Life as an internship student in Bosnia

Bismillah,

Basically there are five companies and each company receiving two students. Those companies consist of Bosna Bank International (BBI), Zira ICT (an IT solution company), Teloptic (food industry). Another two construction company are Euro Asphalt and MBI Development.

Could you guess which one is my company?? As fated in taqdir, my destiny is in Teloptic. =) I thought it was a telecommunication company but it’s not. Yes, it was but not anymore. After the war, they have diversified into different business which is food industry. Initially, they started as a drinks producer and eventually into food producer.

I’m gonna tell you how things work here. The office hour starts from 7.30am until 3.30pm. I go to work by car. Someone from the company is driving company’s car and he will give me and another two colleagues a ride every morning.

They usually will have drinks in the morning around 7.30am to 8.30am. Usually it is hot drinks. Anybody would ask everyone the in same room what drinks they would like to have and he or she will come back from the canteen with the drinks. And it’s free. It’s like the treat from the person. It’s nice though. Because we don’t really see people in Malaysia do that in the office. They usually make drinks just for themselves in the small corner or room called pantry. I think I’m going to practice that in Malaysia when I work in the future. And hope that the culture will remain since it’s really nice when someone could get you a drink. Then, the next day, you can treat them back. It’s like everyone are taking turns to treat people. =)

For lunch time, which usually at 10am, they usually make a call to place orders and delivery from the restaurant outside. There is a canteen in Teloptic but there is not much food that they provide. Only bread, bread spread, canned food, snacks, chocolates and drinks. So, each time someone will ask everyone to place their order and someone will make a call for it. Not for the whole company, but only for the department. Usually the menu is bread with meat (beef and chicken), pie, soup or pizza. Since my company is producing their own drinks, so we can get those drinks for half price from the company’s restaurant or so called canteen.

Then, we will all get back to work until the clock strikes 3.30pm. And I will hop on the company’s bus to ride home. The yellow bus as everyone calls it. Hehe. The bus is like ‘bas kilang’ in Malaysia. (I wish I had snapped photo of the bus.) It is just that you won’t find many youngsters in there like in Malaysia since most of them are older people who are riding with the bus. And I’m the youngest of them all. HAHA! =P

Usually I woud reach home at 4.25pm. Yurp. Riding with the bus takes longer time as compared to riding with a car. It takes 45mins. I admit that sometimes I do fall asleep in the bus. Once I thought that I was the only one who slept but I was wrong. As I looked around me, Gotcha! That uncle is also sleeping. Not just him. There was more. That nanny too. Howkaay. So, it’s normal. I am normal. Hehe.

So, that is how my weekday's routine is like.

Vidimo se! (See you)

=)

Eat, Drink and Bosnian.

Bismillah,

The title pretty much tells you what I'm gonna share with you this time around. Food will always be my favourite part when I travel (or maybe just another excuse for me to eat a lot). hehe

If rice is our main dishes in Malaysia, then here it is bread. Everything that you eat here are served with bread. I had once ordered some kind of pasta. Looks like a noodle and it was fried like Mee Goreng (fried noodle) in Malaysia but it came along with bread! HEHE.

Hmm, talking about bread. I had this conversation with a friend of mine. She has been to Malaysia twice because she was attending Malay language course. So I asked her opinion on Malaysian bread since I found that their bread is hard, especially the outer part or its crust. It takes me pretty some time to chew it. ;p .So, she answered that Malaysian bread is not quality because it is soft and not that crusty! HAHA. Okay. That is equal now! =p

"Ohh, Gardeniaaa. So good you can even eat it on it's own..."

How I miss this! hehe

Some more, for all the big-eater out there, here’s a good news for you. Normally a serving for a person here in Bosnia is equal to two servings in Malaysia since Bosnian eat in a big portion. So, lucky you guys. Why not me? I am a big eater too, but that only apply to me if it is rice! =p And watch out dear if you are on diet!

They also eat meat a lot. Mostly beef. It is really easy to find fresh meat here since there are a lot of mesnica (butcher’s shop) and most of them are Halal. For your information, there is not much place for slaughtering. They said there is only one place here that do the slaughtering and it follows the syari’ah way of slaughtering since in Sarajevo, the Muslims are like 95% of the population.

You can hardly find seafood since seafood is not really their food. They do have fishes such as trout, salmon and etc. Just don’t dream to find ‘ikan keli’(cat fish) or ikan bawal (black pomfret) here please! Hehe. But if you are craving for seafood, you can still find the frozen one in supermarket. I bet you know how different the frozen seafood would be from the fresh one.

