Lost in Paris

Ehm I suppose that everbody looking forward to get lost in some place exotique or romantique...and hopefully with someone special and a lot of money in the pocket to spend on, but from those three requirements, I'm only lucky enough to fullfill one requirement..and that is getting stranded in the world's most anticipated place for tourism...Paris!!! and for others requirements, well to have someone special with...not that lucky, and to have a mega bucks in the pocket...haha not that rich,I should be gratefull to get stranded in a very beautiful city like Paris...especially I'm there to celebrate the Idul Fitri in the embassy of Indonesia in Paris. My main goal is to seek if there is any rice and cuisine with Indonesian taste...because I have an original Indonesian tummy that need to recharge with some "opor ayam" and "ketupat". And frankly speaking I let myself get stranded...trully:) So the journey began when I left the class and take the train to Paris, well it's not a direct train, first we have to take the corail intercites from Rochefort to Nantes, and at nantes we have to wait for about 20 minutes before we can catch the TGC to Paris, so I arrived in the station Paris Montparnasse at 20.30, luckily my whole plan to strand myself apparently doesn't work as I plan it at first, there at the station had been waiting for me, my friends, Indonesians and Frenchs, they invite me to stay in their small apartment as long as I'm in Paris.it was 30 September 2008
So the next day, as I planned before, we go to the Indonesian embassy to do the pray "Idul Fitri" and also to find some rice! but the expectation just flying to high. but of course the main goal is to pray and to find a piece of home in the land of stranger, it was because the visits of Indonesian vice president in France to attend the ceremony of Nobel Peace prize that goes to ex Finnish president Marti Ahtissari for his effort to resolve the International dispute over 30 years, for the Indonesians, he was a very important person realted to the Aceh peace process between the Indonesian government and the Aceh Freedom Movement (That hopefully no longer exists for real). Ok so much for that. So to honour the vice president, the banquet is moved to the day after, no big deal, I can always come for the next day to meet and talk to my compatriot Indonesians. It was 1st October 2008
On 2 October 2008, I had planned to walk myself to the heart of Paris, that's mean the center of the city, so there I am starting my long march by taking a subway (metro)from mairie-clichy to the Charles de Gaulle subway station and take the Arc de Triomphe, I consider that to be the point where the journey to victory had begun. So there I go discovering Paris in a small steps with broken shoes starting from Arc de Triomphe and walking along the Champ Elysees, at first with a wrong direction instead of taking the direction of Place Concorde, I was taking the direction to the Grande Arche La defense, for your information the Grande Arche is in a line with the Arc de Triomphe, Place Concorde, and the Pyramid of the Louvre museum. So I have to make turn to the direction of Place Concorde, and I suddenly I just realize I have to pee, and there's no place to find that I can pee. Thanks God that I found a park with a small toilet in the middle..so for you guys that lost in the middle of -unfriendly city to the person who has strong desire to pee- and wanna pee, just look for the park, they are not that cruel to eliminate all the toilet in everyplaces haha. So after the call of nature, here I go again with a small steps continuing marching to the Place Concorde, in this place there are an obelisk that originally transported from Egypt as a gift to the France, and in this very place is the place where the beheading of Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were taken place with the 'Guilotine, from there I continue the march to the Louvre museum, there it's suddenly raining for a short time, from there I decided to go to the famous Cathedrale Notre Dame (Our mother), and just in front of the cathedral there is the point zero of the France, from there I'm headed to the ultimate destination in Paris, The Eiffel tower, and while headed there I'm passed the Palais Justice, Musee d'Orsay, Hotel Invalides, and finally from the distance I saw the Eiffel Tower, and just in the front of the tower there were the Ecole Militaire, the military school that once was the school of Napoleon Bonaparte, hopefully one day I can be there too. So the final touch is in the tower, because your presence in France is not complete before you go to the Eiffel Tower. From the tower I take the metro in Trocadero just half kilometer from the tower to go back to the apartment.
The rest of the days I spent at firts at the banquet with the vice president, and the next days there are an invitation to the house of one of the Indonesian that having a party well we can call it 'syukuran' for the coming of Idul Fitri. I gratefull for this is one experience not everyone could have, get lost in a very beautiful city, with convivial friends, and unknown things that will happen aftter, doesn't it just give you the rush.....cheers for the rush and the flow of adrenaline!

