Setelah sebelumnya sempat sering diprotes karena jarang nulis pakai bahasa ibu sendiri, saya coba aja mungkin yaa.. haha

Sebetulnya banyak alasan saya malas menulis menggunakan bahasa Indonesia, karena salah satunya saya merasa belum bisa menulis pakai bahasa yang baik dan benar. Suka masih malu juga karena ngomong aja masih suka campur campur bahasa Inggris, malah kadang Jerman kalau ngobrol dengan sesama pelajar Indonesia yang tinggal disini. Tapi bukan berarti saya tidak cinta bahasa sendiri. Bahkan sepertinya saya terlalu cinta dengan bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Jawa. Bagaimanapun juga kan saya lahir dan delapan belas tahun hidup di Jawa.. Sayangnya saya sempat tumbuh dengan pola pikir bahwa semakin pintar bahasa Inggris semakin kamu gaul dan kalau bisa menyelipkan beberapa kata bahkan kalimat bahasa Inggris di dalam percakapan maka semakin keren lah kita.
Itu dulu ya, waktu masih labil dan masih muda, maunya paling keren dan gaul jadi ga sudi lah dengerin D'Massiv atau ST12. Sampai sekarang juga masih mikir-mikir kok kalau mau dengerin 😁

Alasan yang kedua karena yang membaca blog saya ternyata tidak cuma dari Indonesiaaa saudara-saudara. Jadi rasanya (mungkin ini perasaan saya aja) kalau mau menulis post pakai bahasa Indonesia kok sepertinya agak egois hehehe lagi pula saya niatnya dari awal ingin berbagi cerita ke sebanyak-banyak manusia.

Jadi apakah maksud dibalik saya tiba-tiba nulis post ini? Banyak.

Beberapa orang terdekat saya suka (lagi-lagi) protes kenapa saya jarang berbagi pengalaman selama tinggal di negara orang. Karena.. sebetulnya.. saya ngga kepikiran kalau pengalaman-pengalaman saya ini lebih istimewa dari orang lain sehingga patut ditulis di blog. Untuk yang belum kenal saya, saya tinggal di satu flat hampir dua tahun bersama dua orang Jerman (satu laki dan satu perempuan), satu anjing, satu kucing, dan satu kelinci. Mereka ini sudah seperti keluarga saya sendiri, bahkan sepertinya saya lebih sayang mereka daripada adik saya sendiri (ups. ngga kok, bercanda). Mereka ini yang menghibur kalau saya lagi susah, mendengarkan cerita ga penting saya tiap hari, partner olahraga, teman makan pagi/siang/malam dan partner diskusi mulai dari politik, kultur, agama, sampai kenapa orang Jerman Utara suka makan telur yang kuningnya warna orange.
Saya pun cukup sering dapat komentar macam "kok tinggal sama cowok sih, padahal pakai kerudung." atau "ih terus kalau mau sholat gimana kalau ada anjingnya di dalam rumah??" "kan orang bule suka minum/makan babi/bawa pacarnya pulang ke rumah." dan pertanyaan plus pernyataan serupa.
Faktanya, teman serumah saya dua-duanya tidak ada yang minum alkohol di rumah. Bukan karena saya, tapi karena kesadaran mereka sendiri bahwa alkohol bukan sesuatu yang esensial. Kalau ada teman datang mereka memang bawa wine, mereka mau minum juga saya tidak ada masalah, toh ngga ada yang sampai mabuk, muntah-muntah atau ngga bisa balik pulang ke rumah. Di rumah saya juga tidak ada yang makan daging babi. Lagi-lagi bukan karena saya tinggal disitu, tapi karena mereka sayang sekali sama binatang dan kalau ngga terpaksa ngga akan makan daging :) lah, pas banget kan? Saya tidak pernah sengaja cari flat yang orang-orangnya vegetarian juga lho.. tapi saya percaya, kalau orang yang sefrekuensi akan menarik orang lain yang juga sefrekuensi.

