New York, New York

We wanted to make a trip to New York and the Columbus Day weekend made for a good opportunity. The cheapest way to get to NYC is by riding one of the many buses that run from Chinatown in DC to Chinatown in Manhattan. These buses started out several years ago mainly to transport Chinese immigrants between cities on the East Coast, but now everyone uses them and they have pretty good reputations...other than the stories about them being run by the Chinese mob.

We stayed with our friends, Karen and Steve, so that allowed us to spend money on more fun things. We ate at the best Greek restaurant we've ever found, including when I lived in Greece. It's called Pylos and we highly recommend it if you're ever craving Greek food and are in the East Village.

We also did a pizza comparison test between two New York institutions - Lombardi's and Grimaldi's. We'd eaten at Lombardi's on previous trips since it's in Little Italy. Grimaldi's is a little harder to get to since it's under the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, but a friend highly recommended it. Lombardi's is really good, but Grimaldi's wins hands down!

On our last night, we saw Next to Normal and had great seats in the third row. It was a great show with really catchy music that I enjoyed more than the previous musicals we'd seen.

We hadn't planned to see any tourist sites, but we decided to go to the top of Rockefeller Center and the Museum of Modern Art on a whim. We had amazing weather and the views were great. I really enjoyed some of the pre-1940s stuff at the MoMA, but I guess we really just don't get modern art. The newer stuff was just weird.

Oh yeah, and while we were eating a giant sandwich from Carnegie Deli in Rockefeller Plaza, we saw the guy who plays Kenneth from 30 Rock walk right in front of us. Hillary waved to him and he hesitated to try and decide if he knew us...then he smiled and kept walking.

Home Leave

One nice thing about the Foreign Service is that they give you an amount of "Home Leave" in between assignments. We had almost 6 weeks off to spend with family and friends in Texas. It's surprising in a way that the government will allow us this much vacation time, but it is needed after being so far away for two years. (They also want to make sure you get "reacquainted" with the US after living abroad).

On our way back to Texas from Indonesia, we stayed with our friend Ellen for a few nights in San Francisco. We did another wine country trip while we were there, which was absolutely gorgeous after leaving Jakarta's polluted skies. While we only made it to Austin for about a day and a half, we got to see my relatives in Michigan and make a trip to Vegas during our home leave. My aunt and uncle live on a lake near Grand Rapids, and we were able to rent a cottage next door while we were there. It was great to relax, spend time on the lake, and see all of my relatives we hadn't seen in awhile. My sister Brooke had never been to Vegas, so along with our friends Eric and Ashley we showed her a great time in Sin City.

We had a lot of fun being back in Texas and seeing a lot of people, but after a month or so we were ready to get back into a routine. That routine now is full-time Portuguese language training here in DC. We will definitely write more about how our language classes are going, but meanwhile here are some pictures from our home leave.

John and Ellen tasting some vinho

My mom and two of my cousins during fireworks

In Vegas with Eric and Ashley

On our way to Cirque du Soleil's "O"

Writers strike resolved

Our apologies for the lengthy blogging hiatus. We've been back in DC for a little over a month now and have really been enjoying it. The city has a lot more to offer than we remembered. Perhaps because we're comparing it to Jakarta - but Washington really is a great city. Here's a quick example of one thing that makes DC a cool place to live:

We were on the way home from our favorite local Mexican restaurant, Lauriol Plaza, and Hillary asked me to teach her the Portuguese numbers in preparation for starting full-time language training next week. Out of nowhere, a man walking by turned around and corrected her pronunciation of the number seven. He was Brazilian and had actually worked at the U.S. Embassy when it was in Rio de Janeiro. We talked for a few minutes and then went our separate ways. It was a very random encounter, but one that shows how diverse and cool this city is.

More to come about what we've been up to since leaving Jakarta...

Sampai jumpa lagi, Indonesia

Business Week recently did a story on the hardest "Hardship" assignments in the world. They didn't include places in war zones or really awful situations. These were a list of cities where expats regularly live that are challenging. Jakarta came in on their list as second worst, right behind Lagos, Nigeria.

They said that the biggest problems expats face in being assigned to Jakarta were pollution, disease, sanitation and lack of quality healthcare. They also highlighted Indonesia's past acts of terrorism against Western targets. These are all very true concerns, but I'd recommend Jakarta over almost all of the other places on this list.

We've found that Indonesia has so much to offer. It's a beautiful country with really nice people. There are so many natural wonders to see here. Indonesia has the greatest marine diversity of any country on Earth, so we've been really grateful that we're scuba divers. Where else could we have seen orangutans in the wild, Krakatoa erupting and relaxed on beautiful beaches?

Hillary and I are really excited for the future and our next post in Lisbon, but we're also sad to leave here. We couldn't have asked for a better place to spend our first assignment. We had great bosses for most of our time and we worked with a really great Indonesian staff who we'll miss. Sampai jumpa lagi, Indonesia. Until we meet again. You've been a great home.

Things We'll Miss

There are plenty of things we know we'll miss when we leave Indonesia, so we made this list of a few that popped into our heads. We added a few things we won't miss for good measure.

