Last Monday, for the first time ever, Meliala’s Residence got two lovely guests! Hip hip HURRAY! Hip hip HURRAY! Hip hip HURRAY!
It started with a tweet from a respected Indonesian journalist living in London, “mau nonton fenerbahce main telat. galatasaray main away hari minggu. ya sudah. nonton tv saja.” Pancit, whose one of the hobbies is inviting people to visit Turkey, didn’t miss his chance to “invite” him to Turkey. I quoted the word invite since it turned out that he and his wife had arrived in Istanbul since the day before.
Thus, our first ever guests as husband and wife is the Arifin couple, mas Yusuf Arifin and his wife, mba Liza.
No, it’s not our house in the background, it’s the hotel where they stayed
On the second (of three) day of our meeting, they had lunch in our house. For that special occasion, I prepared Nasi Uduk with Indonesian fried chicken and egg. And I should not forget to mention sambal terasi, bawang goreng and lalapan. The later two are rarities to find in my house, so, yeah, it was quite special. I also prepared Meliala’s Mango Frapuccino as drinks 🙂
How did it goes?
First of all, we spent the night thinking about the menu that we are going to prepare. Since mba Liza missed sambal terasi so we brainstormed some food that goes well with it, including the opor ayam that I’ve mentioned before. The honor goes to complete set of Nasi Uduk!
At the morning, we cleaned up the living room, that is hardly been used except for drying clothes. We shifted the table in the living room with the one from our kitchen (I like the way it is now) and tidied things up a little bit. After that, Pancit went to buy some equipments and ingredients, while I started my mission in the kitchen.
After buying things, he went to pick the Arifin couple in Taksim, while I continued preparing our lunch.
Luckily when they arrived I had finished everything and we could enjoy our lunch. Later that night, after wandering around Cevahir and Spice Bazaar with Arifin couple, Pancit said to me, “I didn’t expect you to prepare such a nice lunch, especially the lalapan. I didn’t think that you’ll spend some time to garnish it. Thank you.” Nothing else matters, I was so proud of us! 😀
During the lunch, we talked mostly about living in England. It was a very interesting topic for me because I’ve longed to live there for a long time. From our conversation, I know that living in England is quite difficult, or to quote their words, “jahat memang Inggris itu.” 
They invited us to go there someday. I hope I can answer to that invitation soon.
That day we spent so many times chatting. During the lunch, while sipping cups of coffee at Starbucks, in the tram, and while drinking tea at night. We talked about their friends, who are currently sitting in high positions in Indonesia, and you know what, those people had, once, been young, like us. And like almost all of young people out there, they’ve done hilarious, if not stupid, stuffs. I know that life changes and as long as we want to struggle to get what we want, we might get there one day, but, listening to their stories, including the Arifin couple’s stories, makes it easier to believe. It happens in real life. People have been experiencing it and so will we.
Just a few days before they came, I had arguments with Pancit regarding meeting new people and making friends. I’m not as easy going as Pancit, it’s hard for me to open up a conversation and enjoy it with new people. I think I had forgotten the joy of talking with people coming from any background. Thus, those three days left quite a deep impression on me. It’s like a friendly reminder from the universe for me 😉
Well, listening to other people’s stories feels nice, but at the end of the day, we have to make sure that we have done our job and write our own stories gracefully.
Congratulation mas Yusuf Arifin and mba Liza for becoming our first guess 😛 and thank you.
p.s. For all of the three days, we were always late. I’m truly sorry for that and if I may borrow mas Dalipin’s words, biasanya kami ga telat loh 🙂