Posted on by dyahanggraini

My name is Dyah

I have always loved my name.

When I started middle school, a classmate exclaimed how pretty my name was when I introduced myself on the first day of school. I still remember that after all these years. That is how vain I am with my own name.

When I moved to the UK, I needed to spell out my name and its pronunciation. Every. Single. Time.

“It’s D-Y-A-H, and it’s pronounced Dee-Yah, or [diːjɑː], not Die-Yah.”

“It’s D-Y-A-H. Delta Yankee Alfa Hotel. No, it’s pronounced Dee-Yah, not Die-Yah.”

Now I live in Iceland, the conversation regarding my name has not changed much, only this time in Icelandic.

“D-Y-A-H. D eins og Davíð, ypsílon, A, H. Nei, það er Dee-Yah, ekki Die-Yah.”

Most of the times, I just find it amusing, as I roll my eyes when I spell out my 4-letter name for the hundredth billionth time.

But on difficult days, I just feel tired and dejected. Someone once suggested that I should change my name, having it written Día instead of Dyah. It will have the same pronunciation and it might be easier for the locals here to write and say it properly. Someone also told me if my name looks and sounds more Icelandic, it will give me a chance to land a better job with better pay, etc. How horrible I felt when I was told that warrants a whole other post, I think.

This morning, I was talking to a representative of a company that we work with, and she asked me how to spell my name, I was about to give her our email alias for our department to avoid spelling out my troublesome foreign name, but she said no, she just wanted to know how my name was spelled.

After I spelled out my name, she asked me if she was pronouncing it correctly. When I said yes that she was spelling and saying my name correctly, she said:

“I think I’ve got it now, what a beautiful name. May I ask where you’re from?”

I was pleasantly surprised. Apparently, when people genuinely express interest on how my name came to be and ask how to pronounce it properly, it makes me happy.

It is a little thing that means a lot to me. When living in a land when telling people my own name is often a struggle, it stopped being a novelty, and it becomes downright infuriating, this small comment just made my day.

Posted on by dyahanggraini

Icelandonesia or Indoniceland?

There are not many Indonesian people living in Iceland. I’ve known about 30 of them, I think, even though data from the Indonesian Embassy in Oslo shows that there are over 60 of us currently living here.

Those 30 Indonesian people that I know, we meet regularly. Most of the times we just have informal gatherings where we stuff delicious Indonesian food into our mouth. Recently, we decided to make a formal organisation for us.

We registered our group through RSK (Directorate of Internal Revenue), set up a website, and voted board members. It was all very formal and I have been enjoying the whole process so far.

In the beginning

When I moved to Iceland in 2008, I was told not to be like most foreigners who live in Iceland, who would just hang out with people from the same country, not speaking Icelandic, not integrating to the community, and so on.

It was hard to move to a new country located thousands of kilometers away from my home, and to top it off I was instantly greeted by warnings on what NOT to do.

So, in the early days, I tried my best to integrate into the Icelandic society. I joined a short course on Icelandic language, met several new friends from different countries, ended up taking a full time study at the university, and got myself a part time job.

All the while I kept thinking, have I integrated into the Icelandic society? Am I still considered a foreigner? Can I hang out more with my Indonesian friends? Will society judge me for not integrating enough if I spend time with Indonesian people here?

After a few years

Even now I still wonder, am I a part of the Icelandic society? The only difference is, I care less about what other people think of me in terms of who I hang out with, and who my friends are.

I have children who go to Icelandic schools, speak Icelandic with everybody, and are exposed to everything that is Icelandic around them, i.e. custom, culture, and holidays.

On a daily basis, the only Indonesian exposure they get is when I speak or read to them. Occasionally, my parents would talk to them in Indonesian through Skype. Once a year we visit them and the boys will get their yearly dose of cultural immersion in Indonesia, by staying at their grandparents for 1 month and being surrounded by their relatives who speak mainly Indonesian and Javanese.

For the other 11 months of the year, it is up to me to make sure my children are not losing their Indonesian heritage. I take my children whenever I meet up with my Indonesian friends;

  • So they would hear other people speaking their mother tongue.
  • So they can see that their mum is not the only one in Iceland who speaks Indonesian.
  • So they can improve their skills in listening and speaking Indonesian.
  • So they can see that sometimes, we are not the minority.
Posted on by dyahanggraini · 1 Comment

Kindergarten

When my kids were born, I contemplated whether to put them in kindergarten or not. The kindergartens in Iceland operate during weekdays and working hours, i.e. Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM. This is a tad different from the kindergarten I went to when I grew up in Indonesia.

