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Saying goodbye to Juliana and the family in Legian Bali

Today was another scorcher and I got to try a Caeser Salad at the Hard Rock Hotel’s beach side restaurant courtesy of one of their managers.

The Hard Rock Caf� and Hard Rock Hotel are located next to each other on Jl. Pantai Kuta on Kuta Beach, but are actually separate businesses. Both are good places to catch a bite and enjoy a cocktail.

The Hard Rock Hotel has the most amazing pool, which combines the typical stone-sided pool with a man made beach, the sand is imported from Thailand.

The menu consists of sandwiches, burgers, pizzas, salads and pasta�all good. I had a carrot juice and chatted to my friend about the future. You can enjoy the beach club yourself for only 40,000rp.

Right after my meeting I got a call from Juliana, at least my phone said Juliana, it was actually Elle, Juliana’s Aussie mum. They are leaving tonight and invited me to lunch�when it rains it pours!

I scooted over to Zanzibar on Jl. Arjuna by Blue Ocean beach and joined Elle, Juliana, Julio from Italy, Grant and Grace�there I got all the names right. Zanzibar is Italian owned and they ordered a similar meal to my friend and I an hour before. Juliana wasted no time in telling us about the menu in her mother’s house in Baturiti, which includes sate snake, spiders from the kitchen, the back ends of giant ants and dragon flies. Apparently to catch dragon flies you take a palm leaf, strip all the leaf off except the vine part, then coat it in some kind of sticky palm sap. You then wave it around and the little buggers stick to it. Juliana said that after breaking off the head and wings you can fry or grill the remains and mix with garlic of sambal. She says it �enak’…maybe I will get a chance to check it out. The one thing she can’t stand is worms.

Elle told us the other day they were stopped at a junction by the police and after waiting for 15 minutes she got out of the car and told the office she was an Australian police officer, ranked as a captain. He walked over to Juliana and asked her if that was true and what rank Elle was. Juliana knows nothing about police rank but said �I think she’s a lieutenant or captain.’ The cop believed the story and shook Elle’s hand, no money exchanging hands! Good one Elle.

We enjoyed a couple of strong arak madu’s (arak with honey and a chunk of lime ). The steamy afternoon was moving along well.

I am reading a book called �A Season With Verona’ by Tim Parks which is about a man’s season following an Italian soccer team, something long the lines of �The Miracle Of Castel Di Sangro’. In the first chapter Tim is on the team bus going to the first game of season against Bari, 550 miles away. He documents vividly the comments and curses directed at the bus driver and anyone who wasn’t obviously a Verona fan. I had great fun trying these new learned pieces of Italiano out on Julio, who is a good sport and practiced my pronounciation�’il campionato piu bello del mondo’. I can just see myself ordering a
Cornetto in the San Siro!

Grant has been looking around for right board wax to give him the Bob Marley look and Grace told me she is about to start high school. She said she’s nervous as the new school is big and having a schedule of classes and a map isn’t something she’s used to. I trawled my memory banks and told her that somewhere in 1974 I was in the same boat. Not to worry there will be plenty of other people there to help her out.

I saw this on one of the tables. Amazing that people still buy them.

We said our goodbye’s and I rode over Bali Land & Houses on Jl. Kerobokan to see Made. We rode to a house buried deep in the alleys of Umalas which was quite decent. Made called the owners over and we did this little dance once again. “Owner ask 33 M rp, how much you offer?� I said “20M rp�. “Oh Mr Nick very low price, maybe you make one more offer.� I told Made straight I’m not going too high, he wants me to commit to 2 years�no way. The place is 2-storey 3 bedroom, plenty of space for visitors, but I really want to cut costs not get more rooms.

At my house Made The Phanton Gardner was busy at work with 3 other guys getting the place ready for the next tenant. Its like a slap in the face for me, he waits all year and then busts his ass in my last week. He better not come to close to me I’m not feeling like I want to look at him. I think I’m going to contact the owner and tell him Made is one of the main reasons I’m not renewing.

Will be exciting to see where I end up soon, my lease ends Feb 4th.

Mick Turnbull at Cathay Pacific was kind enough to forward me some info on how the new visa regulations will work here in Bali.