Study, study, study

It's been a week consumed with study and we have now completed a quarter of our 40 intensive lessons in Bahasa Indonesia. Can't say it's easy, although on Friday something seemed to click and the time flew faster than it had done. Reading and writing are a bit easier than speaking of course as there is time to flip through vocabulary lists and consider word order. But we have been practising our halting baby talk with everyone we meet and they are remarkably tolerant. The staff here have been very encouraging to the extent that we ordered breakfast yesterday entirely in BI. Eddie got exactly what he wanted, me nearly so. I slipped up on the eggs, but they were fine. Just not cooked the way I thought I had asked for so now I know. We've hit the weekend, but no letup. Homework and a couple of children's books to read, which fortunately are in three languages - English Basa Bali and BI. I doubt that we will ever be fluent, but we should get by. We are probably the oldest students that Cinta has had. It'll do for an excuse, anyway.

You know that you are fitting in when you run into people you know at the supermarket. It's happened a few times now and usually ends with an invitation to go somewhere else where you can meet even more people. We have found nothing cliquey about the expat community - warm welcomes everywhere. But it does mean more goodbyes than in the real world that is home. People are always jetting off somewhere else, but they do return. Last night we said a temporary goodbye to a woman who lives within cooee of our friends Jim and Khara in Colorado; we  have seen people off to New Mexico, Switzerland and Spain. All will return but maybe not while we are still here. We have learned about airlines that don't normally cross our minds. Who knew that Korean Air is so good - well, lots of people, just not us, as it's the airline of choice for many North Americans.

And the fun Friday nights continue. Flyday quiz night is now a calendar fixture. It's competitive, but funny, very good natured and the others on our team are great company. Tonight it's off to another quiz night at Alison's (our BI classmate) lovely cafe, Mingles. She has been convincing us all week of the merits of the espresso martini - alcohol and coffee in one hit. I'm there.