I have a lovely bunch of coconuts.

You know when you just have a really annoying and somewhat unnecessary song stuck in your head? Germans actually have a word for that - Ohrwurm - Literally 'ear worm.' I think it's kinda cute but it started me thinking on what my favourite words are in german.

Babysitten and Kidnappen - This is purely because the past tense of these words amuse me. I mean really Germs - Gebabysittet? Gekidnappt? If I don't get those words into at least every conversation then I have failed  myself.

Kunterbunt (Coonta-Boont) - It translates into english as multi-coloured or motley, which isn't so interesting if not for the fact that I had to write how to pronounce this wonderful little word. Given the chance, English speakers would take this opportunity to drop the C-Bomb and shock people with their colourful (note the pun) language.

Verderben (Fer-der-ben) - I just like saying it really. Sounds like a noise a frog makes... 

Brustwarze - Look I think the english word is amusing enough but the fact that nipple translates as breast-wart into german could keep me laughing for hours - sometimes I think it's good that the German language is so literal, other times...not so much.

Nichtsdestotrotz - notwithstanding, nonetheless. Ok let's break this baby up - nichts-desto-trotz. I have no idea how to use this word, nor have I ever heard anyone actually say it but I just like that they have shoved a whole bunch of prepositions together to make one word...you go Germs

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz  (63 letters) "beef labeling regulation & delegation of supervision law" - Ok this isn't a favourite word (not reallly sure how it possibly could be), actually it's only here to demonstrate the way the german language works: If there isn't a word for something already, then just continue adding suffixes and compounding the letters together until you invent one that describes PRECISELY what you mean - no use being inexact when there's more letters to be added....

And lastly - Numbers. I hate german numbers. They hurt my head in the same way maths of any sort does. I mean - siebentausendzweihundertvierundfünfzig (7254) is a single word of 38 letters and larger numbers means even longer German words...it's frightening really.

Well now you know, the key to german is make it as logical (such as the word for gloves - Handschuhe - 'hand shoes') yet lengthy as possible, and if all else fails - just say an english word with a german accent...I love German

Hope all is well.

Delete.

So I'm on facebook a lot. This is partly due to the fact that I'm away from home and want to keep in contact with family and friends, but more so because I have no life when I'm not travelling and have nothing better to do with my time ...

Because of this though I have plenty of time to facebook stalk - don't lie we all do it - actually though, it's something I recommend doing, especially for people like me who will delete people on a whim - especially if they make any of these five fatal facebook friend errors (nice alliteration there...) -

1) Post music lyrics or 'like for a rate' statuses. This is because a) I don't want to know that you're going through your altruistic hippy stage and have a new found love of Enya and Bob Marley and b) If no one likes your statuses normally, it's because your posts about what you're eating for breakfast and just how tired you are after a day of school really aren't that entertaining... Not to mention the fact that these people always rate their 'likers' above an eight even if they're damn near deletion from their own list. I guess it's just in case you get charged with cyber-bullying or something, but I mean seriously - what's the point? I guess at least you're making everyone feel a little better about themselves - kudos to you - delete.

2) Couples. Ok I'll admit I do this even I love them both dearly. If I have both members of a couple on facebook then one of them has to go. I just can't take the "I love you Babyyyyyy XXXXXXXXX MUAH" and "Why aren't you answering my text? Are you out? I sent you two... get back to me ASAP - it's important!!! Love you 4evas XXXXXXX MUAH" wall posts all the time. Call me bitter if you will, but I don't want to share in your relationship baby, so I'll pick the one I like more and add the other back if 4evas turns out to be much shorter than expected....

3) People who post photos of what they're eating - Seriously? Do I even need to explain why this annoys me?

4) People who use Facebook to advertise their political/religious views....no one's going to be converted coz you invite them to protest rallies every three to four days or posted a picture of a cat quoting from the bible, just give it up.

