Ramadam and unplanned bus trips

Had an intersting day so far... I went to the gym this morning and for a swim... I was up early and out of bread so i was planning to have breakfast at one of the warungs open (one that seems to cater for the christians in ourarea) but for some reason it was closed today... so i just kept walking and went to the gym, searching for food on the way. Its so hard! Nothing was open, I ended up buying a little banana-cheese pastry from Circle K, a 24 convenience store. So i snuck a few bites of that in the changerooms at the gym then the rest by the pool when noone was around. Im sure they appreciate that were foreigners, but i just feel mean eating infront of people fasting! im sure ill have figured it out by the end of the four weeks... something to look forward to!Yesterday afternoon, I caught the bus home from uni after our dance class (very hard, i feel so ungraceful!) and it wound thru the streets around uni, I was so surprised- the area was packed with people and food stalls everywhere!cos the last prayer is at 530 or 540, the muslims can close fast and they have all this special food and its likea whole celebration. I felt a bit left out, cos it was such a feeling of community, like success that theyd donethe first day of fast. And it felt really normal. Like this was just how they go about their day. I guess its hardfor western people to sort of accept the fasting, it seems strange to us, but Im really interested, maybe get involved. I live near a mosque and was walking back from a friends house last night about 8 and they had the streetblocked off cos they were having some massive sermon in the street! So i had to do a bit of a detour, and wandereddown some backstreets with a whole lot of kids and people in jilbabs and hats. Its kind of nice, theres such a feelingof community, Ive never felt safer walking around. Theres just this aura of... not sure, community and kindness. I know people cant really associate that with muslims (damn mass media) until you experience it for yourself. Theyreally are lovely people. After the gym this morning i decided to just get one of the buses in the opposite direction, towards uni not my house,so i could see how it gets to uni... turns out it didnt go to uni, but sort of continued in the other direction. I hadsome time to kill, so i went for a nice trip out to the bus terminal and back... I dont really mind, cos its good to see outside my area and orientate myself a bit better. The buses just do a loop anyway and I knew it came back viathe same route so i just enjoyed it and had a look around. Got talking to a guy who offered to be my indonesian pacar, but i kindly turned him down. He asked if i was doing puasa, the fasting, too. I was so tempted ot say yes, just tosee what he said... its all a laugh tho, you get chatting to random people, where are you from, what do you study, ilove you... they seem to know only a few key sentences in english: "hello miss!" "hello mister!" "where are you going?""where you from?" "ohhhh, australia!" "youre beautiful!" "i love you!"... its hilarious. Im very tempted to teachthem the aussie way to say hello tho, none of this "halo", we need some more "hellow!"s around!I met up with a friend of mine, she was my volunteer helper person when we arrived but we just meet for coffee andstuff... and we went out for lunch. It was so good! Shes studying at Sanata Dharma, which is a Katholic uni, and we went to a little place near there. It was so nice, everyone was there eating and noisy, and it felt really normalcos everything was open lol... yummy lotek, a veg and peanut sauce dish with prawn crackers... her sisters dog justhad puppies so we went round there for a while, it was nice :) she has 3 chououas and the puppies were so tiny! Herson was cute, he was about five and so shy! A lot of the kids are shy cos they dont see a lot of white people... ohthe celebrity... :S she was telling me at his school, a kindergarten, they learn english and mandarin as well asindonesian. they start young... its just so big here, english is a future for them. Mei and her sister were great,fed me some traditional snacks and stuff and explained how they were made, really interesting. Im so full! lol. Idlike to see them again, it was really nice. Spent ages drawing castles for her son to colour in lol. I also hada chat with some of the girls from my kos when i got back. Theyre really sweet :) Im a bit shy tho, Ill have to force myslef to be more outgoing and organise to go out for dinner or something.I think Im getting brown! People keep commenting on my tan... :)Off to Solo this arvo, yay! I love the people here, its great!