Halo semua!

I am currently sitting in café in Ubud sipping on ­­­­a banana milkshake.  In just a few short hours the girls and I will make the 15 minute bemo ride to our program center in the village of Bedulu where we will final meet our homestay families.  I am so pumped!  I'm a little nervous about the speech in Indonesian, but I am decently confident that it will go smoothly.  The good thing about Balinese people is that as long as you try they are impressed.  If you fail miserably, they just laugh a lot.  This morning we had another language exercise, which was taking a series of bemos to Ubud.   It went pretty well.  We made a deal with the second bemo driver to take us all the way to Ubud instead of making stops like we would've had to otherwise, and that was nice. Yesterday was our last day in our orientation palace, Puri Saraswati.  This is just a little taste of what we have been living in for the past week:

I want my life to seem as glamorous as possible, so I will spare you the pictures of the bathrooms we have been using. Yesterday was the Auspicious Day for the Balinese, which is a religious holiday that happens every full moon.  Because of this, we took most of the day off.   In the morning we went to a water palace to practice our speeches and, of course, go swimming.  Spring water is filtered into the palace, so it was very cool and clear!  The palace itself was breathtaking.  The Balinese spare no expense when it comes to aesthetic appeal. 

This afternoon we had lunch and a short break that turned into a siesta fiesta, after which we headed to the beach.  I have only been to the ocean a handful of times, but none of them involved a beach this spectacular.  There were gorgeous cliffs, clear blue water, staggered rice fields, and made complete with coconut drinks! (I will upload a picture tomorrow when I have a better connection.) It was a very nice way to spend the afternoon.  All in a day’s work in Bali, I suppose!  Now to prepare to meet my host family.

Sukses, ya!!