Back to my (completely bizarre, unreal) reality

First I should explain the title: I've lately had a couple conversations with other ETAs about how completely ridiculous our lives are right now. I just graduated university and have not had any formal English training for years, yet here I am half way across the world teaching English and being treated like a celebrity for no reason other than I happened to be born in an English speaking country. I could go on about how bizarre our situations are here, but the point is that the life I live here is so far removed from what anyone (in the US) would call a normal reality it's actually pretty comical.
That being said I am headed back to reality in the form that I start teaching again next Monday. With testing and semester break it will be exactly a month between classes! And what a month is has been! I've already mentioned some things about Sumba and Kalimantan (though there is a lot more I could say about both) so I'll limit myself to the travel I've done in Central Java:
I first went to Solo, which was surprisingly nice. Probably my favorite big city in Indo (though Yogya is a close 2nd, and Salatiga is my favorite city overall). I did a lot of walking around, and amazingly was not 'hello mister'd all the time, and unlike Yogya not bombarded with hawkers (side note: Yogya is really touristy (granted I was in the tourist quarter the whole time)).
I went from not having seen any temples to 'templed out' I started near Solo up in the mountains. The temples were baik-baik saja, but to get there I ended up riding an ojek through tea plantations with clouds literally pouring over them, women in the in the traditional conical rice hat picking tea leaves, and gorgeous views behind me on my way to a Buddhist temple...more than a little surreal! The temples themselves were nice, but of course paled in comparison to Prambadan and Borbudur (if you haven't heard of the latter, google it; it was nearly voted one of the wonders of the world). Prambadan was nice, but it was a little hectic as I had so many people coming to talk to me, and I was pushing it a little hard trying to see too many things. Borbudur is stunningly huge and detailed. Quite an amazing place, but I didn't really get much of a feel from either of the places. I think a big part of that was that there were a bunch of inconsiderate loud tourists (one of my biggest pet peeves) at both places; they were mostly Indonesian.
In Solo, and Yogya, I also got a glimpse of the royal life in Java. That was kind of different for me because I've aways associated royalty with castles and Europe, but obviously that's only one type. It was interesting to see it here because much of what was documented came well after European contact so there was an interesting mixture of traditional and European royal life. Interesting to see for sure (the small palace in Solo was probably the most interesting for anyone intending to check it out themselves).
A big highlight from Solo was also going on a tour around the city and being shown how things were made. Maybe not too surprisingly considering how communal Indo is, we would go from village to village (maybe not a village like you're thinking, but with a little neighborhood mixed in) and each place would have their own speciality. I saw how the following things were made/produced: cassava crackers, rice crackers, skin crackers, tofu, tempe, bakso, skin puppets, gamelon, roof tiles, batik, Indonesian bakery goods, rice farming, and I'm sure many more, but that's what my tired brain remembers. It was a really fun way to see some places and I learned a ton, I just hope I can remember some of it when I look back at the pictures. Suffice to say that most of the food producing places would NOT pass health standards in the US, but this isn't the US! My guide Yant was great provided a ton of info for me. For someone like me who likes to know how things work, it was a really fascinating long morning.
Yant also took me on another adventure: cobra! I'm gonna have to put up the videos because this was an experience that should be seen. The short story is that we literally went to a park in Solo where there was a tarp up against a wall. And this snake master would pull black cobras out of a bag and play with them to entertain everyone (they would be striking as he taunted them), then he would grab them (with his bare fingers), behead, skin and gut them before they were served up either as a sate or fried (I went for both). Oh and I can't neglect to mention my appetizer: red bull mixed with cobra blood, as well as the whole spinal cord and the heart of the recently deceased cobra, all down in one gulp! Supposedly that's quite good for a man's, ahem, 'strength'! Just tasted like red bull to me! The sate was definitely the highlight flavor-wise. And for the record cobra doesn't really have too strong of a flavor and is a bit chewy of a white meat.
Another random highlight was that I literally ran into (tall) Sarah in Yogya. I was walking down a side street looking for some food when I all of sudden recognized one of the bule faces walking by. What a great surprise! I ended up going to dinner with her parents who were visiting her with her boyfriend. It was really nice to be with an American family, even for a short while. It also gave me a chance to unload some of my back logged stories on someone!
After Yogya I headed up to Sarah Mac's (another ETA) in Magelang so I could get out to Borbodur. Originally I had planned to spend today seeing the Dieng plateau, but it turned out to be further than I thought so instead I ended up spending quite a bit of time just chilling with Sarah. It was fun to catch up with her after her and a few others travels around; lots of story swapping! And it was a good choice because I had been pushing pretty hard since I started traveling solo in Cent Java.
Talking with Sarah was also a fun tease because while I'm returning to Sidrap tomorrow, I'll be there for only a couple days before I have to return to Makassar for the AMINEF mid-year meeting. The meeting itself will not be much fun, but I'm REALLY excited to see everyone, and this way I get to spend my birthday with a bunch of young Americans. What a great gift!

I still can't believe I'll be returning to my (un)reality so shortly. As much traveling as I've done, I've never done anything like this before. And this past month has seen me really embrace Indo a lot more, I now have such a better hold on how things work here; my bahasa is actually pretty functional now, and I definitely like this country a lot better when I get to be a tourist than when I'm a teacher (wow Aaron you mean you like being on vacation more than working, that's so unusual!).
Ok I'm talking to myself in my blog, that's a sign that I need to cut this off, ASAP. Eventually a ton of pics and videos will get put up, but it honestly could take months.

Hope everyone is doing well in the new year!