5) People who post too often (what can I say? Hypocrisy becomes me....) or post depressing statuses - Now I'm sure your mum telling you to clean your room twice in an hour and that boy not buying you enough roses for Valentine's day makes life really hard honey, but a status saying anything alone the lines of "God my life is hard" or "Oh and now I know where I stand with my friends and family :(" etc. etc. will down you a friend and  publicly recognise you as a whiner - stop it.

That being said, I do keep certain friends because they get into facebook battles all the time and I like to sit there and giggle at them. Well, that or I just think they're hot...

Hope all is well.

Shopping Rampage.

Ok so despite being home and achieving nothing over the past few days I have failed to post - and for that I am truly sorry... Well, not really, I have a life you know - just  not a very interesting one at the moment imma have to admit

So the other night I met up with a guy I met in Australia. He's german of course, but he just happened to live around the corner from me in Australia and now lives like 10 minutes away from me in Germany - this little anecdote isn't actually going anywhere, just thought I'd mention it in case people asked what I've been up to in the past three days, because it sounds more interesting than what I've been doing since then...watching South park and The Slap and mixing it up a bit by trying to teach myself how to cook....and failing, but it's the effort that counts right?

It's been hard to cook today though because I ran out of a few ingredients and like a normal person walked to the shops...only to find them all closed. Honestly it's like Germany is stuck in some 1950's time warp some days. I love everything about living here except for a) Speaking german makes me come across as a little bit challenged sometimes when I fail to express myself correctly and then all I want to do is cry and tell them I'm actually educated - honestly! well that and then run away...mature I know

and b) German shopping times are different. Back home in Aus I could just chill at macca's till whatever hour of the morning I wanted (not that I ever would...) and if I realised I needed tampons (I'm sure I could have come up with a better example there...) at 3 in the morning, well that wasn't a problem coz some of our Coles' and Safeways are open 24/7...not so in Germany. Everything shuts at 8pm every night and  no one even considers opening on Sundays. Now I know it's the Lord's day and all but even he needs milk and toilet paper occasionally. I mean seriously, how am I supposed to think far enough ahead to do the grocery shopping on saturday when I'm not even capable of reading a recipe correctly? What's worse is that in Germany lunch is the biggest meal of the day, which clearly identifies me as a foreigner when I chill there with mah sammich at 12pm, but I could chill in a shop or something, if they didn't all insist on shutting for an hour or two over lunch time so they can go home and be with their families/cats.

End rant.

On another less offensive note - German's make lovely cars. That is all.

Hope all is well.

The Wild West.

So I'm finally back home in Stuttgart and have to discuss all my adventures of late...

Düsseldorf was the first place I went and after getting a lift with two weirdos there, I guess I should have known what to expect...but I didn't. It's actually a really beautiful city and one of the few places I can say seems to mix German history with modernity just enough that it's still pretty without looking like it's a popular Amish hang-out or giant slab of concrete. As soon as I got there though I felt kinda nervous, I had no idea where I was going and later found out that the seedy area every city has happens to be around the main train station in Düsseldorf and so it was there that I met Pervy. Pervy told me I had beautiful eyes as I walked past and in my natural defensive and people-hating way, I ignored him and walked on, only to have him mount his bike and follow me - for the next two hours. He talked about everything and anything and no matter how rude or hostile I was I just could not get rid of him! After his many failed attempts to get me to go home with him to 'make party' he should have gotten the point, and yet no. Luckily he didn't speak english so I called mum and told her that if I was murdered she could have Bubba - I never liked that cat anyway... In the end he went into a pawn shop to sell a necklace or something and asked me to wait for him...I ran for it. I flat out ran as fast as I possibly could and only stopped to run into a church and ask Jesus to protect me from the scary man...he did.

That being said though Düsseldorf offers an awesome Aquarium and quite possibly the worst museum ever - the Goethe Museum - I highly recommend it...