Mereka juga partner saya dalam humanitas, bersama mereka saya akhirnya tahu bagaimana rasanya ikut demo di Jerman menuntut hak-hak untuk pengungsi, membantu orang-orang yang mencari perlindungan ini belajar bahasa Jerman, dan lain lain, dan lain lain.. Ini bukan pamrih, cuma saya rasa kalau saya tidak tinggal dengan mereka, mungkin saya ngga akan bisa berkembang dan menjadi seperti sekarang ini.

Saya merasa meskipun mereka belum percaya agama (yang satu baru saja memutuskan keluar gereja dan yang satu lagi mengaku ateis), tapi mereka sudah menerapkan nilai-nilai agama saya tanpa melihat apakah mereka akan mendapat pahala atau tidak, akan masuk surga atau tidak. Justru disitu saya iri, karena mereka sudah jelas melakukan hal-hal tersebut dengan ikhlas meskipun bukan atas nama Allah sementara saya mungkin masih ada secuil rasa ingin diganti kebaikannya oleh Allah entah itu dengan pahala atau hal lainnya. Dan saya sudah sering juga didebat dan dinilai nyeleneh oleh orang, kalau prinsip saya "sebaiknya melakukan sesuatu jangan karena surga dan neraka tapi karena Allah" itu... ya nyeleneh. Lalu saya pikir, kenapa tidak kita lakukan aja dulu dengan bismillah, urusan dapat pahala atau tidak, masuk surga atau neraka itu bukan kuasa kita lagi, kan?

Kenapa saya belajar menghormati keputusan dan kehidupan orang lain serta belajar menjadi manusia yang welas asih dan lebih baik justru dari orang-orang yang dicap oleh banyak orang di negara saya dengan "kafir"? Saya sering sedih kalau mendengar kata tersebut, bahkan menulisnya saja saya kurang suka. Menurut saya, kita sebagai manusia tidak dalam kapasitas mencap seseorang itu "tersesat", "kafir" atau bahkan "salah" karena kebenaran itu datangnya dari Allah saja. Interpretasi kita akan kebenaran itu bukan kebenaran yang sesungguhnya, itu kan hanya opini dan keyakinan kita. Ilmu saya dalam hadits dan Al-Quran memang masih dangkal, tapi kadang saya ngga sampai hati dan jujur aja, sering miris kalau orang-orang yang mungkin hatinya penuh dengan cinta dan kebaikan seperti teman-teman satu flat saya dinilai "kafir" dan harus dijauhi.. lucunya, bahkan teman-teman saya ini sudah bisa menjelaskan kepada orang-orang Jerman lain kenapa saya pakai kerudung dan bahwa dalam kasus saya, itu bukan paksaan dari kaum laki-laki seperti citra perempuan berkerudung di dunia Barat selama ini.

Rasanya saya tidak pantas dipertemukan dengan orang-orang seperti mereka. Rasanya saya selalu kurang bersyukur.. dan rasa-rasa lain yang membuat saya ingin menangis setiap selesai sholat.

Jadi kalau ada yang bertanya kenapa saya sayang sekali dengan mereka atau kalau ada yang menganggap saya terlalu liberal dengan pemikiran-pemikiran beragama saya, saya ngga mau ambil pusing lagi. Toh yang rugi mereka, karena tidak merasakan indahnya bersaudara dalam perbedaan dan kemanusiaan. Justru saya merasa, Allah terlalu baik deh sepertinya sama saya yang bukan apa-apa ini..

Kaiserslautern, November 2015 (Demo gegen Pegida)

"Dia yang bukan saudaramu dalam iman, adalah saudaramu dalam kemanusiaan." - Ali bin Abi Thalib



I discovered spoken word poetry -and Sarah- a few years ago and instantly fell in love with her poems. They speak the truth about human feelings, empowerment and even little things in life. One of my favorite poems of hers ever is this one. This makes me realize that men don't define you as a woman. If they can accept you with the way you define yourself as a woman, they're a keeper!

