My ignorance about American football has changed a little bit

When I heard the homecoming tradition at the first time, one's regular coming home tradition to visit beloved ones popped into my mind. I guessed it like someone must be coming back home or something is brought back home. In such occasion, celebration of happiness is immeasurable; I was right that homecoming is a unique culture in the American society. It is an infrequent event in which old, older, and oldest friends are coming to their former universities, towns or cities that they used to live in and study. I was also told that some alumni even willing to cross land border and fly over ocean just to attend this yearly event.

   

Selamat Ulang Tahun Bang Indo.

Saya Copy dari Sini

Ketika saya bangun tadi pagi, bukan waktu Indonesia bagian Barat, Timur ataupun Tengah, bukan pula waktu Timor Leste, melainkan waktu America bagian Midwest. Dinding Facebook saya terlihat ada beberapa ucapan-ucapan selamat buat Dirgahayu Indonesia yang ke 69 atau Sixty Nine. Ucapan tidak hanya datang dari para pemilik Indonesia tetapi banyak juga kaum muda Timor Leste yang dari beberapa kalangan. Mereka adalah kelompok yang, kalo saya tidak salah, bukan hanya untuk ngepost layaknya kebiasaan di Facebook, tetapi mereka ingin benar-benar ngepost buat hari specialnya buat bang Indo, pangilan saya. Saya tergugah juga untuk ngepost sesuatu dimana saya cukup dekat juga sama Bang Indo. Kedengaran terlalu berlebihan kalo saya merasa dekat sama ratusan juta penduduknya, tapi cuman beberapa sih. Mending ngeblog aja biar lumayanlah omonganya.

Secara historis, Indonesia itu kaya mantan pacarnya Timor Leste. Secara mereka dulu dipaksa paksa untuk jatuh cinta, akhinrya menikah. Misalnya, satu orang cowo maksain satu cewe untuk nikah. Terus karena ada unsur paksaan itu, kekerasan rumah tangga terus terjadi. Sampai si cowo itu saking kuatnya secara uang dan pendidikan, ada rencana penculikan terhadap beberapa orang  keluarga si cewenya, dan sadisnya bahkan ada yang dibunuh. Itu karena, diantara keluarga cewe itu ada yang nga setuju supaya si cewe nikah sama suaminya itu. Nah, yang paling aneh bin ajaib dalam dunia percintaan itu, setelah bercerai mereka berdua nangis-nangisan, minta tolong sana sini untuk damaiin, walapun “impossible” buat balik lagi. Pengadilan dibawa bawa, dan pihak ketiga seperti nenek, teman lama, mantan pacar, teman kantor dan orang orang dekat lainya itu dibawa-bawah untuk damaiin conflict yang sudah menyakitkan itu. Ini sih dalam dunia percintaan itu nga aneh lagi, karena memang dari sononya udah begitu. Damai diunjung conflict itu hal yang lumrah juga karena setelah conflict, orang menyadari bahwa masih ada hidup jangkan panjang, yang kalo conflict terus berlanjut, maka yang namanya mau hidup bahagia itu kaga bisa ngerasain. Makanya banyak orang yang milih damai dan jadi Sodara paling dekat setelah konflik, tapi ada juga yang jadi musuh kaya kucing dan tikus. Setidaknya analogy ini kena dikit tipis-tipis aja pada cerita mengenai apa yang telah terjadi diantara Timor Leste dan Indonesia.

Story from Iowa

We climaxed in Chicago. There, we reached the peak like a couple just had a climax satisfaction during their “on-bed-thing.” The previous fiery to see Chicago becomes mediocre. Like that couple starts wearing their clothes, grabbing other stuffs and packing to go back home after the long tiring efforts, each of us considered the essential things to make decision upon, wondering whether to go back home or continue the journey to get another climax. A lot of desires started popping up. As you might have experienced in your life, not necessarily traveling experience, you just love to throw things out. We had so many plans on the table during the discussion whether to continue or terminate. Miami was the next city which we wanted to see next. However, the atmosphere was getting silent, and the noise was getting down as we close to make the final decision. Each person made his own calculation. We wondered about our respective imaginary individual to-do-list schedule. Most essentially, our willingness to pay to travel was just falling below the equilibrium point. Therefore, we winded up making decision to scatter in Chicago. My friend Rafael went back home through the same route; we, two of us, decided to take the different route heading to Iowa City as we return home.

Story from Chicago

Cloud Bean. I don't know why the result comes out like this.

What does interest you to come visiting a world class city? The eagerness arises probably because you are curious about what TVs, Movies and Internet news, books, or even your close friends have told you. Those tellers utterly stimulate your passion to come visiting a place. It happens to us as well. Three of us: two friends and I had that psychological thing in our mind. When I hear Chicago, the first thing that comes to my mind is Chicago Bulls. This professional basketball team used to be so famous in my sphere. That is because the TV channel which my junior high school friends and I used to watch was TVRI, a public owned Indonesian TV, aired NBA competition all the time. That was the ONLY channel that we watch even though we did not like Basket game that much. As the time went by, I submerged myself into some basketballers’ names. For instance, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Alajuwon, Shaquelle O’Neal, and other names that I don’t remember any longer. Some decades ago, you just could not be a fan of soccer players from the USA. The US did have some soccer leagues were going on down here though, but they were suck. It is just recently that US public became cheerful on the soccer game when the US team made a progress  in 2014 FIFA world Cup in Brazil. Therefore, Chicago Bulls always sticks deeply in my mind more than anything else.  

