Polish feels easy

Greetings, Earthlings,

Just over two months down here now, and still no formal language classes being offered up here on 'the ridge', yet. So I've been piecing together my own studies from several language books, many passed on to me from my dad when he had worked in Jakarta several years ago with Lucent, and from a 'Learning Indonesian' podcast. And learning a bit here and there from our pembantu, the drivers and one or two other expats who know a decent amount of Indonesian.

Now, Polish is considered by the CIA to be in the top ten of the most difficult languages for a native English speaking person to master. The sounds are difficult for us to make, with their three different z's and multiple a's, e's, c's, strange dipthongs, etc. Fortunately, at least the intonation was similar to ours, with questions rising at the end, etc.. After four years of living in Polska I had a decent 'tourist/resident' vocabulary. I could understand a good amount and could communicate my needs in town, while traveling, in a store and in a bar or restaurant. I could listen to some guy's (sad and/or funny) story in a bar but I couldn't fully talk back (gesturing is key!). So, I was fully at the level of what couchsurfing.com would consider 'Intermediate."

Here, however, the language is officially known as 'Bahasa Indonesia,' which translates to 'the language of Indonesia.' There really is no one language, there's over 300. The bahasa Indonesia (BH) is a generic trade language created over the centuries and fine tuned by the Dutch a 100+ years ago and re-taught officially in the schools. You don't say, 'I speak English'. You say, "I can speak the language of/from England'.

Before coming here, everyone I knew whom had lived here a few years kept saying how easy the language is here to learn, but I'm not finding that so. Yes, there are, supposedly, no tenses, the alphabet is mostly the same as ours (though the pronunciation of individual letters is closer to Polish than English, i.e. the letter 'a' sounds like 'ah', 'i' sounds like English 'e', so at least the Indonesians can pronounce Iza's name correctly ;-) But what is really tripping me up so much, so far, is the damned syllables!

Example:
If you want to say in Polish, "I don't speak Polish." it translates to, "Nie, mowie po Polsku."
The English syllable count for the phrase is: 5 (with the contraction on don't).
The Polish count is: 7 (almost 6 if you keep 'nie' down to one stretched out syllable and combine the i and e in mowie (pronounced move-e-yeah/n).

Now, the same simple phrase in bahasa Indonesia is this mouthful:
"Saya tidak bisa bicara bahasa Indonesia." (!)
Phonetically we can Anglosize that to: SIGH-uh TEE-dock BEE-suh bee-CHAR-uh buh-HAAS-suh een-doh-NEEs-yah

This syllable count amounts to: 16 syllables!
Yikes! So that is more than double the count of Enlish or Polish. So, as you can see, it takes a non-native speaker a long, long time to utter such a simple, necessary phrase.

The fact that I can now say such a phrase to the locals, though, makes them smile and say, 'Yes, you can speak bahasa Indonesia! And, very well!'

;-)

We never really learn languages until we have to use them. I 'learned' French so long ago in high school, and never had to really use it until the summer we climbed Mont Blanc (see way, way below, 2004 or 5?), and the French hated my French, anyway. They would have none of it, except for 'Merci' and 'Au revoir' when I was leaving their presence.

Now that I'm having to shift gears to a completely new language, my brain automatically processes its trained and engrained Polish before bahasa Indonesian. Even today, after more than two months in our new country, in a two minute conversation-out of my mouth came, "Dzien dobry panu. Tak. Dzieki. Nie, and almost the Polish mouthful, "Przepraszam"!
I recovered partially, and I should have been saying, "Selamat pagi, pak. Ya. Terima kasih. Tidak." And I did say, "Maaf" (MA-aaf), correctly, after all my slip ups.

Thankfully the Indonesians are very forgiving,
and always smiling.


So back to the BI books I go...



Fall break is coming up quickly... we're going to Bali, so stay tuned!

First Impressions

Selamat siang orang orang!

It's been over a month, almost two, since we've been here... thought I'd get some shots of our new home up here for you all. Enjoy!

Iza 'n mum,
perfecting the frog stroke

an atmospheric and archtiectural tribute to Polska!
dziekuje bardzo polski paniom i panom!

our new flat. ain't it gorgeous! ;-)
(we've already yanked the curtains and hope to do something with these old 'n ugly chairs and couch)
We're on the third floor, in a two bedroom, two bath flat, with one long balcony off this room and our main bedroom. We have views of a variety of tropical and pine trees, and one flaming smoke stack/chimney from the refinery out west, though thankfully barely visible. It's quite private as the other adjacent apartments face out a different way. We're slowly adding plants and balcony furniture to make it all more comfy. So far Iza hasn't thrown anything off or tried climbing the railing... but she will, I'm sure.