In Indonesia, children from the age of 4 to 6 years will attend kindergarten that opens on weekdays, from 8 to 10 in the morning. Usually they alternate between days, i.e. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

In Iceland, children as young as 12 months old can be admitted to kindergarten. They can stay there all 5 days of the week, all day.

My mum suggested that I hire a full-time live-in nanny to take care of my sons at home, instead of sending them off to kindergarten. It is a pretty common practice in Jakarta to hire a full-time nanny who lives at your home. In contrast, it is not common at all here in Iceland.

With such opposing common practices between my two home countries, it took me quite a while to find out what fits our family best.

Why I love kindergarten

However, based on my experiences with the kindergarten here since 2013, I love sending my kids there, because:

  1. There is no way that I could keep them off TV/iPads/computers from 8 AM to 5 PM.
  2. I am really bad at keeping up daily routines.
  3. Sometimes, I need a break from the kids. I love them, but being in constant interaction with them really takes a toll on me.
  4. I will not be able to focus on them 100% all day, there will always be laundry, cooking, and sticky floors that distract me.
  5. I am not creative at all in arts, crafts or other kids’ stuffs.
  6. I believe it takes a village in raising kids. In this case, it takes a whole kindergarten and other relevant parties in raising mine:
  • Great highly qualified teachers that my kids absolutely adore.
  • Super talented chef and kitchen assistants who cook varieties of healthy food for the children every day.
  • Around 90 children ranging from 12 months to 6 year olds who provide social skills and be best friends to my sons.
  • Regulated environment that adheres to state’s rules, county’s rules, and Department of Education’s rules.

Why I DON’T love kindergarten

As soon as my kids start kindergarten, they get sick, and it happens so often! There were times when they would go to kindergarten for 1 day, then got sick for two weeks.

Be it common flu, RS virus, chicken pox, hand and mouth disease, stomach bug, tapeworm, and lice, my kids have got them at one time or another.

It is infuriating at times, especially when they catch something that is contagious and it ends up infecting everyone at our house.

Is kindergarten the right choice?

Once my kids got older, the sickness became less frequent. Though I still get emails every now and then whenever there is a lice breakout. I am seriously considering shaving their head bald now.

Bottom line is, both my kids love their kindergarten. I love their kindergarten and all the people there. Even though my kids will definitely get their share of the sniffles when the flu season starts, they learn so much from their kindergarten and its environment that I will never be able to replicate if they are just to stay home with me all day. So, in our family, kindergarten was the right choice.

Posted on by dyahanggraini · 6 Comments

Going to the cinemas.

I miss the movie theaters in Indonesia!

The movie theaters in Iceland are fine, but the ones in Indonesia are just oh-so-beautiful. Not to mention the much cheaper tickets!

A normal ticket to a movie in Reykjavík would be 6 to 10 EUR, while it costs merely 3 to 5 EUR in Jakarta.

For the luxury movie theater (where they have reclining chairs), it would cost you around 17 EUR in Reykjavík, and only 8 EUR in Jakarta.

The Premiere at Cinema 21 beats the luxury cinema in Iceland by a long shot, because there are blankets on every chair and waiters and waitresses catering to all your snacking needs! (after all, what’s a movie without snack, eh? :D)

 

Even better, CGV cinemas in Indonesia also provides theaters that are fitted with beds!

 

So, any movie-goers who are up for a visit to Indonesia, I’d definitely recommend giving these gorgeous theaters a try.

Posted on by dyahanggraini · 1 Comment

Travelling between Iceland and Indonesia.

Ever since I moved to Iceland, I have visited Jakarta very few times. First time was in 2010, with my husband, our daughter, and my little brother in law.

Second time was in 2011, three months after our son was born, and it was only me and the baby who went, as my husband couldn’t leave his work. Now, I am preparing for our next trip to Jakarta, which would be from 9 July to 17 August (yay!).

In this trip too, only me and the baby who will brace yet another 3.5 hours flight from Keflavik International Airport to Heathrow, 6 hours layover, 13 hours flight to Changi Airport Singapore, 3 hours layover, and 1 hour flight to Soekarna-Hatta.

Last year, I only had to deal with a three-month-old infant, who didn’t do much, really. He practically only slept, drank breast milk, and pooped during the whole journey. This time, I doubt he will be that easy.