A story of traveling from Lawrence to the City of Saint Louis, Missouri

I snapped myself at the below monument

Is this a nice shot?

 

There are various reasons behind the travelers’ choice of transportation. It is pretty hard though to guess why people use the different transportation options; as I recall, however, student-like appearance travelers who were on board on the same day with me might have a same reason preferring the bus rather than plane or train. It is obvious that bus is time consuming, yet this option does not diminish your passion to enjoy the trip. I would say for sightseeing, bus is a nice option because you can see different places that you pass by. If you want to use the bus when traveling for a long distance destination, here the backpacker basic skills is applicable.

Backpacker basic skills is needed because most of the American suburbans do not have public transport system that suits your needs.  I would say cities, college towns in particular where the international students live in are not so convenient. I proved this in Lawrence, Kansas. My starting point for this time’s traveling was from here. Within this city, you will find it difficult to access to some places in time. It tests your patience because you have to wait for about 20 – 30 minutes every day at each bus stop, and alternatively, somebody must walk to a distance location on Sunday if there is no choice. Also, importantly but unfortunately at this time’s traveling, this town’s location is not so strategic geographically; there is only one intercity bus link which connects the town to the Kansas City, and with the-only-intercity bus link, I was able to go to Kansas City in order to catch another bus to Chicago. Otherwise I could have taken a shuttle which, you know, debilitated my bank’s ability to take care of me after returning.

Here is the applicability of the backpacker style in order to address the distance challenge. We, originally, planned to go straight to Chicago. It takes about 10 hours and a little minutes more to get there directly. The fare is quite reasonable, yet the distance is freaking far. Given that distance, we came back to the gist of travelling; seeing more places or the road trip will make us happy rather than doing a straight go and back travel. So we decided to cut that time into two parts. St. Louis Missouri was the first half, and the finish was in Chicago. Some people may argue that US cities are not so different from each other, and that the must visit cities are only NYC, DC, Chicago, Miami and few others which hyped by CNN and Hollywood. Yes, that all American cities are typically spread out, downtowns are in grid shape or laymen would call a big town as big square separated by lines, and of course concrete or glass buildings are waving their topes up from the sky. You can see this everywhere in the US. However, this stereotype might not be able to guess something that is intrinsic the nature has given them. Built-environment in most American cities may look similar, but remember that each city has its own characteristics to please the new comers’ curiosity. An identical twin girl may look beautifully the same, but when you approach them you will see the older one is humble, wiser, has a birthmark on her sharp nose which you really love it, and the other one is just nasty. Which one would you like? Of course the older one. You find pleasure from either because you see each one's differences after having a closer look. It is the same too that the decision we made to transit in St. Louis was the best one. We cut that long trip hour into pieces and enjoy the new sights.

But now one would think that this plan adds up the financial burden, isn’t it? The justification would be if you transit in a new place, you will need to eat and sleep. Yes, it is. That’s undebatable because you must eat and sleep in order to keep looking cool to wowing some passerby sexy girls. But, that is not the only thing of everything. You still have the backpacker strategy which I brought it up earlier. Try to set up a night departure schedule so that you can sleep on the bus. Sleeping on the bus is in lieu of your hotel in the city you are heading to. What my friend and I did was we departed from Kansas City, and it took us five hours trip. That five hours became our sleeping time. We assumed that we used the bus as a transport and as a hotel all at once. We slept “well” on the bus. Besides of that though another challenge was we still had another four more hours to see the horizon to become brighter once we got off from the bus. We did not know where to go, except walking around in the downtown of St. Louis in order to wait the morning to come. If we had found a hotel, we could have just wasted our time and money because the hotel staffs would kick our ass off very earlier at 11 am. That would be a waste of money, right? The cost might have been: we didn’t get enough sleep plus the sleep could have eaten eat up our time for sightseeing. So, eventually we just roamed around in downtown until we saw the light comes out from the St. Louis horizon.

Funny stories starts from here once we walked towards the downtown area at that night. We were navigated by the google map with a GPS devise in it. Clicked on the downtown area, and it kept telling us where to go. We finally bumped a street corridor where most of the night clubs are located. We suddenly saw mobs of men and women walking in and out the clubs, crossing the street, chanting, yelling, smoking, drinking, etc. I said “this place will be a right place to spend the rest of the hours.” Girls started calling us to join them. But, we were too obvious to them that we are not Americans. We looked so innocent at that night. I guess, our appearance and the bag packs we carried indicate that to them. Because we carried two big backpacks, we were not allowed to sit on the street. A parking staff told us “I know you guys are not from here, please don’t put down your backpacks and sit here otherwise the cop will come and handcuff you because this is a homeless free zone.” We were laughing out loud saying “oh gosh they think we are homeless.” We tried to be submissive at the night. We did not get any trouble except the heavy backpacks we carried along with us wherever we moved to.