Iza's been a great help in moving in and tidying up the place
like the paisley buttoned headboard?
that's on the way out, too!


breakin' the law! We've been child carseat-less since it's in our shipment... but Iza doesn't seem to mind!

Tugu 3 tangan (The 3 fists monument)
No idea what this represents, yet, but it's a 3-road intersection marker not too far from our home. It's where we often meet for our weekday mountain bike rides.
The white and blue vans you see here are the local public transit buses. They come in blue/white and orange/white, denoting route type. The blue ones are much more prevalent, and there are no official bus stops anywhere in town. There are usually two workers in the van; the driver and his assistant who helps control traffic or leans out looking for needy passengers, whom could be anywhere on the street, and, perhaps, helps people if they have large loads. You just give them a palm-facing down wave of the hand and they'll pull over for you, no matter what the traffic is like around them/you. It's considered rude to wave palm open or to yell or whistle at them (or anyone in Indonesia), or to point, too. Or to talk with arms crossed, or point your feet at someone, or to put your hands on your hips... it's not easy for gregarious Americans and Europeans to adapt to all these rules of behavior!


Balikpapan Beru (New Balikpapan)
This place is crazy. A cross between Disney World, Venice, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence and even some Russian influence. Very pastelly. This area has an even more interesting array of monuments and fountains that put the fists to shame, including a massive monkey traffic circle, with a hundred monkeys playing instruments and doing all sorts of things. It all looks new but the paint and concrete is already cracking and falling apart. One of the newer malls is here where we need to shop at occasionally, and there's a fun indoor kids playground/ball room which Iza digs.


Iza got blocks, she's a good tower builder
(and destroyer)


our first visitor


sometimes a good brusher,
always a cutie


the main pasar/market
nice melons, eh?
this place is jammed full of stalls selling all foods imaginable. There's a fresh seafood market nearby, which is a bit pungent. I got splattered with fish guts last time through it.


Sadly, nearly everything here is imported. the soil in Borneo is more clay than dirt so it's not so fertile or easy to till. At least we're on the water so it's easy to ship things here. There are loads of chilies, green beans, kangkung (something similar to water spinach) and other veggies that come from nearby regions to be had for cheap.


banana anyone?
of course, there are tons of local banana varieties (pisang), mangos (mangga), papaya (papaya!) and pineapple (nanas, like 'ananas' in Polish!)
This is one of my favorite vendors in the market. He's always happy and always agrees to my relatively lower bidding price of around 80 US cents for a massive bunch of ripe or almost ripe bananas (2+kgs worth)
He often throws in a few extra baby 'banan-itas' for Iza cuz he likes her so much


there is a wide variety of ants in and around our apartment, from these big red ants which bite you to micro super speedy ones that have an also micro speedy spider cousin. June bugs, or something similar (flying beetle bugs) are everywhere.
This will be quite the meal for these workaholics


our little star is really beginning to like her sunglasses and going to the pool


our next guest

it's got a goatee like me!


she's a whole new woman in these shades. Not sure if it's the Pooh and Piglet influence or what?


Selamat tidur!

down under update #1

Howdy everyone,
So, we've survived 3 (or 4?) weeks here now in Indonesia. If you've tried to check for updates, you'll see there's been very few since my original post below, just short additions to it until the next interruption... usually from Iza.

We are still slowly getting settled and adjusting to our new home. Like last country, I'm already picking up more of the language than Jill, and getting out of the house more to see the town and figure out where a lot of things are (and aren't). There's been a variety of school and 'ridge' events where we've met a number of people, most with much more global-wide work/live experience than us. Fortunately, we met Laura and Martin, who are both avid mountain climbers and fit as fiddles. Martin has a killer running loop through town that I hope to work up to someday and join him. Not sure if he's running with a pack or not. His goal is to climb every equatorial snowy peak before there aren't any. He better hurry.

I've done a few more of the group mountain bike rides. They can be very demanding on the body and the bike. Last Saturday morning, I was lying in bed listening to the heavy, heavy, incessant rain coming down. I thought it would be wise to skip the day's 'group ride' at 4 PM, which is always a bit out in the 'country' and just do the more urban 'pre-ride' on the concrete/asphalt. Well, the skies cleared later in the day and a lot of people on the ridge were gearing up for the ride, many of whom hadn't done the group ride ever or in a long while. Well, I thought, might as well join them and get to know all of them a bit better, too.