In 2011, he fit snugly into the bassinet provided in the plane. Now that he doubled his weight and size since then, I don’t think he’d be comfortable at all in it. So he will have to be on my lap (because I was too cheap to buy him his own seat in the plane, hehehe) all the time.

He crawls a LOT now… and he is almost walking.. so there is a HIGH possibility of me chasing him up and down the plane and around the huge waiting areas at the airport during our long layovers..

He’s not potty-trained yet and he doesn’t want to stay still during diaper change.. I can’t imagine how it would be like to change his diaper in the mini toilets in the plane while trying to hold him down from rolling over and getting away.

He’s such a messy eater…  I have to pack extra extra extra clothes for both of us, because there is no avoiding food splatter when he eats and drinks.

He likes to blow raspberry, makes a lot of high pitched noise, and much more noises of random syllables that he puts together.

Huhuhu, the whole plane is going to hate us during our trip 😦

Posted on by dyahanggraini · 13 Comments

Having a baby in Iceland.

As I mentioned earlier, our little family has a new member since last year. I stayed in Iceland throughout the whole pregnancy and labour, and I must say, it was a very pleasant experience.

Being a first time mummy, I didn’t have any certain expectations towards prenatal and antenatal care in Iceland, but if I did, my experience would have exceeded all of those expectations.

Once we found out we were pregnant, I contacted the local health care clinic, and I was assigned to a midwife. She is a lovely woman named Sólveig, who assured me even though we were only scheduled to meet once every month, I could call her anytime if I have any questions. She gave me a pregnancy booklets, both in Icelandic and English so I could practice my obstetrics terms in Icelandic 🙂 Aside from glucose tolerant testing and ultrasound check that were done in the hospital, all of my regular check ups during pregnancy were conducted by Sólveig.

On a Sunday morning, I went to the university to work on a group’s assignment for the last subject on MBA course that I undertook at that time. When I came home at 18.00, I started to feel mild contractions, which I thought was a false sign of labour. I ended up spending the whole evening fully awake, with contractions that got more and more intense by the minute. After speaking to the midwife on duty, calling my sister in law to come to our place to watch the puppy, we went straight to the hospital. The time was 04.00, it was dark and rainy.

After admitted, I was taken to “Hreiðrið“, which was a huge room, with a double bed, a big tub, an en-suite shower, and a changing table. The midwife was offering me various alternatives to pain alleviation, and I got to try them one by one. I had acupuncture,  which helped a bit. Then I tried going into the tub, which helped a LOT. I actually managed to fall asleep while I was in the tub. I stayed in it until the midwife told me to start pushing the baby out, then I asked to be moved on to the bed. I pushed and pushed for what felt like forever, then just when I desperately pleaded to my husband to take me home because I felt tired and that I’d like to keep the baby inside me anyway, the midwife excitedly told me, “you’re baby is born!”. The time was 06.00 in the morning, and the sun had already risen.

And there he was.. our baby, a little bit bluish in colour, covered in white stuff, very wrinkly, and was crying and screaming his little lung out… he was perfect!

The midwife instantly put him on my chest, and started rubbing him with towels. The baby was still crying, so I guessed the birth must have been more stressful for him than it was for me. After spending some time on my chest cuddling and peeing on my face twice, the baby was taken by the midwife for test and measurement at the changing table next to the bed I was on. Then my husband put a diaper and clothes on the baby, right  before the midwife helped us to start breastfeeding. Once the baby fell asleep, he was put in a bassinet, and we were all moved into a recovery room.

The room was big, though not as big as the previous one, but it had a double bed, changing table, and a sink. Both my husband and the baby were fast asleep after we came into the room. But I was still very awake, despite having very little sleep for the past 24 hours.

Close to our room, there is a pantry, complete with bread, cereals, fruits, juice, milk, tea and coffee. I nibbled some of the food there while trying to figure out why I couldn’t fall asleep. When I came back into the room, I decided to wake my husband up to keep me company (evil me!). Thankfully, before he got grumpy because I woke him up, a lady came into our room with plates of food! The menu was fish that day, and it was wonderful.

After eating, I couldn’t wait to get home. I wasn’t sure why, because the room we were in was really cozy (it felt more like a hotel room than a hospital room, to be honest). I was so fidgety, I asked the nurse if we could go home straight away. She kindly told me we had to stay at least for several hours to make sure both the baby and I are good to go. She came again to help us breastfeeding again, check on my tummy, and asked if I had peed yet. When I told her I didn’t feel like peeing, she said I wouldn’t be allowed to go home if I didn’t pee first 😦 A pediatrician came after awhile to check on the baby, and when everything checked out, he allowed us to go home. The time was 14.00.

