Ulang Tahun

Sudah lama rasanya saya dan Benny tidak saling merayakan ulang tahun satu sama lain.

Malam tadi saya menyapa dia melalui telepon berbasis internet protocol. Perbincangan singkat yang kurang lebih mengucapkan selamat merayakan hari kelahirannya. Ya hari ini adalah hari ulang tahun Benny.

Hampir lupa rasanya merayakan ulang tahun atau hari jadi lainnya.

Banyak hal terjadi dalam hubungan kami sembilan tahun terakhir, tetapi hanya sedikit diantaranya yang merupakan perayaan. Saya baru menyadari bahwa kami jarang membuat perayaan. Dia sering membelikan saya hadiah, gadget, baju atau apapun, begitu pula saya, tetapi kami jarang mengasosiasikan hadiah tersebut dengan perayaan tertentu - hanya menganggapnya sebagai pemberian biasa. Hubungan kami yang lebih banyak dihabiskan jarak jauh juga menjadi salah satu alasan kami tidak bisa merayakan ulang tahun satu sama lain.

Bagaimanapun, selamat ulang tahun boi...semoga kamu mendapat satu tahun yang dipenuhi kegembiraan dan kesehatan, terwujud semua cita-cita mu!

Peluk,

kiboi

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It has been a while Benny and I did not celebrate each other's birthday.

Last nite, I talked to him over Skype. A quick hi and happy birthday. Ya, today is his birthday.

I almost forget how it feels like to celebrate birthday and anniversary.

Lots of things happen in our relationship for this last nine years but only few of them are celebration.

I just realised that we rarely celebrate things. He often buy me some stuffs, gadget, clothes, everything and so do I, but we never associated those gifts to any celebration or other things like that - just consider those as ordinary gifts. Going distance is also one of the reasons we are not able to celebrate each other's birthday. We spend half of our time in this relationship being in a distance.

Anyway, I wish you a happy birthday boi...hope you have another year filled by happiness and health, realize your dreams!.

Hugs,

kiboi

*** updated. He sent me this pic just now

Queen's day runaway

Heyyo people...I've got one story left.

It was bout the escape during queen's day

am living in such a small city (well, I would say it's village). Wageningen is sort of a small city, located in Gelderland province. We rarely have any festival or events. Unlike Amsterdam or Den Haag which often have big concerts, festivals, open stages or any other events.

Dutch celebrate queen's day on 30 April and you normally can find lots of open stages and concerts in big cities like Amsterdam. Most of my friends went to big cities on that lovely sunny day, spent some time to see the whoop-de-do and go for drinks afterwards. But Shindi, affan and I were too tired to go for those kind of things. Woke up late, enjoy the morning lazily and we decided to have our lunch in the park, go for picnic! One of our pack missed, Sacha was away for the whole weekend during queen's nite + queen's day, but it was still fun anyway.

more pics (courtesy of Shindi) are here

Sebut saya cengeng, tapi saya sedang merindukan Indonesia dan mencoba mengatasinya dengan menyimak radio Indonesia melalui online streaming dan bertemu lagu ini yang cukup manis meski boleh dibilang sedikit bernada sedih.

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Call me mushy, but am desperately miss Indonesia lately. Try to overcome this homesickness by listening to Indonesian radio over streaming..bump into this cute - rather sad somehow - song.

Rencana liburan musim panas

Pagi tadi diantara rehat kopi, saya berbincang dengan salah satu teman belanda saya tentang rencana liburan musim panas tahun ini. Cukup mengejutkan ketika dia bercerita tentang tiket dan semua tektek bengek perjalanan yang sudah disiapkan untuk menghabiskan dua bulan libur musim panasnya berkeliling Indonesia!

Saya mendadak iri luar biasa. Sudah lama saya dan Benny tidak pergi berlibur. Jadwal pekerjaan dia yang tidak pernah berkurang hari ke hari, skala prioritas sekolah saya, dan banyak hal membuat kami tidak sempat lagi sesantai dulu bisa kabur akhir pekan untuk berlibur.

Di awal studi saya di Belanda, sempat ada wacana untuk Benny mengunjungi saya selama libur musim panas dan kami bisa memulai lagi kesukaan jalan-jalan kami. Bahkan saya sangat bersemangat untuk datang ke salah satu konser Bon Jovi, band favorit kami! Tapi rencana berubah ketika dia memutuskan berhenti dari tempat kerja yang lama setelah Padang post-earthquake mission berakhir. Dia memilih mencari institusi baru setelah beberapa lama bergabung di jaringan pembangunan pasca bencana. Di tempat kerja baru tipikal pekerjaannya sedikit sulit untuk ditinggal cukup lama sampai dua bulan, lagipula beberapa bulan pertama ini semacam masa percobaan sebelum bisa mendapatkan kontrak yang lebih panjang. Rencana keliling eropa di musim panas pun perlahan kami lupakan. Saya memutuskan mulai mencari kemungkinan magang dan dia pun kembali dengan rutinitas pekerjaannya. Sampai kemudian hari ini saya mendengar rencana teman berkeliling Indonesia dan membuat saya sangat merindukan traveling.

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During coffee this morning, a friend of mine brought a surprising summer holiday plan. She's gonna go to Indonesia and take a stroll in lots of cities there during the whole two months. What a plan! am sooo envy.

It's been a while I didn't go for traveling with Benny. His busy works that never been being less time to time, my priority for school, and all of the sudden that lock us in our daily routine. We didn't go for holiday any more, neither did weekend escape.

At the early stage of my study in Holland, Benny intended to come visit during summer holiday and go for backpacking within Europe. I even very much excited to come to one of Bon Jovi's concerts in Europe with Benny! But then Benny resigned from his job after Padang recovery network was finished. He got another job in different institution after spending quite a while in humanitarian affairs. His new position is quite demanding and looks impossible to leave more than a month. Moreover, this first few months is also sort of probation phase for him before getting the long-term contract. So, our exciting backpacking plan within Europe is gone by the time. I start to find summer internship opportunities and he focus on his work. Until today and I heard friend's exciting plan for summer holiday, I start to very much miss traveling.

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Sikuai islands (pics are courtesy of Benny)