Well, I think I learned more about which people like which swear words the most, and which people had bikes in better condition than not (mine, sadly, was the latter).
The trail was never really technical, compared to previous rides. Well, "trail" is an understatement. We're riding on whatever surface we come across, including various heights of grass, broken brick, potholes, "fire" roads, etc. But this ride was beyond muddy. The soil here is held more together by clay than mud. Mud can slide off tires if you bunny hop the bike or go through a creek. Clay cannot. Clay lodges to sizes larger than coconuts on your tires and jams into your brakeset and frame and locks your wheel into place. Solidly. So solidly that you can't even roll it backwards to pop it out the other side. Sticks don't even help. You have to claw tooth and nail with these quick setting balls of concrete. It's nasty. And it's frustrating and it gets old fast. By the end of the ride we'd lost one guy's rear deraileur (literally) and my new headset was already shot. I was the only one with classic brakes, so my bike clogged more than everyone else's. I was wishing I'd taken Jill's new bike out instead of my old beast.
By the end of the ride, a good hour past sunset, everyone was so muddy and exhausted that no one mentioned going out for beers anywhere. Home to clean up and sleep was priority.
So, that was fun. And now after cleaning my bike I have a broken rear shift lever, too.

This was basically a 'one-bike ride.'

But I'll still go tomorrow!

Jill is getting in the groove with her small/tiny classes. Her largest now is 7 students! She's teaching drama this year and is liking the change to plain 'ol math for so many years. Her director is very different from past ones. He visits every teacher's class every day, sometimes several times a day. He's not hawking, he's just very curious to see what everyone's learning, seeing how all the kids are doing/behaving and to learn a bit about the world himself. Knowing how busy directors and principals always are, this is an impressive feat.
I got my app in last week. Hope to become an official sub, if not more, at the school. It'll be good for me to get more experience with little kids as I may prefer teaching them in the long run than the older kids.

Jill already had her first field trip, to some crazy named place that I can't pronounce, nonetheless spell. Hudoguorbornisti, or something like that. It was a middle school team building/getting to know ya kind of thing, with tree canopy walks, team trust areas, etc. It was rather spartan, compared to US/Euro ones, but still fun and did the job.

On Monday, Ramadan began. Indonesia is around 80% Muslim, and it seems possibly more than that here in town. The sun and moon council in Saudi Arabia, I think, are the ones whom decide exactly when it begins and ends every year. This time it happened to be September 1, so that's nice and easy to plan for.

Now, I was a bit naive about it all so here's what I've learned:

It is a one month, daytime only, fasting period. From sunrise/first light to sunset/last light no food or water can be consumed by all practicing adults and children, from a certain age on up (8?, 10? 12?). (Pregnant women don't fast, either) So, before and after those periods there's a whole lot of festive gorging going on, and always with family and/or close friends. So it is a very serious celebration and highly affects productivity over the month (which gets worse and worse as the month drags on).
Shops charge more for food items, and maybe for everything, as everyone needs/wants a bit more money to help them through the period, and to get gifts for all the children in the family (think a mega Xmas holiday). I went shopping today to the main vegetable/fish market and most seemed to charge me the same as usual... so not sure if it's cuz they know I'm not Muslim, or cuz I'm a frequent customer now, or maybe that they've already been charging me more than everyone else the whole time! ;-)

I went today with Iza and Bertha (BEAR-ta), our "pembantu". Pembantu is Indonesian for maid, or similar. Everyone here has one, and it is taking us some time to get used to it. Some people have live-in ones, some don't. Every house and apartment here (and all over Indonesia) that are first world-ish have these built-in units for these helpers. George, in Warsaw, was previously working in Jakarta and told us we'd have one and love it (eventually). Well, we didn't love our first one. She was on her 'trial one month period' and, in a nut shell, we were rushed into choosing her shortly off of the plane and she wasn't the right choice for our family. She was live-in, but we don't want that, as it's too odd for us to have someone around the apartment, period, and at early or late hours in the evening. She wasn't a great fit with Iza, too. We interviewed another gal on Wednesday, and in that short time Iza interacted with her more positively than with Bertha. Plus, Agustina, whom will now start on Monday with us, had a stack of very positive recommendation letters stretching back 20-some years. She, like Bertha, is a mother of one and a Christian. Odd odds in this region. At least we won't have to give either one a bonus for Ramadan, which is the norm here, even if they just started working for you. But an xmas one will be expected.
Ah, the things we learn.

