Hi everyone,

so at first a bit of introductions: before I decided to join Asia Exchange study program I had visited Bali twice in the past two years. It was whole this "lets have a surf trip" idea and overall I spent travelling & surfing throughout Indonesia nearly 6 months. And it was this special experience that made me realize I want to dig deeper into this country's unique culture, to learn the Bahasa Indonesia (official languague of Indo) and thereby the locals. I actually fell for Bali pretty much the first day I arrived and this "relationship" is getting more and more serious every day:)

So it's been almost a week since I arrived and we already went through the orientation program at Udayana University. The Faculty of letters where our program is going to be carried on is located in the capital city of Bali Denpasar. From what I can say so far it should be beyond interesting - except classic lectures being held in classes, there is also a lot of workshops involved. So we will have a chance to meet the locals and get into places which are unreachable for a regular turists. The program consists of a five courses and they will be all tought in English. There is of course Bahasa Indonesia and a variety of courses focusing on history, culture, economy and tourism in Indo.

The welcoming ceremony started with a traditional dance show, which was pretty impressive, it really has nothing to do with whatever dancing you experienced back home. All the colorfull and pompous costumes and special moves, even with the eyes! Naturally it was followed with a speech from the dean of Udayana University and all the stuff and the tutors have been introduced. The day 2 of the orientation was concentrated on detailed introduction of the schedule and also there was doctor informing us about the tropical diseases and other risks connected with staying in a new environment.

Not that it wasn't fun, but it was all about being serious so we all lightened up on friday on a welcoming party - all the students of the program alltogether with the people from Asia Exchange had a rooftop party in a well known Roma Amor restaurant in the center of Kuta, which is totally the most hustling place in Bali aka the party center :) in the legendary Legian street there is literally one gigantic club next to the other. Anyway the party was really special with all the live band playing and the superb local food & drinks being served. I guess we ended up having a real fun getting to know each other.

After a weekend of surfing (Bali is actually a real paradise for surfers, but about that later) is time to go back to uni, because the lectures are about to start tomorrow. So about all that next time.

See you***