Hi Gram!
I’m having a great day in Bali. We got in yesterday after an uneventful flight from Melbourne, although we did get to see some cool airport art.
David and I are at a nice little homestay off the beaten path with a nice pool and quiet atmosphere, but an easy walk to restaurants or shopping. I woke up early this morning before my alarm, and man I thought I was going to be so productive! A few hours later, even the YouTube algorithm was telling me “dude, take a break. Go out and get some fresh air!”. As you know, I’m respectful to my robot overlords… I mean protectors… so I heeded the algorithm’s suggestion and headed out for a walk. This town is very charming. It makes me feel right at home walking down the street and seeing all the different shops and restaurants. They really don’t prioritize pedestrians or infrastructure, though. Many of the roads don’t have sidewalks, and the ones that do will have motor scooters parked on them, piles of dirt or bricks for the construction going on, or just permanent signs or structures that they didn’t want to put in the street. Despite those challenges, or possibly because of them, my morning walks here are always engaging for the mind.
The weather was warming quickly as the sun rose higher, so I looped around back to the hotel for some air conditioned relief and a shower. The bathroom in my hotel room has a standard toilet, bathtub, shower head, and vanity sink with one slight twist. The tub is raised up about a foot or more with no handrails or walls to grab onto. Combined with no shower curtain and tile falls and floors, climbing out of the shower with every surface wet and slippery offers a fun challenge to test how awake I was. Luckily, I passed that test every day but it felt dicey a couple of times. OSHA definitely would’t approve! After I was clean and safely back on firm ground, I gathered my computer bag and headed down to the cafe to try to get some work done. I’ve been working on some designs for the FI space, making t-shirts and eventually water bottles and other things. I’m finally at the point of launching the website, so I needed to get in a few hours to work at it; adding in the products, polishing the layout, and all the other minor thing that go into launching. Down at the cafe, though, there weren’t any tables near an electrical outlet. My laptop doesn’t have a very strong battery, so I need to be near an outlet if I’m going to work on it for more than 30 – 60 minutes.
The waitress saw the confused look on my face and quickly came over to help me out. When I explained my issue, she went and spoke with the manager who apologized profusely (I explained that there was no need to apologize, that I appreciated that outlets existed at all). The long version of this story is that they were all very nice and accommodating. The short version is that I had a table and chair brought up to my room 20 minutes later and was able to work from the comfort of air conditioning! I can’t say enough good things about the staff and facilities at the place we stayed, and from my experience and conversations with others, that level of care and service is just standard practice here. Once I settled into my new work nest, I plugged away at the logo and stickers for a while and got my Etsy shop up and running again. It was a very productive first half of the day, then David came knocking and invited me to lunch.
With so many great restaurants nearby, we just walk along the street until something catches our eye, then pop in. This place was no different. The conversation was stimulating, the salad was delicious, and the view was breathtaking. We sat and chatted for a while after we’d finished our meals, then meandered back to the hotel to get more work done. I don’t know how David fared with productivity, but I got a whole lot of nothing done! A little nap, some YouTube videos, maybe a bit of doom scrolling thrown in… and just like that, most of the afternoon was behind me. In an effort to break the spell, I grabbed David and we headed down the street for some foot massages. I actually feel guilty when I’m here if I don’t get a massage at least every few days. The prices are beyond reasonable at $10-15 including a tip for an hour of being pampered. David and I felt like kings as we sat and chatted in our thrones, the therapists working our the knots and rough spots in our muscles. Relaxed and happy, we decided to go get in some steps since it’s such a nice day. As the sun set, we headed back to the hotel, where I kicked back and read my book for a while until my eyelids grew heavy and I headed off to dreamland.