So let's all cross our fingers that #2 is a keeper.

Yesterday I took the bold move of playing cards with some seasoned expat women on the ridge. I was the first man ever invited to play with them during their daytime ritual, and a brand new game to me. They whooped it up about Sarah Palin, 2.5+ karat diamonds, and the RNC. For that I whooped their butts with beginner's luck and will likely not get invited back ;-)

Iza had a new 'first' Thursday night, too. She said, "Iza"! She says it with a kind of fuzzy z sound, more like a Polish 'rz' sound... which is fitting, eh? Very cute and we got it on film. Our connection here is horrendously slow, so not sure if any video will be added to the blog anytime soon. Sorry :(

On Monday, Iza and I took an even bolder move and went to our first ever Baby Group/Mums and Tots meeting! We were members back in Warsaw but never made any of the weekly baby group meetings or outings, just too busy, I guess? But here everyone was urging me to go, and I think the crowd was rather excited to have a dad there! A nice French woman from Total was the host (rotates weekly) and I drove over there with another baby, Avae, and her pembantu, Etty. It was a fun, but odd event. The babies are definitely too young to really interact with each other, especially when about half were wall flowers, including Iza. She clung to me like a baby koala, she was so unsure about the whole thing. There were about 15 kids there, from 3 months to early 3. It was a nice mix of nationalities with Indonesians, Dutch, French, Columbian, British, Scottish and I may have been the only American. The host learned I came from Poland and was very excited. I spoke a bit of Polish with her and hers was rusty, so we didn't get far. I'll hopefully hear more later why she was there and for how long, etc. And if maybe there are some Poles lurking about in Balikpapan. It'd be fun to continue some of the Polish language and culture, for me and Iza.

All the moms were wives of guys who work for Chevron, Slumberjer (offshore oil), Theiss (mining), Total (French oil), Pertamina (Indo oil) and one or two other companies I didn't recognize. I know Haliburton has a presence here, but don't know any details yet. Fun company, eh? But they were all lovely and the kids played a bit more by the end and Iza got to meet her first French bully. I never got his name but his mom said it was time for them to go. As he headed towards the door, Iza had her back to him and he gave her a massive shove and she toppled over little Avae (just turned 1 last week!). Avae was a bit stunned but Iza balled. If she was a bit older I would've been very tempted to tell her to knock him on his ass. The boy got a good scolding from mum and Iza survived, of course.

So if you have some free time and want to know a bit about the culture of Indonesia, I've been reading a great book called Indonesia OK!!, by Chris Soebroto (Galang Press). He has done an excellent job of explaining all the funny nuances of his culture to foreigners coming to visit here, for any length of time, as there will always be some form of culture shock to deal with.

Yikes, it is absolutely pouring out right now (Friday night, 22:00/10 PM) and the lightning has begun. We've had a decent amount of rain this past week, but nothing as hard as this, and no lighting for about 2 weeks. Lighting is bad. Our buildings aren't grounded, so that means I must sign off. I was really working on editing our gazillion photos today while Iza slept so I could finally post some for you all... but not tonight.

Have a good weekend, and happy-belated birthday to my brother-in-law, Jim

Selamat datang!

(Sept. 7 and 10, update-new pics added below!)


Greetings everyone around this large globe!

I will not apologize for the lack of posting over the last several months. Our lives have been so chaotic making the transition from Warsaw, Poland to Balikpapan, Indonesia, with a two month's stay in the good old USA to see family and friends.

I'll try my best to get the world updated on our happenings from Europa to Indoland...

1) First off, a huge thank you and farewell to Polska and all the wonderful people there. Packing up for the shipments and flights, selling the car and dealing with our lovely landlord really consumed us and distracted us so much that we barely recognized that we were leaving this land and it's great temporary and fulltime occupants for good. Many of the farewells caught us off guard and we don't feel many people got their due in the time/respect/love department. You know whom you all are and we surely hope to cross paths with you again on one side of the equator or the other. Hopefully sooner than later. Huge thanks to everyone who made our farewell gathering during our last night in Warsaw, to Angie, Michelle and Larry for their amazing last minute "movin' out" support, and, lastly, to Martin for his heartfelt send-off and assistance at the airport.
We miss all of you.

