The rest of the day I spent writing in my journal, which is something I just started doing since I sent my laptop home, even though I would stop doing this by the time I left Bali. I also went for a run, which allowed me to find a place to get clothes washed by a local store & a small, but expensive Internet place. I had 1700 messages,...because a message had looped which someone had sent me. Lets just say it was not fun deleting those on a slow dial-up connection. I went to catch some supper around 7pm. I saw Kutut there & we talked until they kicked us out of the restaurant when it closed around 11pm. He told me so much about Bali & its culture, it was really an eye opener. There are so many things from the West that have gotten here & yet other things that have not. It was a different perspective that Grumpy had given to me, but similar in overall theme. Kutut told me how hard Bali has been hit by the terrorist bombing in 2002, & terrorist warnings. He says that he & almost all the other people in Bali have been directly affected. He was out of a job for 6 months because by 7 days after the bomb people stopped coming almost completely. I think that is why I had so many Balinese people thanking me for coming or being there. The people who learned I was from the US seemed even more appreciative because they see so few people from there. He also told me about why people from Bali rarely travel (they must be at certain ceremonies every 6 months or they are basically shunned by their community for life). He even gave me some instances of what has happened to people in a few extreme cases. He also related that, like back home, the people with money can get away with anything. The kings son in Denpasar killed his brother, but his money continues to buy his freedom. He also told me about his life, his girl friend & the death of his father which had been only 6 weeks prior. It was really nice to learn so much about their culture & modern life. It is a real blend of new & old. What it all boils down to is that 99% of the people here are really good, which I have seen on so many instances. They also really need people to start coming here because so many business have had to shut their doors. Even now they are running around maybe 20-30% of what they saw before the bomb. He was also interested in the US & had some rather unique interesting questions. People have always heard these stories about crazy things like home & they ask if it is like that where I live. The most popular one is if I were to open a bank account, would I get a gun. I think this was in a Michael Moore movie (don't get me started on this idiot). I tried to give him a more accurate picture of things back home, although like I told him I live in a very small part of the US. After the talk I went back to the room & did some more reading & writing before going to sleep.