From a few days ago:

I’ve been trying to find ways to despite Bali to all of you guys, because I haven’t been quite as good at staying to touch as I promised. Its harder to do anything here, I have to find a mini bus to the next town to send a letter, which then take two weeks to get there, and I only get the internet a couple times a week and once I do, I’m totally overwhelmed. Its like this frantic, information overload and by the end of the hour or so I am totally exhausted but haven’t gotten anything down. This is why I’m sitting on my veranda in Java overlooking the ocean writing this while its still morning and I’m calm enough to tell you about my day yesterday, while basically sums up my whole experience in the last 3 weeks in a nutshell.
Yesterday I got up at 6 am to fly from Bali to the neighboring island of Java, where we’ll be living/taking classes for the next few weeks. As soon as we got in, we headed to the beach on this ridiculous bus that had leaks and cockroaches coming out of the ceiling and hardly enough room for us and our bags. We got to the hotel we stayed last night by the beach, which on the outside looked beautiful and is painted in pastel colors and built so that some of our rooms are part of a national rock wall, but inside of the rooms we found praying mantises and rusty bathrooms with squad toilets and sketchy stains on the sheets.
Then we headed to the beach, where we were the only westerners in bathing suits and a group of sketchy guys tried to film us and the ocean had sea snakes. But then we walked further down the beach and away from everyone and swam in the most GORGEOUS sunset (it was pure bliss) and ate an amazing dinner and then came back home to sleep with the mantises and lizards and coach roaches. (and now I'm in a really nice hotel).
So basically, Indonesia is beautiful and terrifying at the same time. I always feel a little bit alert and exposed, because there are no boundaries between outside and inside, and nature always finds its way to wake me up in the middle of the night. But at the same time I haven’t felt this carefree and not stressed out in a long time. I’m learning to be more flexible, because you simply can’t control basically anything here, and you have to put a lot of your trust into the program leaders and home stay family’s hands and just go with the flow. By the time I get back I’ll be as fucking chill as Higgs.
Well, maybe not that chill.
I love you alllll, come to BALI!!!!
Love,
Amanda