Singapore tomorrow!

Hello! This will just be a quick update since it has been over a week since I updated this. I thought that during the vacation I'd have more time, not less! :) First of all, for those of you who don't know, I am going to Singapore tomorrow just for the day to get my visa renewed. It will be a tiring day, but fun (I hope). Susan, the South African lady from the retreat, will hopefully meet me there after I take care of my visa and have coffee with me.
So, let me quickly tell you what I've been doing. On Saturday after the retreat (which was the 19th), I went to a dedication of the West building which had been renovated. We prayed over the building and then there was a prayer of dedication for the teachers, which was neat.
That evening there was a fellowship time at a visiting Filipino pastor. I was the only non-filipino there, but it was fun. I got to try a lot of their foods, and they were really good. I especially liked this one fruit called mangosteen (I'm not sure how it's spelled).
On Sunday we went to church and then hung out at the mall until it was time to go to a birthday party. Mr. Arno and Santa's son is visiting from South Africa and he celebrated his 21st birthday, so they had a nice birthday party for him at a restaurant. At the party, I met a couple from America (well, the wife is from Indonesia but has lived for a while in America). They go to my church, but I hadn't met them there yet. Through talking with Debbie, the wife, I found out about the church's VBS this week and I offered to help. We exchanged numbers and I was excited for the opportunity to help and have something to do during the vacation!
The rest of the week was kind of slow after the weekend and I had some hard days. But there were good moments too. On Tuesday we went to see the new Karate Kid movie, which was very good, by the way. :) On Wednesday I had my first Bahasa lesson with my friend from IPH, Miss Yuni. She mostly taught me how to communicate with a taxi driver, so hopefully I can try taking a taxi by myself soon. She also drove me to a place where I could buy some poster paper for the upcoming school year. Then she treated me to lunch where we had soto ayam, which is like chicken soup.
On Thursday I was feeling particularly sad, and I went to Arno and Santa's house. They gave me South African tea (roibus, I think it's spelled) and I talked with them for a while. I also borrowed 3 English books from them, which made my day!
On Saturday I went with my roommates and Laarni, another teacher here, to a ladies bible study at church. I met another girl from America! I also talked with the other girls there. It was nice to have an English fellowship. We are going to go back. When we got back, we went to Arno and Santa's for a game night. She made biscuits and we had tuna fish, which was so good! Their daughter, Lynae (I'm not sure how to spell it) made chocolate muffins for dessert! Yum!
On Sunday, Ms. Nila from school took us on a day trip to 2 sites away from Surabaya. The first was a safari, but it wasn't as cool as the real ones in Africa. The animals weren't in cages, but the space was still small like a zoo. And we saw them through the closed windows of our van. But then we went to this part where you could pay to have your picture taken with certain animals. I held a baby lion!
Then we went to an amusement park. We only rode on two rides. The first one is hard to explain, but it was like a car that you pedaled around a track high in the air. I got scared on that one. Then we tried the big swing ride. My favorite part was the small night market they had where I bought a few souvenirs. The park also had a garden with different statues lit up. There was a piano player at one and he let us sing songs in the microphone. I sang a song, propelled by some force. It was fun, even though I sounded awful. :)
Well, I'd better go to bed now because I have to wake up so early. Talk to you later!