For our last week here in Yogyakarta, we had such a busy schedule with our final exams, presentations, video assignments and internship assignments. It was a pretty crazy schedule, but I do like being busy. After our final we had two going away parties, one from ILCIC (The language program from our university) and one from USINDO. For ILCIC were amazing performances and we received beautiful going away gifts. For our farewell dinner we invited our host families, internship friends, teacher and tutors. I was the MC with my friend Vinia and we had a live gamelan performance, dancing and "fireworks" (sparklers and huge confetti poppers). It was an amazing last hurrah from the program. Some of us stayed up all night talking and some had a long day ahead of them the next day to finish packing and such.
Since we were spending our last 4 days in Jakarta for a post program evaluation, I spent my last full day in Yogyakarta exploring the city one last time. I walked all around my neighborhood and had my last street food meal, then I went to the movies and watched my first Indonesian movie, Rudy Habibie, with one of my friends, Adit. It was an amazing film that was based on a true story of the former third president of Indonesia, his love life and passion for Indonesia at a young age in the 1960s. We ended up getting some donuts and meeting up with Mba Vinia and found out later that one of our friends in the program was in the hospital so we visited her in the hospital and were up until 1 am. Once I got home I had to finalize all of my belongings and stayed up all night because my flight was at 5 am and we had to get to the airport around 4:30 am.
After all of our goodbyes we left Yogya together and arrived in Jakarta around 7 am. We had a strict itinerary set up for us already so we met with a few Non-profits and had a few meetings after that. We visited this beautiful cathedral nearby and visited the largest mosque in Southeast Asia right across the street from it. We were treated like VIPs being brought into so many beautiful areas of the mosque getting a tour and learning so much about what happens there. After dinner we were all pretty exhausted. After some needed rest, the next day was a fun day for exploring where we went to the the national monument and had a great discussion with students from Universitas Indonesia. We talked about politics, economics, education and even tourism.
On our last full day in Indonesia we explored the city some more and walked around, went to starbucks and watched Suicide Squad. It was amazing, especially for only $1.90. I've definitely seen way to many movies here, but it's totally worth it. We met up at this Spanish tapas restaurant called POR QUE NO for our last dinner together. We talked about every part of the program and what to improve on and celebrated our last night together with some delicious food and drinks with REFILLS. Yes, that's right, refills. I emphasize on this because in Indonesia there really isn't a such thing as refills. Alright well, enough of that rant. It was an amazing last night. After we took some cabs to the hotel we all met up in the lobby/bar area and sat on the couches and talked for hours. Some of us were leaving at 3 am anyway (I was one of those people) so we wanted to stay up all night so we didn't oversleep.
It honestly still hasn't hit me yet that i'm about to leave Indonesia after these last three months of calling this place home. I have all of these mixed emotions of sadness and being excited to see my family back in the U.S., but I can honestly say that I think i've taken advantage of all of the time i've had here since day one. From all of the trips we've taken to all of the language classes and tutoring sessions, I can leave this place with so much more insight. This summer has been one I will cherish for the rest of my life. It's been an unforgettable experience here and i'm so grateful for all of the people i've met and the beautiful memories we made. This isn't goodbye, it's see you later.
Below are some pictures from my last week in Indonesia (click on the picture to make it larger):
