tales of progress?

Quick catch up -- on Sunday, Bram from my boarding house went mattress shopping with me, and I splurged on a double made of dense foam. Additionally, I ended up with some Manchester United-branded pillows, which are a strange choice for me, but Bram seemed excited since they are his favorite team, and I figure that I at least leave the pillow cases with him when I leave. Apparently it was all delivered yesterday.

I made my second visit to the immigration office Monday morning and I was asked to wait until 2:00PM, when I was told that they couldn't help me and that I needed to return the next day. Returning home, I was enveloped in a sudden down pour, and being rained-in, I spent the afternoon reading in bed sleepy from the timbre of the rain drumming the roof. As the rain calmed, I made plans to meet up with Laura (who goes by "Lolly"), a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant from Pitzer College. We met at the Starbucks, which she refers to as the American Embassy, since it is popular with tourists and expats seeking American-style coffee. She seems like a fun, relaxed person, and I already have plans to grab dinner with her and a mysterious third person at Milas (an amazing vegetarian restaurant) tonight.

Today, I returned to the immigration office, which is currently undergoing a huge renovation with additions.  While I sit, yet again, on a bench outside an office, watching the employees wander around chatting with each other, the sound of hammers provides the sense that work is being done somewhere in the building.  After waiting for an hour, I was told that the person who will help me would not be in for another 2 hours, so I took a stroll, grabbed some food, and returned. At this point, I was finally ushered into an office where my extended stay permit application lay scattered across a desk. The gentlemen processing my case fanned himself with another application as he replaced all of the details in another applicant's word.doc with my own. Finally, I had some success, until he tried to print the document. None of the three abused printers in the office would cough out my document, so I was asked to wait further. I couldn't help noticing that printer boxes remained in the office, with shipping information -- none had been purchased locally, as they had all been shipped from the central immigration office in Jakarta. This disbursement of printers from Jakarta is the closest thing to a centrally-organized universal immigration program. The application process for various visas differ between offices -- even between the various offices in Jakarta.

Finally they printed my document in an adjoining office, long after I finished reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon), and I was told that the cashier had already left and that I would need to return tomorrow just to pay. At this point, I don't mind another visit because I am getting to know the employees at the office while simultaneously losing any sense of self-worth.

I'm excited for the healing power of the food at Milas.