Zia's World

With my buddy (November, 2008)

This is my photo with Heike in front of Rathaus Freiburg. The other girl was Heike's friend. Actually, we were four persons. The other person was Heike's boyfriend. He helped me to take this photo. It was my first walking around the center of Freiburg city. We went to many typical places and object tourism in the city center. They are friendly and our walking was also nice. We ended it by sitting and drinking warm drinks in the warm cafe in the city center.

Heike is my buddy. It is called like that in Freiburg university. Studentenwerk of Freiburg university offers buddy for each person from outside Freiburg to have a contact with other student in the Freiburg university per email before our arrival in Freiburg. It is helpful if we don't know the real situation in Freiburg, we can ask.

Heike full name is Heike Heller. We got in touch since I was in Indonesia, before my arrival in Germany. I met her for the first time in the train station of Freiburg city on October 6th, 2008. She picked me up in the train station. She helped me to get into my room after my arrival in Freiburg. She helped me very much in my first year in Freiburg. Now, we kept our contact by emails and facebook and meet for some times.

With my friend from Indonesia (January, 2009)

This is my friend from Indonesia who visited me in Freiburg. Her name is Yuni. Yuni is one of my friends in German class course in Goethe Zentrum Surabaya.

Summer 2009, finally we met in Freiburg. This photo is taken in front of student service point in Studentensiedlung, my place. We didn't take much photo but more talking. Up to now, we often communicate through email or even Facebook.

With my neighbor from Japan and my sister (November 2009)

The person inside this photo were me, Eriko (my neighbor), and my sister. This photo is taken during our dinner in our kitchen. We shared foods together. I and my sister cooked Indonesian foods. Eriko cooked Japan foods. This dinner is hold one day before my sister went back to Kassel after have visited me for more than one weeks. We ate very much and the foods were also delicious.

Eriko comes from Japan and she studied economy in the same university, Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg. Her full name is Eriko Watanabe. We met each other for the first time on April 2009. She was my new neighbor in my new flat. She likes art, cooking especially cakes and cookies, bio product, and coloring her hair. She is stylish and friendly. She prefers Japan style even she was in Germany. She has many experiences about cookies and cakes. She is very creative in making something from art.

Eriko and I had spared many times together: cooking, walking, eating. We shared very often many recipes of foods, cakes, or cookies. We talked almost everyday and shared our happy and sad times. Sometimes we talked about our culture and the differences. We have the same care about nature, environment, and pollution. I learned very much from her about cooking, German language, and etc.

With Eriko's friends (24th Desember 2009)

On Desember 2009, 2 Eriko's friends came from Japan. Their name is Natsuko and Yuki. Natsuko wore a pink lovely band in the head. Yuko and Eriko wore red long hat. On 24th December 2009, we ate and spent the night together.

The menu was simple "Chicken soybean sauce". It's Indonesian food, we prepared everything for our dinner together . They also decorated the glasses with small pink-funny elephant.

After we had finished our dinner, I had a lot of surprises (My presents). They gave me souvenirs from Japan and Salzburg. From Japan were Kukiwakame and Umeboshi. Kukiwakame is a snack from seaweed. It's typical snack in Japan and they eat it usually with palm-leaf rib. Umeboshi is a kind of red plum, the taste is very sour. It was packed by small plastic. The souvenir from Strassburg is a typical bread in France and there is a story behind. That time when the economic condition in France was bad, many people can't eat bread as their main food. Then Princess Marrie Antoniatte said that people still can eat cake. That cake was that bread. Because I didn't prepare any present at all, I made for them "Sweet-moonlight cake" tomorrow morning after that night.

Farewell Trip (January 16th - 18th 2010)

This was a farewell trip between me and Eriko. She would go back to Japan on February. On 23 February Eriko went back to Japan. It's a memorable trip between me and Eriko.

Our destination town were two. They were Dusseldorf and Hessen. I and Eriko had this journey for three days. We started to go from our home in Freiburg on Saturday morning. We arrived in Freiburg on Monday evening.

 Eriko, Tomomi, and Me

Strawberry Waffle in Heinemann Cafe

Family Funk & Leonardo in Dusseldorf

This foto was taken after we had finished our dinner. For me, it's my first dinner with a German Family. I also never meet them before. But they were very welcome and warm. The guy standing behind us was Leonardo. He was very friendly. Leonardo stayed by Family Funk house like Eriko in the past. All of us talked before and after the dinner. We also watched a video created by Leonardo. It was about his trip in many cities in Germany and other countries around. It's a great video.

In the first day, we went to Hessen. In this small town we met Eriko's friend. Her name is Tomomi. Actually, I never meet Tomomi before, this was the first time. She is friendly and nice. I talked and discussed about everything; love, idea, dream, food, interesting places in the world, and life style. We stayed in Hessen for one night.

In the morning, on Sunday I and Eriko went to Dusseldorf. We had two plans in Dusseldorf. First to meet Eriko's guest Family and the second to go to famous Cafe "Heinemann".

Finally, we arrived in Dusseldorf in the morning at 10 o'clock. First destination was Heinemann Cafe. This is Eriko's favorite cafe. She had promoted this cafe to me due to the delicious foods and drinks there. Of course, the price is expensive. But it was nice. This is Strawberry Waffle. The taste is delicious. I like very much.

Actually this waffle was not mine, it's Eriko's. I just wanted to try it. In Heinemann Cafe we ate two different waffles. We tried each other. And tried to compare it, which one was better. But useless, both of them were the same.

After we finished our breakfast, we went to Family Funk' resident. We arrived there in the night. Family Funk were Eriko's guest family when she took a German course for one month. Eriko told to me that in this city she never go to every where and always learn her German lesson very well. German people say "Sie lernt wie verruckt Leute". Eriko was very diligent.

We also stayed in Family Funk house for one night. After all of us had finished with our pleasant talking after the dinner, I, Eriko, and Leo spent the night with singing a Japan song together. It's a song of Leo's favorite anime from Japan "Dragon Ball". It's a pity I felt sleepy. I had to go to the bed earlier than Eriko and Leo.

In the morning we had a breakfast together. The breakfast started at 9 o'clock. Mrs. Funk had prepared everything. We couldn't help her, even we had tried to wake up earlier. In the breakfast, we ate also a cake made in Mrs. Funk. The taste was good. After the breakfast we met Mr. Funk's brother. We also talked about our life in Freiburg and our country. He is a nice person. Unfortunately, we had to go back to Freiburg. We said good bye with Family Funk and Leonardo. Mr. Funk's brother took us to the train station. We also said goodbye with him.