Life

I let me body sink deep into the chair in a place that seems like the closest thing to home in all of Balikpapan. With a smile and a sigh, I took the cup in my hand and drank in fully from the straw ...

and then I had all that I could do to maintain my composure and not spew the contents all over the table. I gulped ... without drawing in any breath, casually sauntered to the counter, calmly asked for a glass of water, rinsed my mouth out (hiding as best as I could), and told the clerk that I had ordered and an Iced Tea ... not an Iced Coffee!

I was in the newly opened Starbucks Balikpapan. The only Bucks on the whole island of Borneo, I believe. It opened around Christmas time -- while we were out.

I don't even like coffee (and most of you know that that's an understatement!) but I love Starbucks. This is a concept that seemed to fall flat on the clerks behind the counter who had heard me RAVING about the place just moments before I requested the water!

Why do I love Starbucks? Because in an unfamiliar land where, when it comes to buildings, towns, store-front architecture, roads -- beauty is redefined and I'm not sure in whose eyes it is beheld! In a place with signs I can't read, people I can't understand, a speed that is so slow that you can fall asleep waiting for the person in front of you to move, ... Starbucks is one place that I can walk in, order a black Iced Tea, and know that it is brewed tea from black tea with no sugar or sweet syrup added, and no canned milk, and no herbs, ... well, I knew that until today. Now I have to not only confirm that it is brewed, black, unsweetened tea, I have to say TEA very strongly (but with a smile!)

Such is life!