Bonn - I got there at 8am and wandered round to see the UN building the second I got the chance. I'm  fairly certain that I am the only person who would consider it a tourist attraction, but I'll admit that I did quiver with excitement until the security told me it was time to shuffle off. Bonn also has the best museum ever. It's called the Königsmuseum and it has thousands of stuffed animals and insects. Sounds gross I know but they're all posed in their natural habitats doing the natural kinda things they would do if it weren't for all the stuffing and embalming fluid...ok, still gross but I did get to see my first real moose! Kind of. I am still adamant that I will ride one one day, but I concede that they are rather a bit bigger than a cow. 

When I travel I eat on a budget of roughly 2 euro a day so I have more money to do things, Bonn was my third day travelling and I was beginning to feel the lack of nutrition and need to go postal - luckily I was couch surfing all week and stayed with awesome people who were willing to feed me, or I would have been seriously comatose by the end of the week. Naturally when you're hungry everything looks delicious and seeing a special on goddamn knödel I'll admit I considered it...lucky I came to my senses and realised the only reason it was on sale is coz no one likes it. Knödel = death. Best german travel advice you'll ever get...

Köln - My favourite place of the week. I just loved it. I loved the chocolate factory, the random ancient buildings spread sporadically throughout the city and the millions of churches. The Dom put shame to the similarly named Church in Berlin and I went several times just to make sure my first few impressions weren't soiled by the truckloads of Japanese tourists giggling and using flash on their cameras despite the signs making it clear that photos weren't allowed... I went to the Prätorium too, which were old ruins from the Romans. I didn't even know the Romans had been chillin' in Germany but they had the creepy underground ruins to prove it. I have clearly been watching too many horror movies of late though coz I was the only one down there and I totally panicked. I think I stopped breathing at one point I was so certain someone was gonna come up behind me with fishing wire and strangle me to death before ripping out my kidney and eating it in front of me as I died....too much detail??? One needs to be prepared for these things...

Anyways that was my short version of events, but I have a week in Stuttgart upcoming so I'll have plenty more time to update you all on everything else.

Hope all is well.

Back in Black (or blue, or yellow)

Ok so sorry for my brief intermission between posts but I've been travelling, and when that happens I only have time for eating, museums and facebook - sorry.

So at the moment I am in Split, Croatia. It's unbelievably beautiful and despite the locals indifference I have to do a double take every morning when I check the weather out from our hotel balcony. Speaking of the hotel actually, we're staying at the Radisson Blu which means I have had to put my classy face on; making an effort not to look like a bridge troll in the morning by putting on makeup before someone has to see me and even bothering to wash my hair before the dreaded three-day unwashed matted look hits, where my hair gets so greasy it just sticks to me - sexy I know. However despite my efforts to be pretty for the camera apparently my outfits have not been so appreciated and I've been asked several times if I'm russian. Now, due to my lack of fur wearing and clear love of the english language I'm going to have to put those false assumptions to my wearing heels despite the snow and skirts that probably wouldn't cover much if I didn't have dwarf legs....

Speaking of short skirts though, today mum forced us to go bike riding around Split. With my having only packed dresses and skirts for the trip, bike riding probably wasn't the best idea, but with my having no understanding of what the locals were saying to me (probably something along the lines of 'your skirt is up around your shoulders right now...') we were off and riding. Now, I'm not ashamed to say that it took me till the age of seven to learn how to ride a bike, despite the normal age being 3-4...Whilst I may look elegant and graceful, appearances are deceiving and today I proved that by failing to ride a bike in spite of more than six years of dance lessons, horse riding and other balancing acts. Just because they say 'it's like riding a bicycle, you never forget' does not make the saying true and I managed not only to faceplant it into the snow, but to stack it several more times in order to leave my body thoroughly battered and bruised. In my defence though, whilst I learnt at 7, I probably only rode a bike three or four times between the years of 2002-4 before giving up completely, having finally realised that riding a bike is a clear sign that the rider has a death wish and wants their bits to be in physical pain all the time (I mean seriously, could those seats BE any more uncomfortable?!?!)

