I arrived in Yogya last night and started my Indonesian course this morning at 8am. The Realia school is in a large converted house, 12 classrooms with a lovely garden in the middle. This week, there are 6 of us. A girl from AusAid (Australian equivalent of USAID), a guy from CIDA (Canadian equivalent of USAID) and his Japanese wife, a Swiss guy who worked for the World Bank but is now working on his phD dissertation, and an Australian Defense guy. The Swiss and the Aus Defense guy are long-termers, one staying for 8 months, the other for 1 year. The rest of us are here for either 1 or 2 weeks. It’s a nice group of people. I’m planning to go out to check out the silver factory with the Aussie girl tomorrow.
Classes begin at 8am and there are 3 classes each day. For each class, I have a new teacher (all classes are 1-on-1). The teachers are really talented at writing upside-down since we sit across from each other and they write new words, definitions and instructions down for me, so they have to write upside-down. It’s pretty neat. I will have 5-6 teachers that will cycle through every 2 days or so, this way, I don’t get tired of looking at the same face day after day and am exposed to different speech styles and accents. Classes are from 8-10, 10:10-12, and 1-3.
I’m staying in a hotel that’s in the middle of town. There’s a shopping mall right next door and some good restaurants around. I’ve discovered this place called Thai Express. I think I’ll be going there for dinner quite often! There’s also supposedly a driving range on the hotel roof, still need to check that out…
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