Sunburned yet Satisfied

The full time portion of my student teaching experience came to a close last week and as a celebration Charity, Kelly and I took a long weekend trip to Bali. Who would have thought I would every use that phrase in my life "weekend trip to Bali?!" Anyways, we left Thursday morning and returned Sunday evening. It was four days full of total relaxation, some major Christmas shopping at the markets, and some of the best food I have had since I have been in Indonesia. We stayed in the Aston Bali, a really nice hotel with a private beach, an incredible pool and a yummy European breakfast. The first day we went and had lunch at the Bali Deli, where I got the first turkey sandwich I've had since August. We ventured into the markets for a little bit, where you have to barter with the merchants and try not to get ripped off. I was totally overwhelmed and nearly on the verge of heat exhaustion...I thought Bandung was hot and humid! That evening was the highlight of the trip. We got picked up from our hotel and went to Sharky's, a seafood place right on the beach. We got there right at sunset and were seated outside. It was absolutely gorgeous. Then, we got to go pick out our dinner. They had fresh fish, prawns and crab just waiting to be cooked up on the grill. We got Red Snapper, Prawns, and crab. It was so yummy! Then to top it all off, there was a group of Indonesian men playing all kinds of instruments playing mostly cover songs. The majority of the people at this rather romantic dining establishment were couples, so the songs that these guys were singing were sappy love songs. As they made their way towards our table, I couldn't help but wonder "what kind of songs to you sing to a table of single women?" Well, they ended up serenading us with a rather painful eighties song like Every Rose has its Thorn or something. It was really funny.
The next day we went up to Ubud, a smaller town in the mountains with more shopping, more great restaurants and a monkey forest. One of the families from school hooked us up with a car and a driver to get us up there which was really cool. On our way up we got pulled over by the police, saw a very large, smelly chicken truck, and stopped at one of the Hindu Temples. The temple was really beautiful and elaborate. In the Hindu religion there are hundreds of gods that they worship, and they have people whose job is to prepare the offerings for all the gods according to their preferences. About mid-morning the streets and steps of businesses will be covered with these small offerings. It was really interesting to see. The monkey forest was quite the adventure. In my attempt to give bananas to only the monkeys who I thought deserved them, I got attacked by who I deemed the "Banana Bully." He wouldn't leave me alone, I guess I was waiting for him to say please or something, but because he was bothering me, I refused to give him my last banana. That ticked him off, so he jumped and tried to snatch it out of my hand. I freaked out, screamed and ended up throwing the banana at him. I was a little traumatized and ended up learning my lesson:) It was pretty cool to see them so close up though. The remainder of the weekend was spent near the pool, reading, listening to my ipod, and people watching. Even in an attempt to not even be in the sun, I still got sunburned...it's inevitable I guess:) I had a great time, and my next trip to Bali is going to include snorkeling and maybe para sailing!