Furthermore, from my point of view as a Malaysian, Bosnian food is salty. I have seen people put salt on their bread and add more salt into their meal when I thought it was salty enough. Hehe. But they do like salty food. My friends here have proved that. =)

I guess I’m done with food. What about their drinks? Hmm. Bosnian loooooove to have coffee. I really mean it when I said that. They do have their own coffee, Bosna Kaffe. It is thick and very strong.

And do you know how they drink their coffee? They will take one sugar cube, dip it in the coffee, not the whole cube, just at the edge of it, and bite and chew the sugar slowly. And then they will dip some more and this will continue this until one cube sugar is finished. They do that because the coffee is bitter so, by chewing the sugar, it would make it less bitter especially at the tougue. And then they sip the coffee again. That explains how they can sit for hours to have coffee.

When someone ask you to have coffee, that does not mean that you have to drink coffee. Well, I don’t drink coffee. Not because I’m allergic or something, but I could not stand the bitterness. But actually, you don’t have to have a coffee if don’t want to. You can have anything else such as tea or hot chocolate. When they say “Let’s go for a coffee” it’s more like ‘Let’s hang out”. Fuhh..lega! =)

Coming up next: Life as an internship student in Bosnia.

Bašcaršija, back to fifteen century.

Bismillah,

This is basically a name of a place in Sarajevo. Let’s say this word together shall we? Bašcaršija. Huh? Bashasha? Nope. Try again. Basharsha? Maybe this way is better. Bash-char-shi-ya. Got it? Hehe. Hey, it took me three weeks to say it correctly, after lots of practice, of course. ;) It is actually a Turkish word. Okay, I’m done with that.

So, what’s with the place? Bašcaršija is part of old town and one of the main street in Sarajevo. It is built in 15 century from the Ottoman Empire from Turkey. Basically, our first small tour happened there. My officemate, Edin and Haris, they voluntarily offered themselves to be our tour guide.  Since my house is located near Bašcaršija, we just walked there.

Hvala puno (thank you so much), guys!

 The first place that we visited is the cathedrala (cathedral) of catholic. It is the oldest cathedral in Sarajevo. Followed by the church of the orthodox.

Then, we walked in the town. At the beginning, the buildings around us are influenced by the Austrian-Hungarian architecture.

 As we walked further, we were actually approaching shop building from the Ottoman period. Both are amazingly still standing until now!

On that day, we successfully covered three museums. The Pre-historic Museum, the Ottoman Empire Museum and the Austrian-Hungarian Museum. Each of them only cost us like 2KM per entry. Well, those museums are not that big actually. J

Then, we ‘sailed’ through the old town. There are lots of small shops that sell scarfs, clothes, shoes.

 But most importantly, they sell various crafts from silver and bronzes such as their traditional coffee pot and cups together with the tray. It is like a must for a Bosnian family to have at least one of this coffee pot in their house. I’m so going to get one of those for my house back in Malaysia!

There is also a mosque there, Gazi Huzrev’s Bey Mosque. It is named after a Turkish soldier who opened the territory there.



Wudu' spot



 Just outside the mosque, there is a water spring. The local said that if we drink this water, we will come here again. Wohoa! Only Allah knows best. But, I drank a lot! Hehe.



This water  is like an ice cold


Pigeon Square is my favourite spot there. I like those birds! There are like thousands of them.



Haiyakk!

So, now let's have a little more practice on pronouncing Bašcaršija yeah. This might help if you plan to come here and say the word correctly to the taxi driver!

Tragedi Buah Epal (Apple Tragedy)

Bismillah,



Those apples looks tempting. I want to have some. So, let's pick one.





Eh eh. Am I doing this correctly?

 


Maybe I should pull it harder. Iyahh!




Alhamdulillah, finally, I got it! Hip Hip Hooraaay!

p/s: I didn't eat the apple because after I plucked it, I went to play in the snow and totally forgot about the apple!

From Kuala Lumpur to Vienna

Bismillah,

On 26^th November 2010, at 6.59pm, the ten of us flew from Kuala Lumpur international Airport (KLIA) to Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok Thailand. We arrived there about two hours later. Since the transit period only for 3 hours, so we did not go out from the airport. At 11.55pm, we got on plane of Austrian Airlines and flew to Austria. So in the plane, I sat next to my friend, Dayu and the other side of me is a Caucasian lady. I did not have the chance to speak to her. Or maybe I was afraid if she can’t speak English. Just after like half an hour on the plane, the cabin crew started to served food to us. As I was really sleepy, I did not eat the meal. So, the stewardess took back my meal. The lady beside me is another thing. Okay. She sleeps so much like my ex-housemate. This time the women beside me sleep with her legs rested on mine. This kind of unusual to me but still I was able to ignore it. The next hours, I had my drinks on the table, an apple juice to be precise. While I was busy figuring out the screen in front of me, the women unconsciously lifted up her leg and that flipped the mini table and the drink of mine.  Splashh. Oh my. There goes my sweater, pillow and blanket. The water that splashed felt so cold on me. So, I went to the ladies to clean them up. Actually, just my sweater because the blanket and pillow are from the plane. The journey took 12 hours. That is the longest duration I have been on a flight.

