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.

Bar Luna

Bit of a literary hub, Bar Luna. Situated in Jl Goutama, it's the de facto Festival club during UWRF week, with book launches, drinks, talks and just conversation with other attendees. But each Thursday night (and other nights too we discovered) they hold a literary event. The bar is one of the enterprises of Australian expat, long-term Ubud resident, and honorary Balinese, Janet DeNeefe. Janet's name and Ubud are synonymous and she has been inspirational for many young Balinese women in showing them just what is possible. She founded UWRF in 2004 as a positive response to the terrible Bali bombings that took so many lives, Western and Balinese, and which all but destroyed the tourist industry. UWRF is now considered to be one of the best literary festivals in the world.

Last night was the first of a series of talks previewing writers who will attending the 10th anniversary festival this year. Called Festival 4Play, four writers and their work are profiled. Not everyone who is invited to Ubud is a household name. That's part of the charm, discovering wonderful new talent, especially from SE Asia.

So last night we heard about:

• Ian Burnet and his beautiful book Spice Islands, a historical account of the trade that changed the world.
• Carina Hoang's Boat People: personal stories from the Vietnamese exodus 1975-1999. We were fortunate to have M. Bundhowi present. His photographs from the period is one in the book and he now travels the world as a  peace photographer, having long since discarded his boyhood wish to be a 'war' photographer. He told his story with grace and charm.
• Pat Grant, a young cartoonist (his description) whose graphic novel Blue is causing a bit of a sensation.
  
  So far, one Javanese and three Australians, but finally
• Danny Morrison from Ireland. Two very different titles - Then the Walls Came Down, a series of (one-sided) letters to his partner from his time in prison during the troubles and Rudi: in the shadow of Knulp, which the reviewer described as the best piece of fiction by a living writer he had read in the past ten years. Quite a wrap. Having recently been in Ireland, these were of particular interest and have been added to the TBR pile.

But wait, there's more. Becky Wicks is back in town and on Tuesday night she'll be talking about her latest adventures as recounted in Latinalicious while another four books and their authors get the treatment on Thursday. Somehow I have got in on the act, so I hope I can do Lionel Shriver justice.

So much to do and, fortunately, plenty of time to do it in.