The Type

If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,
you can let them look at you.
But do not mistake eyes for hands or windows or mirrors.
Let them see what a woman looks like.
They may have not ever seen one before.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,
you can let them touch you.
Sometimes, it is not you they are reaching for.
Sometimes it is a bottle, a door, a sandwich, a Pulitzer-
another woman.
But their hands found you first.
Do not mistake yourself for a guardian or a muse or a promise
or a victim or a snack.
You are a woman- skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat.
You are not made out of metaphors, not apologies, not excuses.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,
you can let them hold you.
All day they practice keeping their bodies upright.
Even after all this evolving it still feels unnatural.
Still strains the muscle, hold firms the arms and spine.
Only some men will want to learn what it feels like to curl
themselves into a question mark around you,
admit they do not have the answers they thought they would
by now.
Some men will want to hold you like the answer.
You are not the answer.
You are not the problem.
You are not the poem or the punch-line or the riddle or the joke.

Woman, if you grow up the type men want to love,
you can let them love you.
Being loved is not the same thing as loving.
When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean after years of
puddle jumping.
It is realizing you have hands.
It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone 
home.

Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of women
men will hurt.
If he leaves you with a car alarm heart, you learn to sing along.
It is hard to stop loving the ocean even after he has left you
gasping- "salty."
So forgive yourself for the decisions you've made.
The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night.
And know this:
Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place
to call yours.
Let the statues crumble.
You have always been the place.
You are a woman who can build it yourself.
You are born to build.

Hi i'm back in the kitchen! Or back to baking, to be precise. I've been looking for the perfect banana bread recipe but then I realized I don't have a loaf tin so I decided to bake the banana bread as muffins, hence: banana bread muffins.

I wouldn't say it's the perfect recipe, but this one tastes surprisingly good, actually. Consindering that it's vegan, I'd say it's worth the try. I wanted to bake a non-vegan banana bread but then I realized (again) I don't have any eggs so I just tried the vegan version instead.

What you'll need:
225 grams of all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
100 grams brown sugar
3 very ripe bananas
75ml vegetable or sunflower oil
3 tsp cinnamon
Crushed nuts or raisins

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas and combine with the oil and sugar. Combine the wet and dry ingredients together, add your nuts or raisins. Put it in muffin tin about three-quarter full. Bake in oven for about 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Enjoy!

I like to eat them with sunflower butter, it gives them nuttier flavor that I love. Happy baking!
Well hello!

I am back in Germany, was greeted last weekend by very warm and sunny days here in Kaiserslautern and currently living with some of the most positive and nicest people I've ever met here. There's sooo much to be thankful for! :)

This time I left home with lots of hope and positive feeling, and hopefully it will stay so for a long, long time..
Also I have to admit that I've struggled so hard for the last 8 months or so and it feels kinda nice to finally be able to relax (a little bit, just a little bit) before things go crazy again.






"Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure." - Irving Wallace

Rara xx


Hi, hello, how are you guys doing?
So today's post is gonna be one of those rambling/random thought posts since life has been really crazy these days. I never really talked about this on the blog or any social medias, but I've spent this whole year preparing for my study abroad. Wait, this might sound good for those of you who don't know me, but it's been really exhausting taking care of everything by myself. What's so bad about studying abroad? You can go to a lot of new places, meet people, travel, have a promising job after graduating, etc, etc...

First of all, you need to know that there are tons of stuff to prepare before you're going to apply. Tons of documents, translations, e-mails, and that costs not a small amount of money too. But I don't want to talk about it in details. Mainly, it's a looong and exhausting process since I don't have that much money to pay people to do things for me. And it wouldn't be good for me too since I also have to do it all by myself when I live there.