Here's Iza learning some football/soccer moves
in our backyard in Warsaw, circa May, 2008

And Iza holding her own (bottle), a big step back in the Spring, thus giving dad a little more mobility around the kitchen!

2) Illinois family visit-

Iza and Maddie... 2 little monkeys jumpin' on the bed!

Oh, boy. We always help stir things up one way or another during our home visits... this one was no less exciting! We put the pressure on ourselves by setting a 'move out' date to Borneo in less than 2 weeks of our arrival in the states, thus giving us minimal time to get any new stuff needed and having even less time to spend with my family. My sis' had surgery, my dad had a fun visit to the ER and then my mom did the same after some acrobatics down the steps! We did, at least, make a fun visit to Cosley Farm, a petting zoo of sorts which Izabella loved, as did her cousing Maddy. Oh, in our shopping frenzy, we set a new record by spending more than half a grand at Trader Joe's??!?!?!?! How's that possible? It's called 'bulking up' on lots of wine that will be expensive and hard to come by in Indonesia. And we've already seen a few of the same brands here, averaging at least $10 more than in the US. Let's all keep our fingers crossed (or thumbs held in Polska) that our shipment makes it through customs OK! We're approaching Ramahdan so the guards get more serious about their inspections during this period!).

By the time we left Illinois everyone was in better health and the stairway and upstairs hallway had finally been stripped of some very old and beat up 70s wallpaper. Sorry we didn't have time to put down some new paint mom and dad!

2) Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michigan family visit
Jill's fam is much larger and spread out than mine, so we began the tic tac toeing of the upper Midwestern states to connect and reunite everyone with us and the ever-growing/changing Iza.
We made it to Jill's sis', Jackie's in Minneapolis, in time for the 4th events, some sweltering bike rides and runs and a cool, old school baseball game. One new 'first' for Izabella was her first haircut! Develan, Jill's bro, gave her a stylin' do that made Iza look about 50 years older, and much more sophisticated. Just like that, our baby was no longer, but it at least got rid of her pseudo-mullet! Thanks, Develan! Oh, I'll hopefully get footage of the cut and Iza's aunt trying to entertain her all the while on this site or youtube... prepare for laughs!
Oh, I finally got to see some of this year's le drugish freeish Tour de France. That was fun and addicting, but sadly we never had reliable footage after this visit. Congrats to Carlos Sastre, btw! You can ask Jill, he was my pick back in early July :)
We did get in several games of badminton and a few of Iza's cousins got to go 'camping' for their first time in our mega Quecha family tent in the backyard. Kudos to everyone surviving the night and grandpa Jerry's bear moans!

Next destination was the Wisconsin Dells, a unique geologic region in south central Wisconsin that has several sandstone glacier carved rivers and lakes... and some horrendous touristy stuff built about and in the vicinity, too. We got to go on the most vicious rollercoaster I've ever been on, called Hades, and surf a mega wave at Poseidon's wave pool, plus Iza got to play on some cool water slides and kiddy pools... until she had a massive blow out that she'd been holding onto for 2 days or so. Yuck! (Thank goodness for baby 'swimmies'!). In the Dells we got to see Jill's mom, her bro some more and for our birthdays we had a large family reunion where I got to meet even more of the clan (only about 20 or so left to be met!).

Wisconsin, like Cedar Rapids, had some massive storms this summer. The night we got to the Dells it thundered and poured and lightning struck in our RV campground for 16 hours straight! It was frightening, but, as usual, Iza was a trooper and never too scared. Once free from the storm, the mosquitoes were horrible... Iza doesn't seem to mind their bites, but she did learn how to swat or clap them to death, which was very amusing. She was always put on 'kill the lone mosquito flying inside the car' duty the rest of the buggy summer.

Next up was a visit to Jill's dad up in Menominee, Michigan, just across the border in the upper peninsula. As has been typical, we had lame weather for sailing on his 27 footer, but we did get out for day sails and I refreshed my meager skills he taught me last summer. By the third day I'd gotten a good handle on it all and he even complimented me and said I'd be giving up climbing in no time! :) The town of Menominee is a good place to call home. It has a burgeoning Main street with some gorgeous turn of the century wharf town buildings, heavy on stone and brick and water views. We did find a Thai restaurant which was about as good as you'd expect this far from Bangkok and on a fresh water lake.
Oh, and yes, I'll admit it here. We played Scrabble and I lost. It was one of the ugliest boards I'd ever seen. A perfect staircase diagonaling from bottom left to upper right, with no possibilities of expanding above and to the left... we were hunting for two letter word spots before the game was halfway through. Congrats, Jill!