Things we'll miss:

Great coworkers

Our maid

Cheap living

Great travel

Friends

A busy social calendar

Amazing Indian food

Living somewhere so unique

Always warm weather

Scuba diving

Great beaches

Cheap and plentiful taxis

Very affordable massages

Things we won't miss:

Call to prayer at 4:15 a.m.

Crazy traffic

Pollution

Rainy season and flooding

Incomprehensible miscommunication

Constant confusion

Durian

When volcanoes erupt...

Our last trip in Indonesia was one of the coolest we've taken. We heard that the volcano that used to be called Krakatoa was erupting, so we decided it would be a good idea to get as close as possible. So after three hours by car and two by boat, we were standing on the island of Anak Krakatau (Krakatoa's Child).

In 1883, the volcano on the island of Krakatoa erupted with the largest explosion in recorded history, destroying the island with a blast 13,000 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In the 125 years since the eruption, the volcano has steadily increased in size. The island first resurfaced in 1927 and it has been growing 5 inches per week ever since.

So when we heard it was erupting again, we did what all rational people do and went out there to see it. We approached the island from the south, circled around it and pulled up on one of the small beaches furthest from the summit. We then hiked for about 15 minutes up the hillside. We started to see large chunks of volcanic rock that our guide said were from previous eruptions. That's when we decided we'd gone close enough. It erupted a few times while we were on the slopes taking pictures, shooting giant molten rocks into the air and bellowing smoke and sulfuric ash. We ate lunch and then took our boat to another island that was part of the original Krakatoa.
We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and watching the volcano erupt every 20 minutes or so. But once it got dark, it was really cool. When it erupted, we saw glowing red rocks launched hundreds of feet into the air and tumble back down the slopes. It looked like fireworks. It was a restless night, sleeping on hard ground and hearing explosions that sounded like artillery every 20 minutes, but well worth it. Only in Indonesia can you do something like that.

Packing

It's a little daunting to see everything you own packed in boxes and driven away by five Indonesian guys.

Phuket

So, some people said 9 days at a villa in Thailand might be too long. We beg to differ. We'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Cards and margaritasRooftop poolTuk-tukBest pina colada ever!

Rotisserie chicken at the thai restaurant down the hill

Our hogs

Riding in a tuk-tuk

Elephant crossing at the designated location

According to the guidebook, "best pad thai on plan earth" - we agreeFinding Nemo

An octopus from our dive - watch him change colors

One More Villa

Last year a bunch of our friends who started in the Foreign Service with us came to visit us in Indonesia. Some of them spent a few days in Jakarta, but then we all met up in Bali for about 5 days. (This was the same group we met up with in China in the fall of 2007.) We rented a really nice villa which slept 8 of us, and having our own pool and kitchen was really nice. We never did any blog entry about that trip, but here are some pictures.

We wanted to do one last reunion in Southeast Asia before we all head back to DC or onto our next assignments. We all decided Phuket, Thailand would be perfect: it's centrally located to all of us, not an expensive vacation, and has beaches and fun activities.

We leave tomorrow to spend 9 nights in Phuket, and we recruited a couple friends from Jakarta this time. All in all we have 14 people total staying at the villa, although some are coming the first half of the week, and some the second half. We decided - along with another couple - to stay the whole time. We'll truly get to relax as well as scuba dive and see some of the islands off the coast. The place we're staying looks amazing; it is 4 stories and has a rooftop pool! We'll post some pics when we are back.

Indonesian furniture

John and I decided to get some furniture made here before our Indonesian journey came to an end. There were 3 main advantages to getting stuff built here: We knew we'd be getting high-quality furniture made from teak wood; we could play a role in the design process; and the price is much better than comparable items in the US.

I had no idea what teak really was before now: "Teak is a very hard, closely grained wood high in natural oils. All three of these properties help maintain this wood's endurance. If properly made, it will not warp, rot, split or crack and teak withstands the test of time. Teak furniture can be more than 50 years old and still not show signs of aging."

We first decided to get a dining table, 8 dining chairs, and 2 benches made. I fell in love with a table we saw. I found it really unique, as it was a square dining table as opposed to a rectangular one, and because it sits on a center base, it doesn't have legs to get in the way while guests are sitting at it. We thought it would be neat to have the option of switching out the 2 chairs on either side for a bench when we felt like it.

We invited people over recently for a casual dinner, and 2 guests showed up unexpectedly. We had a total of 10 adults eating at the table with plenty of room. (3 people on each bench.) It's also a very social table, since everyone has the opportunity to see and hear everyone else equally, and isn't stuck on one end of the table and getting left out of fun conversations.

We also designed the backs of the chairs. We came up with 4 different designs and had 2 chairs made with each design. We really like how they turned out. You don't necessarily notice they're different, but I like the fact that we have something unique that we helped design.

After the table and chairs were a success, we decided to get a coffee table and 2 end tables made. The same store had a really cool coffee table with two drawers and a glass-inlaid top, which allows you to see into the drawers. I liked that you could sort of change up the decor by putting different types of things inside the drawers of the coffee table (as long as we don't let them fill up with junk!)

We initially saw the coffee table on the display floor of the store, and as they had no end tables that matched, John had the great idea for us to have them design two end tables that were the same style.

I ended up putting our wine bottles inside the drawers of the coffee table to see what it would look like, and I think it's kinda cool!