We were finally tired after walking from the tip to tip of that street. There were still two hours left. The night was still dark. Almost everybody in the street started getting drunk and walking towards their cars to go back home. Some drunken people even yelled at us “Fuck you.” But we just ignored them. We suddenly had no choice where to go when the street started quiet. We then walked down to a park. The park looks nice. It has a clean lawn, benches and tables, and a movable toilet. In the most US cities’ downtowns, Public Parks are usually the homes for homeless people. But at that night, we did not see any of those good but unfortunate guys roaming around. We said, “this is a good place to lean our back while waiting the sun to rise.” We found a bench and we started sitting down. Another funny thing was, shortly thereafter like about one hour, we started noticing that some homeless people actually were sleeping on the other side before us. They started moving and erecting their bodies. We felt like they camouflaged with darkness. We did not notice them there by no means. We were terrified by that unexpected emergence. One homeless guy started coming towards us. He sat just right in from of the bench on which we were laying. I told my friend “Bro, wake up, somebody is approaching us, and if I see he is doing a suspicious motion, running is the best thing to do.” And we must run as fast as a mature horse because this guy probably has a young horse power skill.”

Thanks to God, we found nothing harmful at that night but just a little bit scary. It was quite an adventurous travel we ever had in St. Loius. The darkness faded from minutes to minutes. We started seeing the city bus picking up and dropping of passengers. The city started to begin their hustle bustle activity as it always happens in a lot of cities anywhere in this world.

We visited many places after the morning such as the land mark of St. Louis, The Gateway Arch. We also did many other sightseeing that I can’t tell them all here. But to sum up, the backpacker’s style that we applied in this city was cool, but it was challenging as I told our story above. It enables you to visit more places as possible, and save some money, but it also quite challenging. The important thing is you have to be careful whenever you are and keep asking help from God.

The next story will be about the city of Chicago. It will be different as another friend came on board in St. Louis when we went on to Chicago. Some photos will come soon afterwards.

Hope this gives you and inspiration.     

Nothing to do at this moment? I have my summer vacation piece of story for you to get over your boring time

Looking for a place to rest

Eating a cake

Taking pictures

I understood that everyone loves sleeping than anything else when it comes to relaxing from the tight activities during days, weeks, and even months. We just love our bed after the busy time. We do, however, summer time in the hemisphere has something little more than laying on your bed. Why summer is loved so much? As everyone knows, summer is hot. It is even extremely hot recently. Yet most people love the summer time more than winter, which they just hibernate. One of these people is me. I should not have talked about summer though because that is what I live with every day back home. But having experienced two times of winter in the States, I tell you “you had better enjoy summer or you will regret it.” I now value summer as the most enjoyable time. I have also debunked the thought before coming to the States that winter is awesome, enjoyable, etc. I am a consistent person, I did enjoy this year’s summer. Of course, I am not saying that I visited many places more than one did, stayed in a-5-star hotel, and experimented other lavish things, but I enjoyed summer with my tag “student.” You know what to expect in the upcoming story.

It is not easy to decide where to go in the States. First, the States happens to be a very large country. This means you have a geographical barrier to see the well-known cities like New York City, DC, Chicago, LA, Miami, etc. You need to have much money to break the distance. Flight is extremely expensive for a student to put in the shopping cart. The price is averagely two to three hundred dollars that is valid only for one way. If an international student decide to go by plane, he would not be back soon or even again. The bus option is widely available; however, it takes hours or days to reach those cities. Another uneasy decision is made based on the living cost in each state. The accommodation and food are also very expensive. Sleeping in a half star hotel or a hostel will cost you more than what you are willing to pay, and the food is plenty and delicious, but you need to forget if you can’t afford them. Even though these two seem haunting, students always have their own way to enjoy whenever they go. The key is if you are happy to whatever you are having during the time of traveling, and there you go; you enjoy your summer vacation; I will leave you to imagine and measure your happiness based on your own standard if you ever traveled.  

To pass all the challenges above, we need to adopt backpacker’s style of traveling. I don’t dare enough to say that you have to become a backpacker; it is too extreme though, but I dare to say you should adopt the basic skills which make the backpackers successfully visit as many places as possible with the limited money. So what my friends and I did was adopting some of these basic skills in order to keep going while not diminishing the happiness like everyone does. We finally spent nights in three major cities. Technically speaking, we saw more than three cities because we transited in different cities when we were on our way go and back. Most of these cities are not internationally known, but we saw something new and learn new things that any other cities do not have. The important part is enjoying the summer vacation by expanding our horizon. My story in the each visited city will come next, covering different stories such as funny, boring, interesting things, etc. Hopefully, I will write them all down here before the school starts.

Hope this gives you an inspiration.