When we arrived home, I felt so much better as I finally got to relax. I took a shower which felt really nice and we ordered pizza for dinner because we had not had a chance to stock up on food (the baby was born 8 days earlier than estimated, by the way). I talked to Sólveig the midwife on the phone, and she came to our house that night to check on both me and the baby. She explained about how she will be making home visits to our place for the next 8 days to check on our progress. She even helped us bathing the baby for the first time. Here are few things on why I would have another baby in Iceland again:

  • It’s FREE because I am a permanent resident in Iceland. I was actually contemplating on giving birth in Indonesia, but since I quit my job in Jakarta, I was not covered by insurance anymore, and that would mean paying for hospital and doctor’s bills out of our own pocket, which could go up to EUR 2,000 for similar service and facility that I had in Iceland. So, we had the baby in Iceland (yay!)
  • I love my midwife and everybody in the hospital because they were all super nice! They were all very gentle, patient and very supportive to all my decisions and requests during the labour, despite having me talking in mixed languages of Icelandic, English, Indonesian, and even frantic hand signals that happened occasionally 🙂
  • The baby stayed with me all the time. I remember when my youngest brother was born in Jakarta, he was brought to the nursery straight away, and I only got to see him through a glass wall. But then again, this was 17 years ago, so things might have changed by now.
  • The home visits were very convenient. At first, I was a bit nervous of having the midwife visiting us everyday for the first week, because I thought I would have to get the house cleaned and myself showered before accepting any guests. But the first thing she said to me when she visited us was, to put the baby and myself first before everything else. Oh, how glad I was to hear that. So, most of the time during those visits, I was usually in my pajamas, under the duvets (bliss!), in a very messy house 🙂

There you have it, my fantastic experience of having a baby in Iceland. So tell me, wouldn’t YOU have your baby here if given a chance? 🙂

Posted on by dyahanggraini · 8 Comments

Getting married.

I have been asked about this several time, most often than not, the inquirer refers to the legal process for an Indonesian to marry an Icelander, not my personal exciting adventure of being a bridezilla 🙂

As a disclaimer, I would like to point out that this post is NOT in any way a definite and absolute method for Indonesians to marry Icelanders, this is just what I did when I got married.

My husband and I got married in Indonesia, in June 2008. So please understand that I can’t provide all the exact details on our marriage, because I simply can’t remember all of them.

My parents wanted us to marry through Kantor Urusan Agama (KUA), and we did. We went to a KUA in South Jakarta, asked them for all the requirements and documentation needed and we filled them. All I can remember that both my husband and I had to provide the followings:

  • His passport and my Kartu Tanda Penduduk (KTP) for identification.
  • Official letter of never been married before. I got mine from the local council and my husband got his from Registers Iceland.
  • Photos of us.

Then we filled out several forms, and that was it. Oh, we also had a session with the officials of KUA to learn about what marriage is supposed to be, some kind of pep talk on how married couples need to respect each other and etc. 🙂

We got married at a function hall in South Jakarta, and the penghulu (an official from KUA authorised to marry us) was there as well with all his papers and certificates for us to sign on. After the ijab kabul (our version of wedding vows exchange), we were pronounced married, and we received our marriage certificates straight away.

After the wedding, honeymoon, and hundreds of family gatherings that followed, my husband and I prepared for our departure to Iceland. My husband’s preparation for us moving to Iceland was only packing and soaking up as much sun as he could. For me, I had to:

  • Complete all paperwork needed for me to apply for permanent residency in Iceland. The list can be found here. I had to collect all the documents and translated them to English.
  • Since the process of applying for permanent residency could take up to 90 days, I decided to apply for a short-stay visa at the Danish Embassy.

Once my visa was granted, we traveled to Iceland. Once we arrived, we registered ourselves as a married couple at Registers Iceland, then I submitted my application for residential permit, and I got my residence card couples of months after that.

Now we got the boring stuffs out of the way, is anybody interested to read my epic quest in catching a Viking? Anyone? 🙂

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Back on the net!

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I have been a lazy blogger for the past year, and I have no excuse for it! Recently, a fellow Indonesian comrade in Europe happened to message me on the blog, which was left unnoticed (sorry >_<), but managed to track me down through email, and got me logging on to this blog, realizing that my last post was over a year ago (shame on me!).