There's been many difficulties and challenges throughout the year, but I somehow managed to deal with it, thanks to friends and family who helped me. The first couple of times I encountered some problems, I went easily into stress mode. I was afraid, over-thinking and worried if it doesn't work out. Up until a couple of days ago, when I realized my visa might not be ready in time. This means I wouldn't be able to take the test needed to go to college since there's only one date for the examination. I was devastated and worrying about all the efforts I've given and how long I've been waiting for this. So many thoughts were swimming in my head, I blamed the embassy, I blamed myself, I blamed the system, I was trapped with my own fears of failing and letting people down but then I realized that it doesn't bring anything good just to blame anyone.

The only thing I can do is to make peace with myself and accept whatever is going to happen. I've given everything I could, and if it doesn't work out, maybe it's just not meant for me. Maybe there's a whole other plan waiting for me, even if it means I must wait another year to go to college. I'm so glad that in tough times, you can always tell who would stay and support you through thick and thin and who wouldn't. If plan A doesn't work, then make a plan B. I'm supposed to leave in less than a week and I still haven't got my visa, I haven't booked a ticket nor packed my things. Maybe I should start packing today, just in case ;-) So, yes, I've learnt that you just need to let some things go if it doesn't work like you want it to be and you have no power over it. Sometimes what lays in front of you is a thousand times better than what you really want but you just couldn't see it yet. Now my heart feels much lighter than before, I sometimes meditate just to clear my mind up a little bit, even if it's only for 10 minutes.

If you're having the same problem like me, if anything doesn't work out like you wanted it to be -whether it's relationship/school/life in general- know that the hard times will always pass and you'll thank yourself that you decided to forgive yourself and let it go.

My heart is at ease knowing that what was meant for me will never miss me, and that what misses me is never meant for me. - Imam Shafi'i.



Rara xx

Hi there! This post is definitely gonna be one of my favorite because I was finally able to have a proper holiday, with my favorite people, doing one of my favorite things; road trip! It was bit of a bummer that not all 7 of us could go but we had tremendous amount of fun with loads of laughter, sore feet, camp food, monkeys and back aches from sitting too long. But hey, that's what we signed up for, right?

So I went to Jember, East Java with my 4 best friends and my brother, in search of adventure and beach camping. Turned out this place has a lot to offer but we only managed to get to 2 of the beautiful beaches and built our camp by the sea that night. After 5 hours of car karaoke, we finally arrived. The first beach that we went to was Puger. It's still super clean and we were the only visitors at that time apart from 2 other people so we got the beach for ourselves! This is the kind of beach that you'd find in Bali, but with no crowds, all the disgusting trashes and overpriced touristic stuff. We stayed there until the sun sets, break our fast and then we drove to the next beach: Papuma.






This beach. Is. The. Bomb. We've wanted to go since a loooong time ago when we were still in school but the opportunity never came. So when we finally realized that we can't see each other that much anymore, we started to plan a trip together and this place is definitely worth it. Because it was already dark, we had to ask the locals the way to the beach and we drove through this little bumpy road with no lightings whatsoever hahaha
We arrived safely at the beach which obviously we couldn't see because it was dark and found the perfect spot to set up our tents. And I tell you what, the sky was... soooo breathtakingly beautiful with abundance of shining stars and the calming sound of the waves. I just felt so lucky. After our tents are done, we cooked dinner which ended up ridiculously acceptable hahahaha I wouldn't tell you our cooking story in details, but it involved saliva dripping down the noodles and other impossible things. But heck yes we survived.
So the next morning we woke up to a bunch of monkeys looking for food. They kind of raided the rest of our food from last night so it wasn't a big deal. It was funny though, we didn't know what was happening at first because those monkeys appeared out of nowhere and walking towards us suspiciously so we all hid in the tents and after a while we realized how ridiculous we were. I mean... hiding from monkeys? Seriously?!
It rained just a little bit that morning and we couldn't see the sea because of the thick fogs. A little disappointed, we hoped for a better weather, packed our stuff and stayed at the shore until the sun comes out again. Luckily, the sun did come out and the fogs were already gone after a few hours and we could finally see the beach and its stunning views. After attempting to build a sand castle and failing, we decided to play with the waves until around noon. Soaking wet, tired and happy, we cleaned ourselves up and headed home. Too bad it was over, but I'm pretty sure this is not the end of our adventures.








