You slet. Saus Tomat.

So we hav'nt posted for a while...this we blame on the ridiculous amounts of work we have had to do, Stenden Bali does not live up to Stenden South Africa's work ethic.

We woke up on Monday morning not overly keen for our field trips as being outside in the sun in 32 degree heat in formal uniform is no ones idea of fun. We visited the Westin Hotel in Nusa Dua where the international convention centre is situated. The hotel was beautiful along with it's private, white sandy beach and we left with heavy hearts as we knew we would be needing to find rich men to marry to be able to visit again.

 The second stop was the Garuda Wisnu Kencana cultural park. It is a park where huge events are held, the outdoor amphitheatre that is enclosed by huge limestone walls where many music concerts have been held was quite a sight to see. Sammy Peckham and myself were blessed by having 'holy water' and rice put on our foreheads, an interesting experience as well. The views of Kuta and Sanur were amazing but we were very happy to leave and get back to the hotel to swim.

Monday was followed by guest lectures for five hours on Tuesday, something that we are not at all used to is sitting in a room having to sit still and listen for so long. We managed though, with the help of free coffee and food and one of the guest lecturers who was very entertaining despite the fact we could hardly understand what he was saying.

Monday and tuesday were both spent preparing for our event pitches on Wednesday. The word that could be used to describe these pitches would be a bloodbath, as unlike Stenden South Africa where we go into presentations with the mindset that we do unto others as you would like done unto you, or in other words we do not critisise eachother or question eachother, and it is the complete opposite here! Something that we will have to get used to, keeping in mind it will probably be better for us in the long run.

The rest of Wednesday was spent trying to finish our Initiative reports so we could hand them in on Thursday and have a long weekend, we all made it after working into the night, some of us just by the skin of our teeth! Our last management skills lecture with the best lecturer in the world, Yoke, was just as good as all our other lectures with her as she made us laugh continuously, falling asleep in her classes is just not an option.

Some of the students organised a pool party for everyone at the hotel and the hotel staff 'braaid' for us as well. A braai here constitutes of using a fan to start the fire and pre-cooking the meat before actually braaing it, something which we found hilarious. After the party everyone headed out to sky garden, where extreme hangovers are made and a lot of money is spent on we dont know what. The taxi ride there, just like all of them was another experience. The taxi shook violently from side to side the entire way, we expected one of the wheels to fall off  at any moment. Fortunately for us the driver did not drive more than 40kmh the whole way there. We are still getting used to peoples reactions when we tell them that we are from South Africa and that we are in Bali for two and a half months, its getting to the point where questions like, "Isnt it really dangerous to live there?" and "Do you live in a forest?" are just answered with completely sarcastic remarks.

 

The whole of Friday was spent recovering, and it literally did take the whole day. We decided to not go out on Friday night and save ourselves for Saturday which was a good idea consisdering the crazy jol we had last night. We discovered Alley Cats, a bar down one of the Poppies Gang alley's of Legian. Double Doubles, which is the drink everyone talks about from Alley Cats, is going to be the cause of much debauchery in the coming weeks.

 

Last night was by far the best jol we have had in Bali so far, along with our ride home which was one crazy adventure, one which none of us will ever forget, except for Melvin, who was asleep the entire way home, how, we do not know. Lets just say it was one of those, "If we die now, we die happy" moments, techno/electro music and all.



Our latest mission is to learn to ride scooters as having to pay for taxi's is starting to become a financial burden on our drinking benefits.

Bosman finally decided to get her white body into the sun today after our friend Stefan commented, "Even im browner than you and im a foken ginger!" She is now as red as a tomato but it had to be done.