Holland vs Indonesia

Wednesday, 6 May 09, 8.24am on the bus

Morning my diary,
I am feeling great today. For the last two days, I always woke up with heavy eyes and came to office late although I ran all the way from bus stop to office. However, today I woke up with fresh body and mind. About coming to office late? Let's see, I'm still on the bus now.

Diary, finally yesterday my grandma managed to have surgery to remove her tumor, the surgery went well! It was indeed a miracle from God! God really gives her chance to have a 'brand new' life. I am really really grateful and thankful for everything happened recently.

About my Netherlands' trip, I wanna keep my promise to tell you my story. It is actually no longer a hot topic now since few days have passed, I feel like writing executive summary for my thesis now. Anyway, my home country used to be Holland's colony for more than 350 years according to a subject that I learned in my high school, that subject is called History. This is why I find this country amazing! *Why? Tell me 5 good reasons!*

Ok, let me try if I can get 5 good reasons:
1. Holland has wonderful tulips!! *What does the tulip have something to do with Holland's 350 years colony in Indonesia??* Exactly! They used to live in Indonesia for hundreds years, why couldn't they plant tulip in there? They could use all those years to create special tulip which can live in hot country, right? Possible, right? *Please la, don't let your stupidity shown up la*

2. Holland and Indonesia are sharing same language for certain words. Previously I only knew some words they were sharing, e.g baskom (water bucket), knalpot (muffler), and pispot (pee bucket). After I went there, I know some more words like zegel (stamp), spoor (train platform), loket (counter), gratis (free), kantoor (office), etc. Amazing, isn't it? You don't think it's amazing? It's just normal??? I think some funny Indonesian/Javanese words could have been Dutch too, something like keteg (armpit) or phekog (stupid) or endog (egg). Hey, who could ever think that 'spoor' (in Indonesian: sepur) is Dutch?? I always make a joke of the words 'nunggang sepur' (riding a train) as it sounds so kampung. You will never know that 'nunggang' could have been Dutch too! My late grandma used to say "Holland spreken", I thought she wanted to say "Holland spoken" in her Javanese accent. But I was wrong! She knew Dutch! Don't ever undervalue Javanese, this is my conclusion.

3. I used to eat bread with butter and chocolate beads for breakfast at home. My mom made it for me. I never knew that it was originally from Holland! Those chocolate beads are very rare to get, not every country has those.

4. Holland loves orange so so so much! I mean, not the orange as a fruit. It's orange, a color. I love orange color too! *So?* I'm Indonesian and I love orange, can you see the connection? I also just heard that carrot was originally not in orange color, it should be in green or white or pink or whatever. Those Dutch people changed the color to orange! Can you believe it? No? Ok then.

5. And the last one... and the last one... let me think.. let me think.. ohh yes! Holland is popular with its wooden shoes. Indonesian/Javanese also has its traditional wooden shoes although the design is different, this Indonesian wooden shoe is called 'klompen' or 'thekleg'. Hmmm.. these funny words might be brought from Dutch too.

Diary, I've arrived office. I came too early today, I didn't need to run. The office was still dark, so I was the one who turned on all the lights! I was the earliest today! *What time did you arrive office?* It was around 9.19am. *And you were the earliest???!!* I'm feeling great today!

Time to get back to work now..
See you again, diary..

-Abbie-