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Museum-trace of civilisation

All across the Europe from 20-21 September is known as the "heritage Day" or what the french say as 'Journée Européenne du Patrimoine ' this is a special day where all the heritage or legacy of the past that we could still find in the present day, and that will include museums, monuments, historical sites, and many things that consider to be having historical value, and of all those things mentioned above is open for public for free..yes for 2 full day, so we don't have to pay to get into a famous museum or other places that contain a historical values. And I use this valuable times to visit two sites here in Rochefort that considered to be historical by local people or maybe by the whole people all over France, the first will be the house of Pierre Lotti (La Maison de Pierre Loti) and the second is The Transporter Bridge (Le Pont Transbordeur)both of those location is sited in the small city of Rochefort, which is situated in western of France. And now let get into the interesting part of the story, for the first place is the house of Pierre Lotti, for those who have no idea who this person is.. this is a very well known writer of modern France, he is also a voyager and a French navy (Marine nationale), after he finished his journey mainly to the pacific and region Maghribi (arab), he dedicated his house as a place of attraction and latter as a museum, this house is not too big just as size of medium house in France..but this is something that surprised me...the visitor that came that day is...we could say fully reserved...and we have to make a reservation a day in advance before we can get into the house (in addition we could not take any picture inside of the house..so sad), infact there are 5 of our friends that came a little late are not allowed to get in because they already give the seats to another visitor who happens to be in line to enter that particular house...so you can imagine, how high is the level of appreciation being given by the Frenchs to an old fashioned house that filled with personal belongings, and the past owner happen to be a very well known writer. The second will be the transporter bridge that some of us will think that this bridge have a unique..if we can't say bizzare structure and architecture, it has a gondola below of the main structure that used to carry many things from peoples to a vehicles,and it is moving from one side of the river to another back and forth..so the river still can be used as a traffic for a passing ships that toward the sea or back from it, but then again it's historical and have a very high value in the history, it was built before the World War I, and now the function of this odd bridge has been replaced by the new viaduct that across not far from the historical bridge, and in this particular day peoples are coming there for just a sightseeing and visiting the small museum dedicated to the bridge that contain the whole history of the bridge, and once again I was stunned of the appreciation of the peoples that came to that site, there's a whole bunch of people were coming just to take a walk or passing time with family and friends. And now we are coming to the ironic part of this story..when we compare it to the heritage in our beloved country Indonesia...maybe without further explanation we all already know what happen to the heritage in Indonesia how the peoples' appreciation towards it, do you see a museum full of people? do you see a place which has a historical background visited oftenly by peoples..okay maybe there are some visitors but if they aren't some students doing their research or it could a small part of people who really appreciate the values,and that mostly in a place that very popular such as the temple of Borobudur and the palace of Yogyakarta hadiningrat, but in general the level of appreciation is not high enough because there are more sites that unknown by most of our own people...such as (bet most of you don't know this site....) the antropologic site of Sangiran, the candi arjuna in Dieng, and the museum of Trowulan Mojokerto, and there's even more historical sites that hasn't been updated and listed by the historical service of Indonesia, okay that is the ancient heritage now..I don't want to get too far let just say the house of Bung Karno in Blitar that nearly sold by the family, and how about the house of Bung Hatta...anyone know what is the condition right now??so it's Ironic when we say all the time to ourselves that our nation is a great nation that appreciate their heroes...Then let me take you back to the house of Pierre Loti..he is not even a countryman nor politician of France..he just a famous writer and happen to be a great voyager with a whole lot of story and imagination on his mind..but see what happen to his house, it has become of the museum very well known in France..where many people come every time just to see what is in that particular house and they protect the house from any other interest such as bussiness interest etc. While in our country..a historical site is not more important than a new shopping center that densely crowded the city with another mall that already have a numberous amount of them, an example to be taken..in Surabaya just nearby the Heroes Monument there are an ancient hospital building that was build in the time of colonial and now being converted to a particular mall, and this has becoming a trend that slowly eaten the historical sites and values that still remaining. Don't let ourselves get panic when there are nothing left for us to cry, when everything has been vanished...left us to cry why we don't have the awareness to protect it from the beginning.
Okay enough for the irony...let me take you back across to France, so there I am after the visit I get the chance to see the news and it said that there are a enormous increase in numbers of the visitor to the museum (maybe they are similar to Indonesians which used the "free of charge" chances to visit the places that used to be charged!!hehe all the peoples across the worlds is just the same)and it even breaking the records of the number of visitor coming to the museums all across France....isn't that just incredible how the people of France appreciating their heritage and remembering what kind of greatness they have in the past, and keep them alive with the one of the greatest civilization on earth. I wish that our people can grow such awareness...wer are too will be a great nation indeed.

