My Aunt Tri's Life in Michigan

Dear all friends,
At this edition i got contribution from my sweet niece. She really likes to make story for herself or for school's project and to tell story in front of class as well. She is only 10 yo, her name is Adrianna and now she is in fifth grade. We spent really good time at thanksgiving and gave me so nice gift, a thoughtful story about me. Her story originally came from her own mind about what she sees and thinks about me. And she did it so well in very short time. I hope you will enjoy the gift like i do.
Happy thanksgiving everybody!


Once upon a time, there was a woman named Tri. She married my loving uncle Michael and moved to Michigan. Every day the woman Tri would like to sit at her lap top and thinks of what her family was doing in Indonesia. Every holiday she would get sad because she would have to spend it with her darling husband and without her family. She wishes one day there will be a day Michael and her could go down there to visit but they cant because Michael got a daughter and parents to take care of. She wishes that sometime she could just turn the corner and see them there. This story will go on until she could see them but until bless my aunt Tri and bless my uncle Michael for marrying a wonderful woman like Tri.

Adrianna

another journey to florida

I have been away from blogging for a while, doesn't mean that i dont like to write anymore but there some reasons behind that. I went to Florida again about a week ago and this time i was with my husband by car. Of course i didnt drive, otherwise it would be end up at the hospital or funeral. No kidding i cant drive and i am afraid of it which is really big mistake to stay here since driving a car is like our basic need to survive. So anyway, we left the house at 1 am (midnite time) when the temperature outside was so cold probably about 40 F, please somebody help me to convert it into Celcius..i am just too lazy to open the other screen. To describe how cold it is, well....when you open the fridge and you put your hand inside of it you will feel freezing snap your hand then you have insight how cold it was. We wore double clothes with sweater and coat to stay warm and also brought some pillows, blanket, supply of foods and drinks, our luggage and medicine. We drove through freeway for hours and hours and see different city on the way. We entered Ohio state an hour after driving and past Cincinati in 3 hours later. I just knew that Cincinati is so close to Kentucky, actually it is the border between Ohio and Kentucky. Since it was still dark i couldn't really see many things except some places were so pretty with the lights. Then we were still driving in Kentucky when the day was coming, so i could see the beautiful scenery along the way. It was just so pretty with the wood changing its color into red, orange, yellow and the gound was so colourful too with all the leaves fell down from fall breeze.
As you know, Kentucky is famous for its KFC, fast food restaurant world wide, found by Colonel Sanders. Too bad that we didn't visit the museum since we had to catch the time to be in Florida ASAP. So we past Kentucky and entered Tennesse. I dont really know what is the thing for Tennesse that is famous.....Ah well anyway, we stopped there to have breakfast and we tried southern style of breakfast with its unique gravy contain of sausage on top of biscuit, hash brown (different kind of fried potato), scramble eggs and of course southern sausage. Well for me it was not really different with other style of breakfast except the gravy. The most interesting for me is the southern accent. I hardly understood what the waitress said to me, because her english is.....different. I dont know how to explain this but i found out it was different expression. I guess if i stay there long enough i will have 'weird' accent too....
Ok then, we entered Georgia state and past Atlanta which is quite big city. At that time we already drove about 12 hours nonstop only stop for buying gas few times and breakfast. I guess you are wondering how come we just stop once to eat? Actually we have foods supply in the car, so i just needed to grab them whenever we want to eat and i fed my husband (kinda romantic huh..?). But because my husband really wanted to show me how southern breakfast style was, then we stopped at one "Waffle House" a restaurant for southern people to have breakfast. That restaurant only exists in southern area, not like Mc.D or KFC or Pizza Hut that can be found anywhere.
After that damn long drive, finally we arrived at his friend house close to Tampa city Florida. Totally we drove for 19 hours mostly by freeway and few times past downtowns. During the trip i couldn't sleep because i was worried about the driver.....So i kept trying to talk to him, sometimes made jokes, massaged his neck or his right arm from soreness. But there were also times when i just close my eyes because they were getting sore as well. Poor him had to do that all the way without switching with me. Well what can i do, if we were on motorbike i could do that..
One thing that also interesting was that the temperature was changing warmer as we drove more southern and we decided to change our "winter costume" at Georgia which was about 60 F there. Closer to Tampa the weather was about 70 F and it was during afternoon nearly dark. We wore pair of shorts, and just t-shirt, really different condition with Michigan that winter has coming.
So we spent a night there, and continued our trip to Hollywood city (this is not Hollywood LA with all stars). It was about 4 hours drive, and finally we met my friend Ucha who let me to stay at her place last time at my first trip. She guided us to get a hotel to stay around her place, it was easy because she is staying in the central of tourist area so accomodation was not a problem to find. Well that day we just took a rest and enjoyed back ache, and sore legs. I wish i was in kampung and can ask tukang pijit to massage me......

a night at the bar

One night my husband and i decided to go to a bar in one of casino in Detroit to escape from boredom. The idea was there was a live music for us to relax, something that i really enjoy. It is not really easy here to find a nice place to hang out with live music. Many bars around our place with different offer usually provide pool tables, dart, or music box but once again without live music. So i got so excited to sit down at the nice ambience with nice light setting, and also the performance of musicians. Lucky me that night jazz was on stage!

I ordered white wine as i asked waitress for advise which one i would enjoy for non drinker or beginer like me. She was right, it tasted pretty good, sweet and a little bit sour and not too strong. The best part of it was they put some cherries in it, made it sooo good...hmmm....

Well since jazz is not his really favorite, he let me enjoy the drink and the music alone. Actually he could not resist to look around the game table, and watched people lost money on gambling. So i was totally alone with two empty couches next to me. Some people went to the floor, dancing with their partners followed the rhytm. I saw one old woman dance constantly from the first song until the next break (about 6 songs), she must be in very good mood.

Then more people come as the show went on and my next couches was very tempting for them. Some of them has asked me and i had to say "sorry, it's taken".

One young guy approached me and just sat down next to me without asking anything. I just looked at him ready to tell him but before i did that he bent over his back moved closer to me "is it ok for you if i sit here?". "I am sorry it is taken by my husband" i replied.

"Damn..!" he said in disappointing expression. So he got up and walked away

Then.....there were two other guys came to me, they already asked me before about the seat was taken. I hoped they didnt come back because my english was awful so they didnt understand what i said. The older said something "I knew that this seat is taken i just wanna ask you if it is ok for you to let us sit here until..your..boyfriend come back". "It is my husband actually" i said. "I promise we will leave as your husband coming" he insisted.

"Well ok then, i dont mind" i threw them a smile.

"Where are you from ?" he was still keeping up conversation with me.

"I am from Indonesia. Do you know where it is? "

"Yes i know that, it is in south east asia right?"

"Yes you are right, surprising in fact since not many people really know about it"

"I am a teacher .....geography..." he smiled

"Ah no wondering sir...."

Then the rest we just enjoyed the music and our drinks until my husband came and they kept the promise, let the seat for him.

But......my husband left me to the counter to buy a beer and it took time.

And that guy who just sat down without asking me, he did the same thing again. I couldn't believe that! He gave me strange smile and whispered close to my ears (which was i didn't expect that)" hey look.....we can go upstair and get a room if you like...?"

"No thanks" i felt humiliated and became angry at him. At the same time i smelt strong from his breath....geesh this guy is really drunk, i thought at that time.

He left me and i kept watching him walk away and stopped at other table. I guess he did the same thing to another woman at that table, she looked disturbed and asked him to leave.

What a nite.....