Solo where you aren't solo at all

Only a few hours in Solo and already I have been to three art events and made multiple new friends. I even got an invitation to stay at one artist's house with her. She is doing this experimental wayang called wayang kucing (shadow cat) on a Fulbright grant. She is also working with this serious and funny guy on a dance/wayang performance where the dancers and the puppets interact telling a story adapted from Macbeth and intertwined with Javanese mythology. When I told Jon, the choreographer of the dance/wayang piece, that I would love to find out more about his work he replied in an sms (this is what they call text msg here), "I'd love to find out more about my work too!". These are just some of my new friends. Of course there is my guide for the next two weeks, Furquon. His English is better than some of my student's. He learned English by watching American films and TV. He loves Hillary Duff. Lets not forget Kitsie, the catalyst for this experience, who we visited at her gamelan rehersal. Gamelan is a powerful, spiritual, meditative music. Hearing this music was spellbinding. I also had the pleasure of meeting a professor from Brown University who is a gamelan musician and also happens to be staying at the guesthouse where I am staying.
Cakra Guesthouse (pronounced shakra) is down an alley off a main road. Alley doesn't sound so good, but thats the way things are here. Its probably not an alley I just see it that way. Its a street. It has a street sign and everything. Alleys don't have addresses, right? Behind this beautiful iron gate is the guesthouse. A series of courtyards with rooms all around. A pool at the end with a small pendopo, open roofed structure where public events take place. The rooms are very sparse. The bathrooms are like the one you would find on a 30-40 ft boat. No plumbing so you have to dump water from this basin into the toilet to have it flush. Its clean. The roosters start at about 4 or 5am, not sure. The Islamic prayers start shortly after the crows at 4:30am. I manage to fall back asleep. Its not uncomfortably hot with my fan, but the mosquitoes find the mango blood where ever it might be and set off for a covert attack. Actually I wasn't sure if I just got itchy all of a sudden from the mosquito bites from earlier in the evening or if they were sucking my blood while I slept, nonetheless I took a couple benadryl and slept like a log...until the crows started, you know.
Solo is a busy city. People don't speak much English. I think of myself as a pretty resourceful person, but when you only know a few words in the native language its hard to get basic things done. Like figure out whats for breakfast. I found a bakery and bought some cheesy bread things and then went to a warung and bought some fried up things. For breakfast! Furquon told me that Javanese eat rice maybe with some fried eggs for breakfast. I have no idea where to find this. I love fried eggs with rice! A staple of the Alvarez household growing up. Throw some ketchup on there and you have all your food groups except dairy (drink a cafe con leche and then you have a complete meal).