2.5) TIM AND AURELIA'S WEDDING!
Back in the car and racing across the state... we drove through another massive storm and picked up Iza from Judy's in the Dells (Iza's most nights away from us (3!)) and raced to and through the beautiful countryside of Spring Green, Wisconsin, just in time for the rehearsal dinner being held at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesan studio/visitor center. It was wonderful to see Tim and Aurelia again, two great friends from Seattle, and my previous roommate (Tim), and to meet their many friends and family and to see Tim's dad and bros again. Aurelia's dad had a double feature of slides of his daughter and Tim's gradual entrance into her unique life growing up in this part of the state.

Their wedding was wonderful. It rained lightly in the early morning, making everyone nervous, as the region had been suffering from some damaging flooding in the last few weeks, but it held off for the gorgeous ceremony. The wedding was held at a field near 'Global View', an art/sculpture importer of goods from Tibet, Nepal, China, Thailand, Malaysia, and, yep, you guessed it, Indonesia. We wandered the four stories of Buddha heads and statues, dancers, masks, cats, elephants, etc. and only drooled at the thought of what we'll be coming across on our own adventures once in this part of the world.
Aurelia grew up in this area and close family friends were all there, all circled around the front of a massive, old tree, which framed the festivities, which included music on guitar, flute and some singing by all. Tim 'n Aureliy, I made lots of video and photos of your special day and will get you a CD/DVD in the mail before xmas! They both looked great and Aurelia wore her own handmade/designed dress. Pics later, too!

The following day, A's dad gave us a great tour of Taliesan (East). Living in Arizona earlier, I got to see Wright's Taliesan West back in '94 with my family. It was nice to see how Frank worked his northern home and studio into the very different terrain and color schemes of Wisconsin.

We bid farewell to the wedding party from a nice state park/lake and dealt with a massively unhappy baby in the car en route to Milwaukee.

3) Seattle visit (Jeremy only)
Earlier in the spring, my best friend, Kris, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. Because our summer was already shortened by having to change posts around the world, we originally had no intention of spending time in Seattle or anywhere besides the Midwest. However, with Kris' diagnosis, I made plans to come out for a visit. Using my Alaska air miles, I was automatically getting routed through Seattle, their main hub... so why not spend a little time and catch up with some folk?
Erden Eruc, the great Turkish human-powered adventurer (www.around-n-over.org), had returned from his nearly complete cross-Pacific row a few weeks earlier and picked me up at SEATAC and whisked me off to Vertical World to pick up his wife, Nancy, another super human being. We ate some tasty Mexican that night in Ballard and I got to see their new home near Greenlake. Erden steeped me deeply into his upcoming leg of part 2 of the Pacific row, trying to boomerang from the Philippines east back to the east coast of Australia through some scary ribbon corral reefs, all of which could do heavy damage to his little rowboat. He hopes to set off in December, after the current typhoon season takes a rest (our friends, the Schwartzkis, are getting hit right now in Hong Kong... hopefully all will be OK for them!)
Next day was pretty crazy- a quick visit with Patty, whom married us, then a lovely visit to our sardined storage locker on Cap Hill to get Jill's dive gear for Indo, moved into Kim and Erik's, raced downtown for a fun and yummy lunch with Kris Cummings (our 1st visitor to Borneo?!), stopped by to say 'hello' to the good folks at The North Face, had a tasty, non-Hairy Armpit Girl Cookie (Macarena's instead, but still good), then met Erik and got to see his cool shared studio office off Western... then had a very fun Mango gathering at the newly remodeled, and expensive, Virginia Inn. $5.50 or more for a pint. We're not in Polska anymore, Iza! While there I finally got to meet little, beautiful Sophia, Scott and Susana's baby. She was great and very responsive for a few months old. Enough beers warranted a Dick's visit for Erik so I had a celebratory shake and fries, too.
Next and last day was more storage rummaging, a good phone call with Sue Long and a tasty Thai lunch with Erden before we headed back to the airport. Definitely too short of a trip in Sea-town!

4. San Francisco visit
A short flight south and I was landing at SFO, the first time I'd ever flown into the Bay area... very different from driving. I took the BART north and Kris and Jess, his girlfriend, met me downtown somewhere and we headed off to a very tasty Mexican joint for some take away.