So I guess that's all for now. I'm so sad that my time with my loved ones are drastically limited, since we used to see each other everyday and now we barely meet throughout the year. But the best thing is, no matter how long I've been away, nothing's changed. They're still the goofballs I used to know and we can literally tell each other everything. Distance makes the hearts grow fonder, right? Till another time then!



Rara xx
Hello, gorgeous souls! How have you been doing? It's been awhile since I last wrote a travel post and I think it's time to talk about solo traveling! I am not in anyway a professional traveler so I'm basically just going to talk about my experiences and thoughts along the way.

I was incredibly lucky to be given the chance to visit some tiny bits of this beautiful world and I think it shows us that we're nothing compared to how vast this planet that we're living in. 5 years ago I was probably just laying in my bed, wondering if I will ever have the chance to set foot in another foreign country. Life is amazing in its own way, isn't it?
The reason I decided to travel alone was basically because I had this urge to explore and I couldn't do it if I was to wait someone who wanted to go with me. I also traveled in groups a couple of times and it was also really fun, but different kind of fun, if you know what I mean haha
On some trips I didn't go completely alone, and that's one of my tips if you're not feeling sure to go out there by yourself. What I did was; I tried to contact some friends I know who live in the city and ask if I could stay in their place and if they could accompany me exploring the city. Or if they can't do that, we would meet up somewhere and talk and maybe ask them some insider tips around the city so I wouldn't be completely lost in a foreign place. I've done that when I was in Hamburg, Ingolstadt, Munich, and Paris. Except in Amsterdam because it was a day-trip which means I didn't have to stay the night there, so I went alone.


Pros of traveling solo:

  • Time flexibility. You don't have to depend on someone or wait for your traveling partner. I personally don't like depending on someone to go somewhere else so I think that's one of the perks for me.
  • Deepening the connection with your instinct. While I was traveling around Europe last year, I didn't have a smartphone at that time. No internet and no Google Maps. I could only rely on paper maps and my instinct. So yes, I think the best advice is probably to trust your instinct. And your mouth is also an asset, in case you get lost and need to ask for directions :p
  • Meeting new people. Because you're on your own makes it easier for you to make new friends along the way. Make sure first that they're someone you can trust and not suspicious.
  • You can understand yourself better. Learn from experiences. Why did you get lost? Did you pay enough attention to the signs? Do you have any courage to ask that stranger the way to get back to the hotel? I considered myself a bit shy before, but after some solo trips I learned that there's a part of me that could change and be more curious, more courageous and more spontaneous.



Cons of traveling solo:

  • Loneliness. The biggest thing I have learned to deal with since I first came in Germany. It's inevitable, you will feel lonely at some point but it's not that horrible, trust me. Just find ways to embrace it. You're not going to be alone forever, just so you know.
  • You need better time management. Because you have no one to tell you to do this or that, move that ass and make schedule of things you want/must do in that place for the day or as long as you stay there.
  • I can't recall what else are the big cons of traveling solo but whatever it is, it's totally normal. Stuff happens. I got lost in the middle of the night in Paris trying to get back to my hotel. I had to walk the whole day around Amsterdam while fasting because I miscalculated the date of first Ramadan last year. I waited from 3am until 6am at the train station alone because I didn't know the first train that weekend came at 6am.
See? It's not always fun traveling alone, for sure. But you will be more grateful to be able to be there and your eyes will be more open to the big yet small world that is planet Earth.





"The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready." - Henry David Thoreau