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Dreams do come true..!!

“Our Deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous ?
Actually,
Who are you not to be
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us
And as we let our own light shine
We unconsciously give other people permission
to do the same”.

This has become my motto and ever since I always believe that me...everyone could be what they want to be almost unlimited and the only limit is when Allah has destined us to stop dreaming, stop achieving, and stop breathing...untill that day come...our achievement is only limited by our own dream and imagination....how wild is your imagination, how big is your dreams and how far your mind travel...the answer is unlimited the only problem is that we ourselves that limit our dream by saying I can't, no..it's just not for me etc and other bullshits.
so dream while you still can, it's dreams that make Galileo can invent so many things, it's dreams that make Alfa edison invent lamps and we are not living in darkness now.

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It's possible but it's difficult.....It's difficult but it's possible

This article is inspired by the writing in this web
A loser will always end their phrase with "It's possible but it's difficult" and a winner will always say the phrase "It's difficult but it's possible"

It's always end with a choice within ourself...what would you like to be??a loser or a winner didn't a wisdom saying tell this...life is a choice....
Description of a loser that they don't believe in what they do, no self esteem, feeling fear all the time, and trusting that everything he does is hopeless and will not get anywhere..but there..that's why a loser always afraid to try new things and they prefer to stay in their comfort zone since they don't want to experience pain in their way to try the new things. on the contrary a winner always see that pain is the way before victory like a butterfly that came from catterpillar always phasing the phase of cocoon, the phase where we have the contemplation and reflection of ourselves, the phase for a winner means a lot of hardworks, prayings, pains, believe in his own streght and then fight because No Pain No Gain..!!The option is in your hands Man....

We all want to be the winner that is one thing for sure, because choosing is not a hard moves...just say of course that I wanna be the winner...everyone does..but in the term of application this one thing remain to be difficult to do. If you see life as a battlefield..indeed it is since the beginning we were delivered to this world in the hands of our mothers to the time you stand right now, we've experienced a bunch of struggling, fighting, and our own indifferences against the worlds.

We're born as a winner but so very unfortunate that we ourselves that make us as a loser, when we are a child all we can do is crying if we need something or refusing things, and you see now that we can walk, eat, run, jump on our own, that is because as a growing human we have this winner setting but when we have the ability to think by our own mind...that's the time when we put the fear, desperate feeling in our systems. because if we're born as a loser there'll be no more human races in this world because we can't do anything to survive

If we were created as a winner, then why we change it into a loser??it's our own choice to make...well you see guys that a loser always trying to find a scapegoat for their failures, a loser that turn around when facing a dead end, and always trying to find a shorcut for their problems because they don't dare to face it in person, and want to gain big without hardworks, and always praying for miracles to happen in their boring life.

