It poured all night - so hard it sounded like I was trying to sleep under a waterfall. In the morning it was still coming down in buckets. Besides my one venture out for breakfast I spent the entire morning in my room. Early afternoon the rain slacked off and I ventured out. My plan had been to spend the day at the beach or pool, but the weather really isn't being agreeable. I did email, then went looking for packing materials - I was planning on sending a box home from here, but I just realized that most of what I have is wood - which I definitely will not be allowed to bring into Australia. So now I must send a package home. I finally found what I was looking for (tape, paper, envelopes) in a department store. The line wasn't terribly long, but the sales person was so slow that I was fuming. It was the wrong time for some one (a local) to step in front of the queue. I let him have it, he tried to act like he didn't understand, but there was a sign in Indonesian and with very clear pictograms, and eventually he moved to the back of the queue - after telling me off and proving that he did speak quite a bit of English (at least all the four letter words). I was thoroughly annoyed with Kuta by this time so I left - at least for an hour. I went and had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. Whatever you can say about them, they are consistent and I just wanted some peace and quiet and normalcy - which I got, for the price.
Wandered around Kuta some more in a much better mood. Once you get into the few back streets people are more relaxed and friendly. I think they don't get many tourist even at the best of times, so the recession isn't really affecting them. I went back to my hotel and hung out for a while, then went out to catch another movie at the same pub (the movie was "Club 54" tonight). Afterwards I went to the same bar as last night, different band, but same cover songs. I wasn't really motivated, so I left immediately and walked home.
Got together the packages I'm hoping to send tomorrow and then spent some time answering email and writing in my journal. Realized that I forgot to double check the time of the flight - something else to do tomorrow...