At about 5.20am we landed on Austria. And for now, we got 8 hours, so we decided to go out and watch Vienna City. Please make a guess what is the first thing that we observed and we jumped delightedly afterwards? S.N.O.W. Yess, it is! It was snowing! :D We wandered around and bumped into a morning market.

 After that, we went into a café to take our breakfast. I had butter croissant and hot chocolate. That cost me €3.69 which is about RM15.70! Haiyoh!



Vienna City



Then, we headed back to Vienna International Airport (VIE). While waiting in the boarding room, I’ve got the chance to connect to the Wi-Fi. J Around 12noon, we flew to Sarajevo.

We arrived Sarajevo International Airport around 2.15pm and greeted by the embassy staff.

We were droved to our house at Ljubljanska. One of the staff of the embassy made us kind of lunch box. Steamed white rice, chicken curry, fish fillet with chilli paste and fried cabbage. Alhamdulillah. Tuan Haji Badli, one of Malaysian worker here advised us not to sleep until 10pm. So, we try our best not to fall asleep by getting ourselves busy. Unpacking is the best thing that I did. After one hour I could not hold on any longer, so I slept. I was the last person to go to bed on that day. And it was only 7.30pm. So what. hehe. Hello. I'm having jetlag over here. ;)

When travelling becomes a business matter instead of pleasure

Bismillah,

I know it's been so long until this post. No, I didn't abandoned this blog of mine. Believe me when I say I always come by and 'visit' this blog. Since this is a travelog, so I guess I would only write when I get the chance to travel. So, what if I  didn't? What if I did not go anywhere for like 5 months? Wohoo. If that so, I won't get to write. Okay, that's not fair. 

But, all praises to Allah. He has given me this opportunity. The rare one, i think. For your information, I will undergo an industrial training for a semester which is five months. I've got this offer from the faculty to do my practical training in Bosnia and Herzegovina ( It is still a single country even though it has an 'and' in the middle ^_^)  That's true. (0_o) No kidding. I was super surprised too when I first heard it a month ago. I mean who ever has wish or imagine to go there?  Well, not me, at least. But later I figured out that this 'thing' does not come easily. It's like now or never. So, I took it. (after a long thinking and opinions from others). 

So, here I am again. Writing my first entry for the next destination. Bosnia. Honestly, they are not much that I know about the country. The little things that I knew is that it is a war-torn country. But with a stunning scenery of old buildings from the previous ruler. Haa. And beautiful Muslimah women as well.

I used to hear people say this, " Cantiknya dia. Macam muka org Bosnia" ( She's pretty. Like a Bosnian girl" That's it. hehe

I have been googling a lot about Bosnia and travel guide eversince. I tell you what, this Bosnian thing kind of distracting me from focusing on my exams. It really did. I remember having a hard time memorising. =P

As for now, I have started buying this and that a little bit while preparing personal documents for the visa and fund purposes. I try not to spend much. I borrow the stuffs that I could from the family members and friends. That one alone incredibly cut down my expenses you know. Alhamdulillah and I really thank them. =)

It's only five days left till I go. MasyaAllah. I'm soo nervous.

Dear Allah, please make this easy for me. Ameen (-_-)

Bali : Day 5 (Finale)

Bismillah,

Today was the last day I'm in Bali. Nothing much that we planned to do since our flight back to Kuala Lumpur was at 5pm. So, we thought of wandering and shopping at shop near Ngurah Rai Airport. It's a final shopping day.

Masks

coffee powder

Variety of shawl at about RM6

Sampai tercabut sepatunya. Penat Pak Putu? =)

After two hours shopping, Ayah suggested that we have our lunch at Jimbaran. I knew Ayah was hooked by the grilled fish and seafood. So, Pak Putu brought us  there. To our surprise, he took us to another restaurant instead of Menega Cafe. I knew that Ayah was a bit dissapointed because he had been talking about Menega Cafe all night. However, we all agreed to dine in the restaurant since everyone was so hungry and couldn't wait any longer to get to Menega. hee =)

A street band came out of nowhere. But, they are good :)

Then, went straight to the airport. At 5pm, we left the amazing and beautiful island of Bali. I really hope to come here again. You guys should too. And this might assist you if you are looking for great holiday in Bali =)

Wassalam.

