VISTA #11: COVID-19 and Cancelled Flights

Hey you guys!

Sooo I am currently at home in Indonesia since mid February. My plan was to go back to Germany by 20 March but then everything turns into havoc (is it a correct situation to use the word in a sentence?).

My initial flight got cancelled 2 days before departure since my flight had a short layover (30 minutes) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the government announced that they wanted to do a national lockdown. Then I rescheduled my flight with my friend to the next week, 27 March. We still used the same airline though by this time. So the next flight was supposed to fly from Jakarta to Singapore (transit for around 3-4 hours) then to Amsterdam (transit for 4-5 hours) and to Hamburg. But then couple of days before my departure, I saw that my flight from Amsterdam to Hamburg had been cancelled without any notification to me either via the airline apps nor email. Basically, no notification really.

I tried to find a solution in this problem, so I contacted my friend who currently lives in Leiden and told her that my flight was cancelled and I was planning to take train from Amsterdam to Hamburg. I saw that the train was still operating and I asked her if I could stay at her place if there is any problem suddenly comes up and I have to stay in the Netherlands. Alright, problem solved right? Right? Ohhohoho of course not.

Then 2 days before my departure, my friend told me that Singapore forbid any short term visitor including transit. Great. Now my flight from Jakarta to Singapore has been cancelled. But weirdly enough, my flight from Singapore to Amsterdam was not cancelled. Umm, excuse me? How can I get to Singapore again? Swim from Jakarta to Singapore? Wut? My flight from Jakarta to Hamburg was with the same airline and I bought the ticket directly from them and I am not sure why they didnt cancel my flight from Singapore to Amsterdam as well. Because of that I could not really do anything, I could not reschedule my ticket sad. I tried to contact them but it is sooooo hard. Nothing gets through basically. Oh well, I can kind of understand but come on…. And now the refund is not in the form of cash but travel voucher, correct me if I am wrong but as far as I know, you could not do that and the passengers are entitled to have their money back.

After couple of days being confused on what to do and when should I go back etc, I finally decided to refund my ticket. I guess it’s better than to get nothing in return? Besides, I dont know how long the ban will last so rescheduling flight again and again is pointless in my opinion

I am now planning to go back to Germany by finding a direct flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam. Hopefully i can find one. Again guys I am not trying to speak ill of the airline or anyone really, I just vent my frustration basically.

I know this is a difficult time for all of us, I am sorry for spreading such negativity but I just need to let it all out guys, I really just wanna go back home as I still have my classes and yes of course I understand there are many with problem similar or even worse to me. Stay strong, stay safe, stay healthy and please do what the government told you to do. Stay at home, so they could do their job and lets hope and pray (if you guys believe in God) that this too shall pass soon.

Cheers

Kemmy

VISTA #10: Battle of The Southeners

Hey you guys!

If you read my previous VISTA, you could see that after the farewell party, I had to go to the box early in the morning the next day. That’s because our box held our first CrossFit competition and I was one of the crews. WOOOOOPPP.

So I contacted one of my friends if she still needed more help during the event but apparently they had enough crew and judges. However, one day before the event, she contacted me and asked if I could help her as the scoring team. So I said yes. I was really excited about it!

The night before I went out with my colleagues for karaoke so I was rather tired in the morning (check out the story here). I arrived at the box at 6.30 am but no one was there so I had to wait for around 15 minutes before the others arrived. Then we started to prepare the equipment and everything. Since I didnt have yellow (crew)/orange (judge) t-shirt, my friend lent hers to me. But her t-shirt was orange so I had a different colour hahaha.

After the briefing, many athletes came and registered. Then they started to warm up, while I was trying to figure out the leaderboard and scoring system. One of us brought 3 bottles of coffee. OH THANK YOU. I woke up realllllyyy early and I was sleep deprived so I was really sleepy. Ended up drinking too much, my stomach hurts hahahha.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1-2_p8hJo_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Anyway, the event went real smooth and fast. I was so amazed by our teamwork actually. We were really efficient and fast. Right after the heat, the judge gave me the score sheet and I inputted it right away. The other crew was really fast at preparing the equipment for the next heat. WOAH. It was sooo fun. Looking at those athletes compete was making me excited!

The event itself started from the idea of one of our coaches, Coach Oka and his team member, Sofia and Adit, when they competed in Malaysia. They thought, hey why dont we create event at our box as well? And boom! The brainstormed the WOD, the event, everything! Damn it was so fun! I really want to participate in another event in the future. I guess I really am stuck in this cult huh? 😀 Once you’re in you cant go back!

Cheers

Kemmy

VISTA #9: See you

Hey you guys!

Last week my coworkers held a farewell party for me. Usually when we hold a farewell, it would be a dinner at a (usually fancy) restaurant. Eh free expensive food yeay. But my farewell was a bit different.

My former line manager, Bang Sutan (in informal situation, we call any boys or younger or older men with “Mas” or “Bang” and any girls or younger or older women with “Mbak”), kept asking my close friend, Ryan, about my farewell. What do I want for the gift and where should we hold the farewell. To be honest I didnt even know what I want or where I want to eat. Well if they ask me what do I want to eat, I want to eat rice, chili (sambel terasi) and anchovy plus veggie (kangkung). Hahaha. Doubt that the others want to eat it as well hahaha.

Soooo after couple of weeks, the email invitation was finally sent by Bang Sutan. Wow. 3pm-6pm? Isnt it a working office hour? The farewell dinner is 3 hours? Wow. What a long time. But the place was still “TBA.” So I asked Ryan where will we go for my farewell and he told me that we’re going karaoke. OH. No wonder it’s 3 hours hahaha. I think the team wanted to have an “Away Day” event as well so they set it from 3pm. Ryan told me about the conversation he had with Bang Sutan earlier:

“Mas Ryan, where should we hold the farewell party for Mbak Kemmy?”

“Eh.. I dont know Bang. I’m not good at holding an event. I’m confused”

“Hmm, well she likes Japanese stuffs right?”

“Yes”

“So lets have a karaoke party for her“

“…”

Mas Ryan then said to me while laughing “I dont see the correlation between you like Japanese stuffs and karaoke.”

“But the others seem really excited to go to this karaoke. Some already made a song list”

Glad to know that the team was excited about it hahahah. Apparently, the time was changed to 5pm because our Head Department, Mba Inge, had a meeting.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B18KbWMhVHG/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

So the karaoke began!

Let me tell you something. I dont like karaoke. I dont like singing. Mostly because I’m embarrassed by my tone deafness hahahaha. Basically I cant sing. Such a horrible singer. We get it Kem. I tried REAL hard to avoid singing but then I know I cant run away from it. The team kept asking me to sing. I even ate my dinner real slow then Mba Inge and Bang Sutan said “Kemmy, I know you’re eating slowly because you dont want to sing”

“Mba Kemmy, we are waiting for you until you finish eating”

Cant run away now that my 2 bosses said that! Oh what the heck imma gonna sing then. Hey, it’s not that bad since the others are singing as well hahaha. There were 4 mic but everyone was singing hahahha. I kinda thought like okay, no need to have mic here hahhaha.

At 8 pm, the team shared their thoughts about me and prayers for my next journey. To be honest, I really wanted to cry but I held it. Because I also needed to hold my pee. Yea. During that sad moment I cant cry because I was holding my pee. It was really sweet until I had to give a speech then I came up then said “Can I pee first?” Anti-climax I know.

We ended up having a karaoke party for 4 hours. And I had to go to the box tomorrow morning because we had our first CrossFit event. But hey! It was a really great night! I am really gonna miss the team so much!

Cheers

Kemmy