Happy Birthday, Indonesia!

Tomorrow is Indonesian Independence Day. On August 17, 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender of World War II, Sukarno declared independence from the Dutch, and the Indonesian flag was adopted. I had secretly found the Indonesian flag a little boring until a visit to Wikipedia cured me. The red represents courage, physical life, and the color of palm sugar, and the white signifies purity, the spiritual life, and rice. Together they represent a whole human being and good Indonesian cooking.

Actually, so far I'm not in love with Indonesian food. Most of my experience is limited to catered meals provided by the school the first week I was here, but the food tended to be either very spicy or very deep-fried. Once they put little tiny fried minnows no longer than my thumbnail in a little plastic bag. I think I was supposed to sprinkle them on my rice, but I couldn't eat them once I figured out what they were. That's not to say that I haven't had some good food. A co-worker and his wife introduced me to an excellent little Korean restaurant near our apartments and I've had good Chinese and Japanese food. I can find plenty of American restaurants in the shopping centers, but you'll never guess what the most popular fast food joint is: KFC. I also cook at home, but sometimes it just seems like such a bother to spend time cooking just for me.

So the nice thing about Indonesian Independence Day is that I get a three day weekend out of it, but I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with it besides wondering why the three countries (United States, France, and Indonesia) I've spent the most time in all have their independence days in the summer. Actually, I think I'll go shoe shopping. I've been meaning to buy a pair of more comfortable shoes to wear to school, but my wide feet make shoe shopping hard even in the U.S., and I'm not keen on adding a new sizing system and a language I don't understand to the mix. However, I've gotten the kick in the pants I needed from my sister who told me, "Laura, suck it up, and go buy some shoes." Thank you, Erica.