But once I came across the lovely comments made to this blog, I had a sudden urge to share more of my bits of “living in Iceland, missing my Indonesia” adventure 🙂

Let’s start with what I had been doing in the past year… Our first child was born in May 2011 (yay!), and in August the two of us went to visit my parents in Jakarta, and we just moved into a new house in February 2012… So, it was a busy and exciting year for our little Icelandonesia (or Indoniceland?) family, really.

Still, that’s no excuse for my absence in the blogosphere. Truth is, every time I manage to sit in front of the computer, I always end up doing this, this, or this.

But I have to admit, this is one of the things that I love about Iceland, the internet connection here is significantly faster than the one in Indonesia. So, I blame all of my gaming addiction to Iceland’s fiber optics! (joke :p)

Not only that, almost everybody in Iceland has internet access, which I find amazing, because I can’t even get my mum back in Indonesia to understand how Facebook works. Even the people in the Commissions of the Indonesian’s House of People’s Representative can’t figure out their own email addresses.

So, this high internet usage in Iceland has made everything to be super-convenient for a non-mobile, stay-at-home, job-looking housewife, like me, because all is searchable in the net, and almost everything can be found, queried, and bought online. Actually, I can say the same for Jakarta, almost everybody is hooked on the web now, and online shopping is getting more and more popular.

But, I still pick Iceland for my internet needs, well, mainly because all of my gaming characters are in the European servers 🙂

Posted on by dyahanggraini · 4 Comments

Studying in Iceland.

 

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Iceland may not be the most popular destination for further studies, but the country actually offers very unique and interesting courses. Below is just a few examples of institutes that provide formal educational degrees in the country.

Famous for its abundance of geothermal resources, Iceland is considered very advanced in its development of green energy utilisation. Since an agreement was made in the last World Geothermal Congress between Indonesia and Iceland to cooperate in the fields of geothermal, there will be a significant rise in the demand of such expertise in Indonesia in the future. Reykjavík Energy Graduate School of Sustainable System offers courses and degrees specialising in renewable energy.

Háskóli Íslands is the oldest university in the country, which happened to be celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. It offers various courses and degrees from its five main schools, Social Sciences, Health Sciences, Humanities, Education, and Engineering & Natural Sciences. In my personal opinion, the best perk about going to this university, is the no tuition fee policy! I enrolled in a BA programme and an MA programme simultaneously, and I’m only required to pay registration fee every year for 45,000 ISK (around 275 EUR). Compare that price with a regular Master’s programme in other European countries that usually cost around 8,000 EUR or more. Tis’ a bargain I’d say!

Both Háskólinn í Reykjavík and Háskólinn á Bifröst are very famous for their business studies in Iceland. Though Iceland may be the last country in your mind when it comes to business field, these universities actually provide very diverse subject of studies, including law, computer science, and engineering.

Other academic institutions in Iceland would be Háskólinn á Akureyri, Hólaskóli, Landbúnaðarháskóli, and Lístaháskóli Íslands. More information about higher education in Iceland can also be seen here.

Posted on by dyahanggraini · 1 Comment

Icelandic weather.

It’s really sunny in Reykjavík today.

When “Iceland” is mentioned, people think of icy land, with harsh cold weather all year round (well, maybe not all people think that way, but most of my friends do!). But the truth is, I find Iceland very green, with mild winter (at least in Reykjavík, perhaps the winter is more severe around the northern area).

Still, coming from a true tropical country like Indonesia, people always question me whether I get depressed from lack of sunshine or too much cold. And I always answer with a firm and absolute NO!

To be honest, I can’t stand the heat in Indonesia, especially Jakarta. The weather is very humid there, that the hot feeling is multiplied (kind of like the effect of wind chill in Iceland, when the wind makes the temperature feels so much colder).

My perfect kind of weather would be a dry, cool temperature, no wind and not too sunny (I hate getting tanned).

So, living in Iceland is perfect for me, as I enjoy my skin getting lighter and lighter in colour each day 🙂

Another good thing for having this type of weather is, there are no insects in Iceland! Well, sometimes in the summer we experience occasional encounters with flies, but that’s pretty much it.

No mosquitoes, no bed bugs, and no ants (yay!). This is a very important perk (to me, at least) because I am allergic to most of bug bites or stings.

Though the weather has been a bit weird lately (first official day of summer is supposed to be tomorrow, but we still had hails and snow just yesterday), it only took me one glance at this news piece in Jakarta to make me feel THANKFUL again for living here.

Btw, I think I jinxed the weather by saying it was so “sunny” at the beginning of the post, as of now grey clouds have started to fill up the sky.