(more later)

some pics for you all... finally!


Iza, though under 2 years of age, got her own seat reserved for the mega flights from Chicago O'Hare to Hong Kong, then Singapore, then Balikpapan. Most of the airline attendants were a bit confused... and Iza wasn't quite brave enough to take off and land in her own seat just yet. Here she is with her new stuffed English Bulldog,
"Wilbur",
a fine send-off gift from her cousin, Maddie.


We had a bit of down time in Singapore while waiting for our visas. Jill got all done up in a mega mall just around the block from our hotel. Everything here is in Singaporean Dollars, valued roughly $1 US = $1.25 SD, and there weren't any great deals to be had, at least in the limited areas we traveled.


We made a visit to the Botanical Gardens of Singapore. A real treat, though we could've done without the heat. This is Happy Iza before she turned into Melting Iza


Iza's first Singaporean friend


Trying to get an idea of what kind of trees we'll be living amongst in our new home. the 'roots' on these natural wonders were very cathedral-like, with their own kind of 'flying buttress' design bringing up water from the soil yet has less bark surface area so it can't become too moist/water-logged through its skin. No clue what the top of these giants looks like!


anyone know what this is?


this tree needs a closer look. The biological name had the word 'sperm' in the middle of it, and if you enlarge the image, no pun intended, you'll see why


The BG also had a gorgeous orchid section. Iza was loving the bold colors yet seemed a bit disappointed that they didn't smell at all.


we found an alien life form, too


one of our faves


these flowers, and a few of their cousins, are very abundant here in our part of Borneo, too. Not sure what they're called yet... no one here seems to know...


(front view)

(side view)
these, too, are here in Balikpapan up on our ridge. Don't know the name yet but they are quite large, hanging over a foot or two down (half meter), and yes, they are that bright red in color!






these 'pods' were in the 'rain room', like what follows. No sign nearby so I have no idea what they are or what they may turn into. Lovely, though.

and...

finally, for our last amazing species seen at the Singapore Botanical Gardens...

The Amazing Pitcher Plant

These cool things (genus Nepenthes) are also on Borneo. It's a bit like a Venus Fly Trap in that insects are attracted to the tasty nectar inside, fall into the liquid at the bottom, drown and decompose for more nutrients for the plant.

According to Wild Borneo (2006, MIT Press), "Although true pitcher plants are widely distributed through South-East Asia and some outlying localities as far west as Madagascar and east to New Caledonia, few would deny that Borneo boasts a diversity of species more spectacular than anywhere else. They are a conspicuous and integral part of the island's flora that have become synonymous with it." The inner walls are also very slick, in case the insect is a good swimmer, it usually can't climb the inner walls, too... and if they can, they have a wicked overhanging lip, rated at 5.14c-x (death is imminent).
No recorded ascent (escape) has been made to date.

What's even cooler is that what you're looking at is actually 2 'leaves' of the plant. Some are terrestrial, some aerial, thus catching different types of insects.
We're looking forward to seeing more of these things, and the mighty Rafflesia, a flower which blooms to a size of one meter/yard across!!!

Congrats to the ladies of ASW!

On Saturday several women, including Jill, took part in the Linz, Austria sprint distance triathlon. It was everyone's first tri except for one woman. They trained all Spring, borrowed and bought wet suits and rented big clunker bicycles (of which the tri-staff laughed at during check in!!!). It was an open water swim in a mostly men's field of 500 people... and this video should give you an idea of the brutality they suffered through just to get 50 meters into the water!

Jill finished the .75 KM swim, the 25 KM bike and the 5 KM run in 2 hours even! Weather was perfect, around 75 F and sunny.

Huge congrats to mom's first triathlon, and first major physical (and mental) challenge since giving birth to Iza 16 months ago!

(One of younger gals asked Jill if the race was harder than giving birth, "Um, hell no!" was Jill's response ;-)

Congrats again, ladies!

Update!
Here's Jill's info:
Rank - 339th
Country - USA
Class - Women's 40 (??? Not quite yet!)
Class Rank - 12th
Times:
.75 KM Swim - 23:41 Rank 350
Transition #1 - 5:01
25 KM Bike - 1:01:30 Rank 345
Transition #2 - 1:02
5 KM Run total- 28:48 Rank 316
Run 0 to 2.5 KM - 14:16
Run 2.5 KM to 5 KM - 14:31

GRAND TOTAL TIME - 2:00:04

Average speed 14.87 KMs/Hour
Average minutes per kilometer - 4:02

As dad and daughter were, sadly, not there to cheer mom on, we hope to get pics and videos from others from Warsaw and add them soon.