Bali : Day 4

Bismillah,

Finally, Alhamdulillah, Ayah had finished his meetings and conference. So, we've got to spend the whole day together. Just the six of us. I have to skip the breakfast part cause it's kinda same. Okay. Today we are heading to the north of the island. First, Pak Putu took us to watch Barong & Kris Dance at Sari Wisata Budaya at Denpasar. Just about 10 minutes from our hotel. Basically, it is a play which about an eternal fight between good and evil spirit. Barong (a mythological animal)  represents the good spirit and Rangda, represents the evil one. It's like a folktale.

Then, we went up to Gianyar again. But this time, the area covered is the painting gallery since Ayah wanted to buy some painting to hang it in our house. So, here we are at Dewa Putu Toris, studio of Artist Painting. As usual, I was amazed by the carving at the entrance door. So, Mr DSLR help me captured it.

Entering the galerry, MasyaAllah, these people are truly artistic. Every pieces are brilliant. I bet Ayah having a hard time choosing which painting to bring home.heee. A piece of advise here, no camera allowed in there. However I managed to snapped a few photos inside. Thanks to I-don't-know-that-camera-is-not-allowed-at-the-first-place! =p

Then, we continued our journey to the volcano. Along the journey, I noticed that, there is a lot of Japanese car on the road especially Toyota. And I don't see any Malaysian car. Sila berusaha lagi ye, Malaysia.Malaysia kan Boleh!

After about one hour, Pak Putu announced that we are already at the foot of the mountain. So, he let the car window open wide and we enjoyed the cool breeze from the outside. The cool wind did woke my sister from her sleep. Terkejut agaknye tiba tiba angin sejuk dan kencang ;)

Before we reach to the summit, we dropped by at a local coffee plantation along the way. Santi Agrowisata. The attraction of this place is that they show us the process of making coffee luwak. As in Malay, luwak here means 'luah'. It is basically letting fox or civet (musang) eat the coffee berries. This animal eats the softer outer part of the coffee berry but does not digest the inner beans, instead excreting them still covered in some inner layers of the cherry.

The cage

Two sleepy foxes

coffee berries

Tadaaa! Meet the poo

Then, the locals will gather it, do a thorough washing, sun drying and roasting...
the coffee bean will turn out like this!

Eheww. My apology, but I don't drink coffee. Not that I disgust the process okay. :) 

Well, besides coffee, they also sell Bali cocoa, lemon grass tea, ginger tea, Bali Ginseng tea and Rosela tea (Roselle hibiscus). They let us taste every one of them. Since it was drizzling at that time, and the astmosphere is cold, those hot drinks  were really a contentment.

We left the place and heading straight to the volcano, Mount Batur. Subhanallah! I can hardly breathe.  See for yourself.

Pak Putu took us to restaurant where they have this balcony that allows you to have your meal facing the mountain. Cool! But we did not eat at that restaurant since they serve buffet and we are not that hungry. Well, it is expensive when you want to eat less but pay more. So, we decided to find another restaurant. But Pak Putu is nowhere in sight. Where could that man be? Seven minutes later, Ayah found him eating at the lower ground level of the restaurant with the other taxi and mini van drivers. You see, those drivers, they will receive benefits of free food and some cash if they successfully brought people to a certain restaurants. So, we learned that the drivers also have their interest. Okay. Without him, we walked to the next door restaurant which is smaller and less crowded. 
Done eating, took pictures again. Don't blame me, blame the beautiful volcano. =P

We left Mount Batur, went down the hill and heading to Ubud, an art villages. You will go crazy because there are like thousands of art shop there. Home deco from glass, beautiful stones, wood carving, and more painting! We didn't stop long there because we had to rush to Tanah Lot to pray. According to Pak Putu, Muslims are not allowed to pray in Ubud since it is royal area as for Hindu. So, don't plan on performing your prayer in Ubud okay. Lesson learned.

We reach Tanah Lot about 40 minutes before sundown. Found a musolla (surau), Alhamdulillah. Done praying, we rushed to the seashore to watch sundown. Unfortunately, it was raining. So, we couldn't see much of the sun. It's okay. At least we made it to Tanah Lot which is very famous. The view is still great with the dim light from sun. We enjoyed it while it lasts.

 

The final destination tonight is the spa. We already booked it yesterday at BEL-AIR Spa which is owned by a Japanese. As usual, recommended by Pak Putu. It really is a nice place and with sweet and pleasant floral odor. :)  All of us, (exclude Ayah laa) went for a facial spa which cost us $40 per head per hour. Emak said that it is cheaper than in Malaysia.

Went back to hotel and rest. The journey continued tomorrow.