NEW YEAR, OLD ADVENTURES

It’s 2025!  A new year and new experiences await as we will finish out our tour in Jakarta and move on to our next post in La Paz.  But before we start charting new territory, I have some catching up to do here.  Not going to lie – last year, and this blog, got away from me.  So here’s a CliffsNotes version on the second half of 2024.

On our return from our travel to Hawaii in July, I got swept into a temporary gig as a “Special Assistant” for our incoming Ambassador.  It was an all-consuming effort for over two months to rally the troops in the embassy to prepare briefing papers, set up initial meetings, and help smooth the transition between the outgoing and incoming leadership.  It was a great experience to learn more about what all the offices and agencies in the embassy do… but it was exhausting.  I was quite happy to return to my regular role in September - and spend a few days in Bali for the Labor Day holiday to decompress.

Blowing off steam at a driving range in our Ugly Golf Outfits.

The Embassy put on its own Olympics with various competitions over the course of July and August... including a 5K at the city's sports complex.  

On duty.  Welcoming our new Ambassador (in the red jacket) to the Embassy on her first day.

Off duty.  At the end of my two-month stint as Special Assistant, friends in our apartment building surprised me with this "flower board" (and a bottle of bubbles) in our living room. 

This is what flower boards usually look like.  There's usually a whole bunch of them - OUTSIDE.  They are set up by neighboring businesses to welcome a new business on their grand opening, or by friends to congratulate a couple getting married, or to recognize other events.  Pretty sure the flower board my friends got me was the first of its kind.   

I decided to come out of running retirement when we got back from Hawaii and looked for a race to put on the calendar and motivate me.  I found a half marathon in Perth in early October, so that became a focus (and way to blow off steam) for a few months.  (It could also have had something to do with my exhaustion while I was working as the Special Assistant too, now that I think about it…)  Perth is only about a 4-hour flight from Jakarta, and neither of us had ever been.  We decided to tack on a week in the Margaret River wine country as a reward after the race and as a bit of an early birthday celebration.  Genius!  I’ve found that it is imperative to have a holiday, vacation, or some sort of change of scenery on the calendar at all times to have something to look forward to.  Our Perth trip was a great source of inspiration.

Perth half marathon action shot.  Blue sky!  Awesome views of the Swan River!  It was a great course.  Andrew jumped in at the halfway point and ran the entire second half with me to provide encouragement - and serve as photographer.  

Whoop!  Done!  Time to celebrate.  

Taking in some views of downtown during a walk around Kings Park and the botanic garden.

Hiking a portion of the Cape to Cape track outside Margaret River.

Enough of this running, walking, and hiking.  Time to drink wine!  And we found a lot of good wineries where we did just that in Margaret River.

We also spent a couple days in Busselton, a lovely coastal town south of Perth.  May be a new favorite spot.

Back in Jakarta and an impromptu happy hour with friends to celebrate my birthday.  This is our apartment building's "conservatory" - a big common room on the ground floor.  There were no candlesticks or lead pipes or Clue characters to be found.

Back in Jakarta, we settled back into the usual routine.  But we had some fun distractions over the fall months – like an Oktoberfest celebration at a local German restaurant that was a really fun night, complete with amazing German food – in Indonesia!  Who knew!  We also made sure to have another getaway on the calendar – this time to the island of Lombok, just east of Bali.  It is a much less touristy place than Bali and proved to be a quiet spot to unwind and celebrate Andrew’s birthday and Thanksgiving.  A 2-fer!

Andrew took home first place - and a bottle of questionable sparkling wine - from the Beer Pitcher Holding Contest at Oktoberfest.  (I took second place in the ladies' division, and scored a set of Indonesian-made knives.  Because knives and drunk people are a good mix.)

On to Lombok to celebrate Andrew's birthday.

Lombok was a much mellower - and cleaner - island than Bali.  That's Andrew in the yellow shirt checking out the water.

Thanksgiving dinner included beachside cocktails and lumpia - Indonesia's answer to egg rolls.  

The pool at the resort had this crazy water-slide-meets-tiki-god-meets-chia-pet situation.

Scooters are outfitted to carry everything from a family of 4 to an entire produce market.

To get to the beach from our resort, we had to walk down a hill and past this free ranging herd of really big cows with really big horns.  Fortunately, they didn't seem to care much about us.

The view from the beachfront "warung" (little food stall) where we went for breakfast.

And the view from our hilltop resort.  Ahhhh.

As December started, so did the Christmas preparations around the city.  Even though the population of Jakarta and its island of Java are Muslim-majority (I can see – and hear – about six different mosques from our apartment building), there is no shortage of Christmas décor to be found.  It helps to set the mood, especially since the year-round 90-degree weather makes it hard to distinguish the seasons.  So we stayed in Jakarta for the holidays, as we have for all of our Christmases and New Years here so far.  I actually like working over the holidays because it tends to be a bit quieter and offers a chance to catch up on things that normally get pushed to the background.  We got together with friends who had similarly stayed put for the holidays to enjoy an absolutely indulgent Christmas Day feast at a hotel in walking distance from our apartment.  We also organized a progressive party with friends in the building to celebrate New Year’s Eve that wound its way through four apartments en route to the rooftop to ring in the new year (and look over what looked like the carpet bombing of Jakarta from above – this city looooooves fireworks).

Christmas decorations - complete with a soundtrack of Christmas music - on display in our apartment lobby.

A Christmas tree lighting party at the St. Regis hotel.

More Christmas decorations on display at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Nothing says Christmas more than an ugly sweater party with friends.

Rooftop festivities on New Year's Eve.

And a brunch with friends on New Year's Day to kick off the new year.  

So that about catches us up through the end of the year – except for a short trip to Vientiane, Laos in mid-December to reunite with some friends from our Zimbabwe tour.  (While it was only a short trip, it was pretty magical, and so I’ll write about it separately.)  Feels like I gave short shrift to the second half of 2024 with just this one blog post.  Rest assured while these old adventures from 2024 got fairly rudimentary coverage here, new adventures await in 2025 – and we’re eager to get on with it!