To face the obstacles that we are facing right now is just an episode of our entire life, one obstacles after another is a phase as a cocoon in life. And when the problems arise is the time to choose...which side we are destined ourself to be, the winner or the loser. A winner with wholeheartedly knows that result won't come miraculously, but with that came along hardworks, pain, suffering. But that won't stop them just because there's a blockade upfront, he knows that he is in the right path to victory (as a hints some said that the beacons that indicate whether you are in the right way is you gonna face a lot of troubles along the way, and he just continuing to walk down that long winding road because they believe that after difficulties will come their achievement. They won't make a fool out of themselves and certainly not to anyone elses by doing cheting in their attempt to succes.

If we choose to be a winner, there's always the times to prepare all the things we might need in the way, there's plenty of time to armed ourselves with courage, positivity to shield ourselves from the attack we might get in the way..and the most important to set our mindset into the mindset of a winner...the whole thingy is in what way we see ourselves as....a winner or a loser, a winner never stop at a dead end they will make a way out of it..a loser will turn back and return to their comfy couches and never thinking of trying back.The choice is yours to make!!

This is as an affirmation....we are what we want us to be despite of what the rest of the world might think of us, we have to believe that we can overcome anykind of obstacles and problems, as long you believe it...take that first step and trust!!!
Keep on fighting Man!!


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Blogging the new adventure!

At first I dont really know and don't really care and give any damn of what they so called blogging et cetera...et cetera. and that opinion stand still untill there's a phenomenon that one single blog can actually achieve something different...on this particulary is quite a relative for each person you see..
because by blogging a person can realizing what they think it's their dreams, and mostly in the world of writing and perhaps sharing or telling an idea that maybe in other occasion would be very difiicult. So there it is, I start to change my view from non blog user to full blogger, for me personally by blogging I can share my thought and idea...the wildest I coul get by writing on the blog, and I can see the different response each people could give based on my writing, so there we have a two way discussion, isn't it great, I remeber a wise saying that said "A wise man is a man that could have a different point of view at the same time" meaning that by accomodating the different poin of view of many people, we coul expand our vision beyond ourselves and therefore we could get the wisdom that we hope for. But that just too high for me now, for now I just love the idea to share Idea and get response on something I think about,or maybe the preoccupation I have right now...so yes!! the conclusion will be that I feel that this new blog could be the reflection of the thought I have recently and maybe in general will be the place for most of Bloggers to share Idea, well that would be a dream then but you know something that everything was started with just a dreams..a very simple dream that become the fuel to realize everything you ever want, then again to end my post that I start this blog with a dream..a simple dream that I'll try to make it real!!!

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The Challenge is within...

