My Last Holiday

After our finals, we were given a two-week holiday to rest and refresh ourselves. Many of my friends went abroad and visited foreign countries, many others traveled outside of the city, to other parts of Indonesia like Bali, Jogja, Semarang, and the like. 

Even though this time, the holiday was much shorter than the breaks I was used to, it was a break of a good enough quality because of how I got to rest a lot and just met up with some of my old friends in Jakarta. I went back to Jakarta and stayed there for approximately a week. There were some days in which I was incredibly unproductive, but there were also some in which I would be out the whole day. I hung out with my friends 4 days in a row, and never did I go out with the same friend more than once. 

I got to Jakarta on the morning of Christmas, which was the 25th of December. And since a lot of my friends were either celebrating with their families or travelling outside of Jakarta, I did nothing but eat and watch reality shows while basking in the comforts of my own home in Kemang. One of the reasons my family and I went back to Jakarta during the break was because I missed my house and the city terribly, and I couldnt wait to go home to sleep in my old bed. 

On the 26th, I made promises to hang out with my friends that I met in my tutoring classes in 9th grade. Their names are Naya and Zhiva. Naya moved to my previous school, Mentari Intercultural School Jakarta, and Zhiva moved to Al-Azhar Pusat 1 Jakarta. Naya and I talked about the situation in Mentari, and she shared stories about her experience when she first moved, and I shared my stories about moving to Bandung. As we sat and chatted in the cafe Naya's family happened to own, Zhiva came and joined us. I missed her the most because I havent seen her since early 2019. We chatted and had dinner together at this noodle place near Naya's home, and the reunion ended when we all had to go home as it was already pretty late.

On the 27th, I hung out with some of friends from middle school. There were 3 of them and two of them had moved to the UK and Australia, and they just so happened to be back in Indonesia visiting for their term breaks as well. We went to Pacific Place, a mall in Senayan, to hang out. Out of all of my days that I left home to hang out with my friends, I would say that this was the most memorable out of all of them because of how much food I ate. We went from restaurant to restaurant, and hopping in between, we got snacks like crepes and ice cream. If I could count, we went to a total of 7 restaurants in the span of less than 6 hours. The food comma I experienced that day was unreal, I couldn't move and felt incredibly sleepy as I finished my last meal.

On the 28th, my cousin Della, from Bandung came to Jakarta via train and after we picked her up at Gambir train station, we left immediately for IKEA in Alam Sutera. Ideologically, IKEA is just a really big furniture store in North Jakarta, and to get there we have to drive through several highways. Once we got there, we got our carts and started our 6 hour shopping journey in IKEA. My cousin and I toured the huge store together and never did we even think twice to put any of our items in our carts. 

I ended up getting two lamps, one for the bedside and one for my study desk. I also ended up getting new covers as IKEA is pretty famous for their various quilt cover patterns. I also got myself a vanilla scented candle for my room for it to smell fresh and relaxing. Usually, I light the candle in the evening and blow it out just before going to bed. My cousin got a lot more things than I did, as she has never been to IKEA before and found a lot of things she didn't know she needed, like a lap pillow for her laptop, a bedside lamp, new covers, a small carpet, and she even got herself a small plant to put in her room. By the end of the day, our feet were tired and sore from all the walking that we did and when we saw how many steps we took in our health app, we saw that the both of us had taken more than 8000 steps that day.

That Sunday was the 29th of December and two of my best friends and I went to eat at a ramen place near my neighborhood for lunch. Their names are Alayka and Mandy. From the ramen house, we walked to Kemang Village, a mall about 5 minutes away from Mandy and I's houses since she is my neighbor. We spent about 1 hour there before getting bored and decided to go back home with a taxi. We spent the entire day at Mandy's house just playing instruments and talking and catching up about things since we all go to different schools now. I had a great time catching up with them, but sadly I had to leave by dinner time because I had a family dinner to attend.