Antara Darah dan Hati: Dream Reality English Translation

Chapter 25 Part 6 "Attending The Banquet At The Royal Palace"

POV Karim

The next day had arrived, my parents and I prepared ourselves to attend the banquet at the Het Loo palace. After taking a shower, I put on my formal clothes such as a white long-sleeved shirt, a black coat and trousers, black loafers and a long black tie. The formal clothes that my father wears are more or less the same as mine, except that the color of the clothes he wears is dominated with dark blue color, while my mother wears a white headscarf that covers her chest and an abaya in which the color is dominated with red maroon color.

After finishing preparing ourselves, we all got out of the hotel room where we were staying and went down to the ground floor by using the elevator with the two bodyguards of His Majesty the King of the Netherlands who always accompanied us when we traveled out of the hotel.

After we arrived at the ground floor, we saw Muhammad's family sitting on the sofa in the hotel lobby. My family and I greeted and shook hands with his family and after a bit of small talk, we headed straight for the hotel entrance door.

When we were already outside of the hotel, we saw a white limousine coming slowly to the road at the front of the hotel entrance. One of the bodyguards of His Majesty the King of the Netherlands who was with us hastened his footsteps towards the car and opened the door for us. We immediately walked to the car and got into it without paying attention to the various stares of people whose attention was turned towards us.

The car immediately took us to the Het Loo palace in which the distance from the hotel to the palace is quite short. The reason why we were picked up using a limousine car was, because we would enter through the main gate which is usually locked and only opened when important guests for the King of the Netherlands came to visit the Netherlands.

The limousine continued to drive at a moderate speed until after a few minutes it stopped at the part of the Palace in which, according to mevrouw Sofia, is closed to the public and can only be used by the royal family who live in this palace. I along with my parents and Muhamed's family got out of the limousine after the door was opened by one of the palace guards.

The two bodyguards of His Majesty the King of the Netherlands asked us to follow them to the dining room of the palace which was used for today's banquet. When we were almost at the entrance to the dining room, the guards walked with us and guided us until we reached near mevrouw Sofia and her family. Mevrouw Sofia's parents and herself were standing with their backs facing towards us because they were talking to some other people so the guard walked up to mevrouw Sofia's father and told him that we had arrived.

"Excuseer me, mijn hoogheid (excuse me, Your Highness) the extended family of Sinjo Karim is here." he said.

"Oh? Ah, yes! Thanks for the notification." said her father excitedly then the guard excused himself and immediately walked away and left all of us.

Mevrouw Sofia's parents and herself immediately turned their bodies and walked over to us and then we shook hands but, when my family members was about to shake the hands with the the members of her family with the opposite sex from us, we immediately put the palm of both of our hands to our front and enclosed them together and gave them the traditional Indonesian people greeting gesture. I could see the shocked look on their faces when we did that in front of them but, after we did that my Bosnian uncle immediately gave mevrouw Sofia's family a brief and clear explanation as to why we were reluctant to shake hands with people that have opposite sex from us.

"I apologize ladies and gentlemen for surprising you, because when you reached out your hand to shake ours, we pressed the palm of our hands and enclosed them and gave you an Indonesian greeting by clasping our hands together.