WAY TO GO, JILL!

The next tri will be in Borneo!

BIG SIGH!

PHEW!!!

Today, just after 4 PM local time, the AGS moving crew sealed up the last of our 33 boxes that are being shipped to Chicago.

This has been an epic endeavor in itself. As soon as we signed the contract with our new post on Borneo our minds started focusing ever more and more on the things to sort, sell, recycle, donate, shred, burn, abandon, and most importantly, to ship.

My years of stuffing a daypack or an expedition sized pack to the gills, making use of every square inch really came in handy in the last 48 hours as I downsized, compressed, squashed, stood on, removed the air from and stripped things down to a relative 'bare minimum'.

We had 5 companies come to our house for shipping cost and size estimates. The original ones were between 8 and 10 cubic meters (282 to 353 cubic feet!). The cost estimates were high and we needed to reduce the amout, and it was a great excuse to get rid of some things, too. So we purged tons, had a successful yard sale (unknown event in Polska) and got new estimates between 3 and 4 cubic meters-we'd more than halved it!

Well, today 2 guys came in and packed all of Jill's Boleslawiec pottery away, all 105 pieces of it. They packed everything so efficiently that we had room to spare so we added Jill's road bike and our baby jogger and Iza's piggy back backpack, among other odds and ends. We got all this in to one LCL crate, which is roughly a 5 foot by 7 foot by 8 foot crate. And we'll see it all, hopefully, in Chicago just 2 days after our arrival to O'Hare.

It was a gorgeous day in Warsaw. And we've had several the past few days, but we've been too focused to really get out an enjoy it (except for one jaunt with Pawel and Jas (featured in a previous post).

After they left with 85% of all of our belongings, we went for a nice, long walk in the late afternoon sunshine. What a great sigh of relief to have this stage of the move behind us.

Our super baby was great through the whole shipping process and entertained everyone.

She has been using sign language very well for the last 2 weeks, in particular. On our walk today she signed, "eat, more, milk, water, tree, flower, moon (she saw it high in the sky before we did!), finished/all done and rain (we got sprinkled on)."

Iza has really been an amazing baby. She's a total sass monster some times, namely during 1 or 2 meals per day, but overall she's a real joy and we can't wait for her to see everyone this summer in the states.

Now that our main chunk of prep-work for our departure is complete, I hope to update this page more frequently and add some older pics, too... unless we're using all this free time to go on longer walks or bike rides in the beautiful Spring weather that's finally found Warsaw.

;-)

Oh, other good news, for the 3rd time in Izabella's life... she 'slept through the night' two nights ago... but not last night :(
(that's 3 out of roughly 460 long, sleepless nights!!!!)

ugh.

wish us luck for tonight!

Dobranoc/Selamat malam!

He beat us to the equator!

Our good friend, Erden Eruc, has been trying to row a small yellow boat from San Francisco to Australia for the last 6+ months. He has been foiled by the equatorial counter currents for the past several months and was kept being pushed westward instead of to the south. Erden and his dedicated not-on-board crew have been juggling his multiple landfall destinations, weather patterns, storm tracking, and re-supply efforts more intensely the past 2 months, as he has been nearing the Philippines and Indonesia... a bit off from his Australia mark!

Well, yesterday evening, with the help of a distant typhoon and a change in currents, Erden finally crossed south of the imaginary equatorial line on our great Earth! Our future school is about 1 degree south of the equator, and though are plans were not to arrive there until the beginning of August, we were all wondering whom would cross the equator first!

So, with huge congratulations to our very weathered, sea faring Captain Eruc, we also wish you the safest of journeys on the other side of the globe and a good landing in Jayapura... or wherever your boat may take you!

http://www.oceanrowing.com/ErdenEruc_Pacific/dist.htm

By the way, he's 2 days away from breaking the solo rower's record of 305 days out at sea!!!!
(gulp!)

Baa!

This was a poor little lamb, separated from its family. This was our first day in Northern Ireland, hiking to the high, basalt sea cliffs on Fair Head... on a gorgeous day. The driving was tracherous, just by the fact that I was on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road and the stick shift layout was backwards, too. It was forecasted to rain every day, and we had sun every single day!