‘Letter’ from Denmark

Denmark, December 24th, 2012

Alright, so the festivities from a lovely Christmas Eve with the family has been diminished to me sitting alone in the living room with my laptop, munching on leftover confection while listening to music and tapping on the keyboard. Today has been somewhat the first time in roughly a month that I’ve been able to just kick back and enjoy not having to code PHP or write semester project for 12 hours straight. It might be the confectionery talking, but I’ve kinda enjoyed it. And with the family having hit the sack, now is as good of a time as any to embark on the first entry for my Bali Journal.

I’ve been inquired to write a bit about my preparations for my trip, so let’s start off with that. The first thing I did when I found out I had been offered an internship at Blue Season Bali was to display my unbridled excitement by awkwardly high fiving random people at the university canteen in which I was sitting at the time. This coincidentally turns out to be a great conversation starter/way to make yourself an object of ridicule. I wasn’t too bothered though, as I was going to be spending my 4^th semester in Bali, Indonesia.

With the impending deadline for delivering a signed contract to the university getting ever closer, I figured I needed my paperwork in order ASAP. Fortunately, this didn’t turn out to be a problem as Blue Season Bali were able to swiftly accommodate this by sending me all the documents needed, as well as returning my university contract before the deadline.

Secondly, I needed to book my plane tickets. I decided to fly with Emirates to Jakarta through Dubai. Seeing as the only problem I ran into here was deciding which cuisine I would indulge myself with during my flight, I deemed this a rather auspicious part of the preparation process.

Thirdly, there was the matter of applying for my Indonesian visa. This was slightly more confusing than deciding my meals on the plane. However, I mustered all my concentration and channeled it towards the application form. After a few hours of working on this 5 page conundrum lying in front of me, I had finally been able to fill in my name correctly. As a result of this, I decided to call upon the aid of higher powers, personified by my well-travelled mum. The visa was filled out properly in less than 15 minutes. With the application signed, sealed and delivered I only had to wait a mere 5 days before my passport was returned with my visa included.

Furthermore, I needed to get my vaccines for Hepatitis A/B and Japanese Encephalitis. I suspected my friend to be pulling my leg when she mentioned it could be rather painful. Turns out she was right. Although,it wasn’t so much the painful prick in the arm with a needle as it was the crushing blow to the wallet that hurt. Still, my joie de vivre made me schedule a round #2, approximately 1 week before my departure. ‘Better safe than curled up in fetal position on the other side of the world, awaiting tea and soothing words from your mother that everything will be OK’ as I always say.

I shall further update on my preparations as I get closer to my date of departure. For now, I’ll be contemplating whether I should cut off the legs on all my jeans for the trip, or if I should maintain a bit of class and style by bringing my shorts with ‘Bootylicious’ printed on the back.