It's been four years since the last time I went back and somehow that was a very productive four years. At least in terms of the expansion of my extended family. All of my Puri cousins have got married and I got four nieces and a nephew over there. I finally saw each and everyone of them. It's amazing how quickly they all grow up. In my mind it's always the baby picture from the e-mails they sent me at their births. The eldest among them is the 8-year-old Indri, and the youngest is not even a year yet, Kelly. Between them there's Ditto, Ashley, and Audi. So nice to see them all and see my Jakarta cousins whom I haven't seen for the longest time. My sibilings and I (the Dago kids) used to be very close to them (the Puri kids) when we were little. But I guess you grow older, you start to find friends outside of your family and plus with my siblings' and my being in the US, it's kinda hard to stay as close. Too bad I couldn't see Riksen and his wife that I've never met because they live in Palembang now.

Of course it's nice to see my Moms and Dads. Nope, I did not make a grammar mistake there. I do have two dads and two moms. But no, it has nothing to do with either of them getting divorced and remmaried, it's just that my aunt and uncle (and their daughter whom my brothers and I call sister) live in the same house as us. So all of us practically grew up with having these four parents to scold us or spoil us. Even though I haven't been back for some time, in recent years, they have been quite often come to the States though. Ever since all of us [the kids] lived in the US, they've been visiting us quite often. It felt really strange to have my Dad drove me around, I felt like I'm back in grade school, LOL. It's a bit frustating too though not to be able to do it yourself.

I guess living in Indonesia really change people, hahaha, which can be easily seen by looking at the transformation of my sister ^_^ From the sweats & jeans kind of girl, she became this jeans-in-the-boots kind of girl. Haha, she is so gonna kill me for this. But it's great to see her again, the one girl in the family ^_^

I also met Oma — my grandma. She was supposed to come to the US for Thanksgiving but her health didn't really allow her to do that, so I haven't seen her since my brother's wedding a couple years ago. She's turning 90 in 2006. Yes, ninety! Seriously, I don't think I'd be in such health that she is in when I turn 90. I mean look at me now, I'm only 25 and I got a herniated disk, a set of teeth requiring immediate root canals, high cholesterol, and the list just goes on and on. In the meantime my grandma is still very much in good health and she still lives by herself (she refused to stay with any of her children) in a house in Roxy - Central Jakarta. My mom and aunts offered her an apartment nearby that would be easier to take care of than a house but she just doesn't want to move anywhere. I really hope she can make it to my other brother's wedding later in July... Hmm.. that reminds me of the Es Mambo Sirsak — these frozen soursop juice sticks she used to make us when we were little. Everything's sweeter with a pinch of nostalgia.

One thing at the top of my list was to go see my brother's grave. He was placed next to my paternal grandparents plot in Cikadut, a hilly cemetery area in Bandung with a city view. This is the first time I saw it because I couldn't get back home when the burial took place. I really like what my parents did for him. Instead of marble for the tomb, they chose a natural piece of stone and have it engraved. Umang would've liked it much, much better than some square, shiny stone. This is more him. Another thing was they let the plot of land be grown by this low lying ivy-like plant with little yellow flowers, just like what we'd find in the mountains when we go camping.

One more person that I was so happy to see was my Nanny. Hmm... there isn't an exact translation for the word English, nanny is the closest I suppose. Basically, she had been helping my parents raised all five of us since the birth of my eldest brother. So to us, she's just like a third mother and she does have the authority to act as our parents. I think she's around 80 now, ever since all of us went to college, she moved to Semarang to live with one of her daughters, but every time any of us come home to Indonesia she always comes to Bandung. I was quite close to her, so much so that at one vacation — second grade, I think — I went with her to spend the vacation at her house in Magelang.

I finally met Matthew again after two years (I think?). Matthew's parents, Sonny & Vanda used to live in Maryland. Vanda is the sister of Arief who is my cousin Rica's husband. So... we're somewhat related ^_^ They're pretty much the closest thing I got to family here when I just got here, knowing nobody. Naturally I spent so much time hanging out with them, playing with Matthew who had only a handful of words at that time. It's so cute that he still remembered me although at the first ten minutes he seemed unsure, but in the next hours I pretty much hung out with him instead of with the parents, LOL.

I find it so amazing how easy it was to fall back to my old routine when I still lived there. The first few days it was as if I were to live the next day, every day I would talk a lot with everyone but after a week, it became so normal to see my mom making breakfast in the morning (not that I could get up early often enough to actually eat breakfast, LOL), or my dad telling me to wait for him so that we could just live together in one car, or everybody calling everybody for lunch and dinner, or my parents picking me up from somewhere and then taking me to a restaurant for dinner. I definitely miss all that the first few weeks I'm back here. It feels strange to start saying gua all the time again instead of saya. *Sigh* I love my family and everything that's somewhat annoying yet comfortable about them. Wouldn't trade it for anything.