Now I know the whole matter that the biggest barrier a person can face is himself, kenapa saya bilang seperti itu ...lebih dikarenakan pengalaman yang saya rasakan selama ini bahwa semua masalah yang kita alami dan hadapi lebih dikarenakan kita mengkondisikan masalah itu untuk berbentuk seperti yang kita bayangkan.....bingung....sama saya juga bingung!!!...gini deh Aa Gym pernah bilang dalam salah satu ceramahnya, kalau dimisalkan hati kita seluas lapangan bola terus ada ular di lapangan, panikkah kita jawabannya kemungkinan besar tidak karena ular itu ada di ujung lapangan dan kita di ujung lainnya, tapi kalau hati kita dimisalkan sebesar kamar mandi sebesar 2x2m terus ada kecoak..apalagi tikus!!! ga usah ditanya panik ato engga..pasti!!! malah mungkin campur teriak-teriak g keruan. Nah intinya bagaimana kita menempatkan diri kita untuk selalu dalam posisi berhati luas sehingga apapun yang kita hadapi akan selalu nampak kecil di depan kita, seberapa besarnyapun masalah itu sebenarnya..menurut saya ini yang disebut "mental barrier".
Kalau kemudian saya hubungkan dengan hukum tarik-menarik atau teori afirmasi yang ramai dibicarakan selama ini semenjak keluarnya buku "The Secret" dilanjut dengan buku "Law of Atrraction" kemudian di Indonesia ada "Quantum Ikhlas" yang intinya membicarakan hal yang sama yaitu mengkondisikan diri kita agar selalu mempunyai hati seluas lapangan bola bahkan samudera bila perlu, sehingga apapun yang kita hadapi kita akan selalu siap untuk itu dan selalu berpikir dan berperasaan positif (Positive Feeling-meminjam istilah dari Quantum Ikhlas, nah...saya kemudian berpikir bukankah dalam Al Qur'an juga Allah SWT menyebutkan "Berprasangka baiklah pada-Ku maka Aku akan seperti yang kau sangkakan....." kurang lebih isinya seperti itu teng tong!! ring any bell??.. intinya ya berperasaan positif itu tadi, ketika kita berprasangka baik kepada Tuhan maka Tuhan akan membalasnya sesuai dengan apa yang kita sangkakan, hanya di dalam buku-buku populer dikatakan ketika kita memancarkan frekuensi kepositifan maka alam semesta akan menjawab dengan frekuensi yang sama dengan yang kita pancarkan, nah Allah khan meliputi alam semesta seperti yang dinyatakan dalam ayat kursi yang mengatakan bahwa Arsy Allah meliputi langit dan bumi...itulah Alam semesta alias universe dan disebutkan maka berdo'alah maka Allah akan mengabulkan.....sound very familiar right!!!ketika kita mendekat kepada Allah maka level kepositifan kita akan selalu dalam posisi yang tertinggi karena kita percaya bahwa dengan Allah semuanya akan tampak kecil, sebesar apapun masalah itu nampaknya, namun disebutkan kemudian bahwa Allah akan mengubah nasib suatu kaum ketika mereka mau merubah nasibnya sendiri, jadi disimpulkan harus ada unsur 'usaha' disini tidak cukup dengan berdo'a dan berafirmasi tapi memang dibutuhkan 'gerakan' nyata sehingga teori "mestakung" Prof Surya pun masuk dalam hitungan deh...!ketika kita bergerak menuju sesuatu hal maka alam akan ikut bergerak untuk kemudian mendukung kita. Nah...nah sudah jelas khan bahwa memang setiap manusia memang harus berdo'a sebagai cerminan kepositifan kita terhadap Allah yang meliputi universe dan seisinya, kemudian berikhtiar sebagai cerminan nyata bahwa kita memang ingin berubah... dan terakhir berikhtiar...sebagai cerminan kepositifan kita untuk menerima segala sesuatunya dengan pasrah, sesuai khan dengan teori yang terkini yang banyak kita baca.


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to have Ramadhan outside Indonesia

It's my first time to have the holy month of Ramadhan outside my own country, off course that everything will be different particularly the duration of the fasting that we practice, but hey it's an experience that worth dying :) I arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport in 1st September 2008 and continue to Rochefort, it's about 2 hours by TGV, if you imagine TGV like the train we have in Indonesia...well...not even close hehe, 2 hours by TGV equal to..maybe..approximate 10 hours with PJKA..yes sir it's like heaven and earth.
so i have my sahur here and break fasting also, thanks God that I have some Arabic friends here (three comes from Saudi and two others from Yemen) so i can be accustomed to the Ramadhan in France. well you see...when you are in Indonesia to have brother muslim around you it' doesnt feel special because you are the majority,but when you are the minority the bond felt strong. so here I am doing the fasting in other country. even when you are doing the Jum'ah prayer it felt different because the place that we have to do the prayer can't be called mosque, maybe just a 'surau' or 'langgar' in Indonesia, but the jama'ah that attend it came from all over the country, Africa, Europe, Mid East, and surely Indonesia hehe


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