France!

"Le jeu commence!"

"Je m'apelle, Marshall."

(Barney and Marshall - HIMYM 7 e9, Disaster Averted)

If you don't know the meaning, just ask Google.

Since I could pronounce "Je t'aime" properly, I have fallen in love with this country, the culture, the language, the history, the museums, the lalala~ you named it!

Especially when it's written in a novel by Hanum Salsabiela and Rangga Almahendra (psstt.. I'd like to take the course he teaches at my faculty :) Maybe next term?) 99 Cahaya di Langit Eropa. How would I translate the title? 99 Lights at European Sky? Nah. I even didn't know about the novel until I stalked. Yes stalked. Nowadays, Facebook becomes a place where you get information besides library. I was curious enough to know Mr. Rangga Almahendra whose friends with a manager @KTM, Mr. Julian Legazpi, gave us, the student of FEB, lecture at MM UGM. Heard that Mr. Rangga has finished his postgrad at Vienna at such young age, I was so interested.

So after that, I planned to search him on internet.

Find him, and him.

Read the information, add as friend. Done.

A night passed and, voila! He confirmed. Now see the scretch on the wall... Oh wait, he wrote a book? With his wife?

Thumbs up.

I opened the link, went to the page. It didn't take time too long until I decided to buy. Online. Right after I read the comment. Sent order, waited for reply, sent the money, got the book. Just 3 days after the lecture. It's special because they gave me their signatures!

I read the book. I cried.

This book touched my heart, the France part. I envy.

If you read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and Autumn in Paris by Ilana Tan, you know that books are the same, fiction, ok, Brown's is sci-fi (is it?) But 99 Cahaya di Langit Eropa? It's a knowledge, maybe people didn't know until they read the novel.

Why French loves their culture. Now I know that French barely use English!

What part of France you have to see while in there.

What's so interesting about France and the riddle there, the history.

What's hidden in the heart of France, Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe.

I used to hate Napoleon, just love his poems, but now, because of the novel, I started to look for his biograph.

Mezquita, Hagia Sophia, Kara Mustafa Pasha, Rondo Alla Turca, Mozart, Turkey, Cordova.

All I could do was murmuring, "Oooh!", "Ah!", "Hhhmm?", "Is it?"

They trailed the evidence, that Islam left something, not something, but maaanyy things in Europe, and it exerted an influence of European culture, history. They describe the places and I felt like I was the third party, who saw their journey.

I also remembered what Mr. Taufikurrahman said in Shariah Economic Discussion:

"If you have a chance to see the world, try to compare Islamic civilization and others. You will see that other civilization are nothing compare to Islam's."

I know. We have ever ruled 2/3 of world and shining the world, when the 1/3 was the dark age, and they, the western, say, in the middle-age.

Back to France. I slowly learn French. Slowly, because I learn by myself. Also other language  I used to hate, German. They say I'm crazy to learn so many languanges then learn about Indonesian folk songs, folklores, folkdance as well, crazy to dream to go around Indonesia. Yes, I am, crazy.

France is my first destination in Europe if I have a chance to go around the world.

I want to see by myself. Because I don't believe that France is good enough to see :p

Amin.

Flag of France, I painted it by myself ^o^