A trip to the other side of the world: Take two (Part 2)

Washington, D.C. was beautiful and much warmer than we had expected. After a year of 32°C (90°F), we were expecting to freeze in 22°C (72°F), but DC actually got pretty warm during the days while we were there.

Visiting DC, was actually a bit of a culture shock. As much as we love the friends we made in Jakarta, Jakarta wasn't the easiest place to live. The macet, banjir dan polusi, in Jakarta made for a love/hate relationship: I loved the people, but hated the city. So when we were walking around DC, Alexander and I made some interesting comments, such as "Wow, it's great to breath", "Look! We can walk on the sidewalk" and "Wait, where are the motorbikes?". Other people also noticed our culture shock when we were amazed at the selection in the grocery store and accidentally said terima kasih.

with Brandon

in Baltimore

Our first weekend in DC, we were visited by one of my best friends, Brandon, which was lucky, since he got to see DC before the government shutdown. We were able to stay with my grandma Annie at my brothers' Dwayne and Christopher's
apartment in DC. They have an amazing apartment with a great view. We were also able to go to Baltimore in Maryland and Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Our second, and last, weekend we got to see my grandparents, who live on Martha's Vineyard. My grandma Ethel is 90-years old and still kicking with the help of my grandpa Ralph. I also got to meet my brother R.J. for the first time ever, which was amazing. It was incredibly emotional and something I've dreamed of my whole life.

with RJ

After spending so much time with so much family it was hard to say goodbye, but after 13 short days, we had to say goodbye again and leave for our next destination: Poland (via Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Berlin).

Since the flights weren't as long as our original flights from Jakarta, we didn't get as tired, and generally everything went rather smoothly. We were only in Reykjavik for about an hour, and I was worried we would miss the connection (but we didn't). The Copenhagen airport was incredibly expensive. We had about 7 hours for our layover, so we bought some lunch and spent almost 50USD for two sandwiches and two drinks. It was about 9 p.m. when we got into Berlin and, luckily, our boss agreed to pick us up and take us to our new home. We got to Kostrzyn just before midnight and decided to unpack. We checked four bags at the airport and the TSA went through three of them. Apparently it's suspicious to fly from DC to Berlin with four checked bags.

Once we unpacked almost everything, we were finally able to sleep....and start to enjoy the honeymoon phase of life in Poland.

A trip to the other side of the world: Take two (Part 1)

Last year, Alexander and I took a trip to the other side of the world, which was from France to Jakarta, Indonesia. This year, we took our second trip to the other side of the world, from Jakarta to Poland. We now live in a little town on the Oder River called Kostrzyn nad Odra.

Our trip started several weeks ago, when we left from the Jakarta airport on our way to Washington, D.C., via Tokyo. We arrived in plenty of time, thanks to our friends Helen and Andy, and quickly made it through the lax security and baggage check. Once we got to immigration, we were told we had to fill out a landing card. It didn't matter that we had already lived in Jakarta for a year, we had to fill out a landing card like someone who was just visiting for a few weeks. After getting over my frustrations about that, things went smoothly through immigration. Once we passed immigration, we had planned to find our gate and then get something to eat. Our gate was on the other side of more security, where there was no place to eat and no bathrooms. So, we started the flight hungry, frustrated and tired, since it was nearly 10 pm. Nevertheless, we decided to take a picture at boarding...and the camera batteries died.

It's incredibly disappointing that we didn't have a camera on the trip from Jakarta to Tokyo, because we were able to see Mount Fuji from the plane, so imagine that this picture was taken on a plane, by me:






Once we got to Tokyo, or Narita International airport, we were incredibly jet-lagged because I had the brilliant idea of not sleeping until our second flight from Tokyo to DC. The plan kind of worked, except for the fact that we had the most painful four hours of a layover. On the bright side, we got to eat Ramen in Tokyo and get a few (thousand) yen.

The flight from Tokyo to DC was about 13 hours, of which I slept about 6 hours. Needless to say, by the time we got to Dulles International Airport, I did not want to wait in line with Alexander, my non-American husband, for over an hour when I could have been out in less than half that time. But I waited with him, like a dutiful wife.

After we collected our luggage of two checked bags we decided to rent a car to get to our final destination in DC. Once there, we resisted the temptation to immediately sleep after our 24-hour trip and made some delicious burritos instead. Then we slept.

Continue to part two.