Today I met with Fari for lunch. Up until a month ago, this was almost like a scheduled appointment. We meet at the Indonesian Embassy, pray Jum’ah together, have lunch, and explore DC. Before today, I tried setting up a similar meeting again in mid-July, and it didn’t work out very well. I ended up…
Today, I had the opportunity to tour the World Bank. The tour is organized once every month, the first Thursday of the month. My friend from St. Louis, Fari Nasution, and I met up at the IMF Center for the tour. Fari had also moved to DC from St. Louis, precisely one week earlier than…
I wasn’t planning to spend most of the day watching TV, but it turned out just that. Salman went home for the weekend, so I planned to explore more of this city. I had been doing that for the past week and would continue to do so for the next month. So, I turned on…
Yesterday was positively my weirdest night in DC yet. It all began with the plan to watch a Star Wars movie with my roommate, Salman. At around 9 pm, Salman called me to tell me that he was ready to pick me up from my work and watch Star Wars in a theater near Friendship…
It was the Independence Day! (America’s, for that matter). Though it was supposed to be a federal holiday, I got a phone call from Salman that morning (he was coming home that weekend to Charleston, West Virginia) telling me that the cable guy would be coming soon. I thought it was a bit odd for…
So, how did I end up here in Washington DC exactly? To answer that question, let’s travel back in time to Day 1, which is May 24, 2005. The day had finally arrived. I woke up early morning and made final preparation for my departure to Washington DC later that afternoon. My roommate, Ading, would…