In Jakarta

Its now 3 weeks into January and there's so much to tell. I'll start with where I am today but it may take a full week to upload pictures and let you know where I've been for the past month.

Right now, I'm sitting in ELF Maura's luxury apartment in the Mega Kuningan area of Jakarta. This is the final stop to all my mid year adventures in Indonesia before going back to my site. Tonight is the Inaugural Ball at the Ritz and one of the most exciting things about it is, once midnight, when Obama speaks and gets formally inaugurated, it will also be my birthday. So a fancy event, a new president, the Ritz… I think I'll survive.

Jakarta is a very big city without a shortage of things to do. Perhaps the best thing about being here is the options for good food! This has been the story for me over the past few weeks, good eating at good prices. I'm sure I gained a few lbs, even with all the walking around. Last night we had Indian, lunch yesterday: Mexican that was surprisingly like home, and if you are into it, there's every fast food and donut place in the world here… and of course Starbucks which I might head down to in a moment and grab a coffee. All these things mentioned, including the Ritz, are in walking distance to Maura's apartment building.

Also within walking distance is the SOS medical clinic. I saw this clinic from the inside in person yesterday. During my travels with Jacques, I ended up with a nasty sore throat that lasted 8 days… luckily I was fine otherwise so it only hampered my enjoyment of swallowing said good food. I did see a doc in Jogjakarta who gave me some antibiotics that cleared up the throat but I was still coughing up a lung getting here to Jakarta. Even though I knew I was on the mend, the medical facilities in Jakarta are much better than those in Banjarmasin and I just wanted some peace of mind, which I got, including a throat swab that threatened to make me gag, lab test, more antibiotics and my blood pressure is normal! The clinic was so professional: I thought I was back in San Francisco. So now I'm just relaxing in Jakarta…if you can in fact really "relax" in Jakarta. Looking forward to a great speech tonight and hitting the age of 36.