Da Equator

Wow.
Iola just had her first encounter with proper stairs (while crawling on her own, I mean—obviously she's been carried up stairs before). Five flagstone stairs with ten-inch risers, and she was up those bad boys with no hesitation. Totally fearless, although (I was pleased to note as a concerned father) very sensibly maintaining three contact points at all times.

The scene of the crime was the Hotel Equator, well known to those of you who know it well—a lush little establishment about five minutes walk from our house. We hied ourselves there for a weekend of air-conditioning, satellite television, hot showers, poolside lounging and buffet breakfasts after a planned weekend away in Trawas fell through.

Poor Tash didn't know which way to jump. Every minute spent luxuriating under a hot shower was a minute that could have been spent floating around the pool with Iola. Every minute spent savouring one of the Equator's justifiably famous made-before-your-eyes omelettes was a minute that could have been spent watching David Attenborough (sp?) or the Sponge Bob Square Pants marathon.

Serious thought was given to staying up all night watching TV and having hot showers, then getting down to breakfast as soon as the buffet opened at 6am, but in the end we only made it til about one-thirty before we crashed (would have been earlier, except I couldn't remember how The Sign of Four ended, and had to stay up to find out).

Tell you what, though: for a relatively inexpensive hotel (by Australian standards that is—we paid about fifty bucks for a lovely bungalow with balcony, sitting room etc) they sure made us feel like royalty. It's all in the details—like the staff learning guests' names so that as we walked past we were greeted as 'Mr and Madam Fleming', or the doorman telling the taxi driver our address when we left. It was kind of nice in a weird, colonial kind of way to be treated like royalty for a change.

Apart from that, it's been a relatively uneventful week on the home front. Big changes at work, though. John, our next-door neighbour and Director of Studies at Bukit Mas (i.e. my boss) has had a bit of a promotion, and taken on a double-barrelled role, running EF's new school (Jemo Sari) and heading up the young learners programmes for all the schools.

It's sad to see John go. He's been extremely helpful during our first few months here, both professionally and personally. His replacement, Hannah, is lovely, and I'm sure she'll manage to fill his shoes.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked writing this when I should be finally watching Babel (it's one of a long, long list of movies I haven't got around to seeing yet). I was planning to kind of multitask, but I didn't realise just how much of it is subtitled. I'll have another bash at uploading some video of Iola when I post this at work tomorrow.

Selamat Sore.