people, but deep in my heart, I know that this simple decision had leaded me to change my life forever.

2005: A great year that has certainly stood up to the challenge. The year began with a new apartment in Bellevue with a new roommate, Marini (who eventually became my ‘Godmother’ :D), got baptized, and endless fun games and summer BBQs. As I was having the time of my life in Seattle, I was in a crossroad and had to say goodbye to Seattle in August to pursue something different.

As a treat for sad goodbyes (not to mention no more thai tom, buble tea, or sichuan), I got to be spend some preciuos time with my family in Indonesia for 3 months. Indeed, there was no place like home.

And now, here I am in Belgium,with new job, new flat mates, new language to learn, and new challenge.

This year’s Christmas, I had a nice dinner party with some other AIESEC trainees. Thinking that it would be a great opportunity to impress my new friends, and being as *kepo* as usual, I volunteered to cook the entire Christmas dinner right after my roommate proposed the dinner idea. It was only for 5 anyways, no big deal, right?… 10 people confirmed in the last minute, and I ended up spending 5 crazy hours running around in my kitchen, trying to invent some decent Indonesian food for dinner. Oh gosh, my Mom would be so proud if she saw me looking like an iron chef, and bossed around the other Indonesian guy, who looked as if it was his first day holding a kitchen knife ever!!

Anyway, apart from the tiredness, we had a great party with great people. It was probably the most international dinner I’ve ever had with people from Brazil, Rumania, Serbia, USA, Poland, Russia, Canada, and of course Indonesia, with probably about 15 languages floating around in the dinner table.

Sigh….what an amazing year, this 2005. It is a year full of surprise, friends who come and go, but one thing for sure is that God is with me along the way, and that is why I feel happy and grateful no matter what happen to me in the future. I wish you all a great 2006 filled with love, joy, challenging project, and above all a healthy year.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2006

Hugs from Brussels

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 1st, 2006 at 10:11 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.