With every part of me crying out in pain I could have gone a massage, I had my first one ever yesterday and it made me deeply uncomfortable. Anyone who knows me will know two main things a) I hate nudity and b) I hate randoms (and even non-randoms sometimes) touching me - put these two things together and you have yourself a massage. Now I don't know if it was the Barry White playing softly in the background or the abrupt way the woman told me to get my gear off but I freaked. 'No you taking the skirt off now,' she ordered - I honestly thought she was just gonna rip my clothes off me in the end she was getting so frustrated by my prudishness, then came the touching....the fondling actually. The whole thing went for two hours, with me trying to make small talk and her telling me to 'just relax,' like some precursor to a horror movie, it's easy to say -  I was tense. Maybe watching final destination 5 before the massage wasn't such a good idea...

Well I think I've written enough for one day and it has been twenty minutes since I last ate....better get back to work.

Hope all is well.

Strangers lurk in every corner.

So I have no friends in Stuttgart right? Just so we know, that was a rhetorical question - let's not hurt my feelings here... I did actually meet a really nice girl who lives just outside of town, but unfortunately people my age are still at school- usually finishing their Abitur (VCE), so it's best not to bother them during the day in case they are anything like me and spend year twelve screaming and crying...

Moving on....

I have however had a few weirdos try to befriend me, like these select three...

1) Train Weirdo. An old woman touched my knee on the train. To make it stranger, she wasn't even sitting next to me to begin with but chose to get up and walk over to where I was sitting in order to launch her assault.

TW: "Honey, you have a hole in your stockings" *Fingers hole* (poor choice of words there....)

G: Umm, thanks for telling me *Shuffles just out of reach*

TW: *Shuffles closer and continues to grab at my tights* You know if I had a needle and thread I'd fix them right here, but I don't, so you must come to my house for me to fix them there!!!! (Far too excited there...)

God knows why I didn't accept really- a random giving my thighs a good and thorough fondling in a public place and then wanting me to enter her lair so she could get some needles out - sounds totally legit...

2) Foreign Weirdo. My first experience with weirdos on the train, ahhh good memories, you would have thought this would stop me talking to others on public transport - but it didn't...

FW: I am from the Italy, you been there?

G: No not yet but I'm planning on it, would love to see Rome.

FW: Yes no, it is not the Rome you want to be seeing but the Sestola. You come, I show you my house and we make party.

G: Umm.....

That was quick....

3) Gypsy Weirdo. When I went to Prague I went straight to the hostel to dump off my stuff, only to run into a band of travelling gypsies - Ok, it was one gypsy and I'm pretty sure she was high, but none the less....

GW: Take it!!! *Throws a box of perfume at my head* IT PERFUME NOW PAY!!!

G: I don't want it  *tries to give it back*

GW: NO! MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!

G: No I don't want it!

GW: *Prepares to attack, begins hissing, crouches down into the pounce position and bares her teeth* ...

I'm fairly certain drugged up Gypsy would have mounted a full attack on me had it not been for the security coming out just in time to tell her to clear off. I sense I'm not the first nor the last customer she has scared off...

I know....My freak magnet strikes again - Victory?!?

Hope all is well.

Schwaebisch - The real language of love....

Ok look, I have lived in Stuttgart for all of one month and I'm rarely here as it is, so I really shouldn't judge - but I will anyway...

My german is relatively good I guess, I have no trouble getting by with normal day to day things, probably due to my obsession with TV shows like 'Familien im Brennpunkt' (Think Jerry Springer crossed with Neighbours) and 'Bauer sucht Frau' (Farmer wants a Wife....a fat, toothless, hillbilly wife), so I learn plenty of quality german... but, as a general rule, I'll understand nearly anything Germs throw at me....well except for Schwaebisch.

Schwaebisch is the local dialect here and just so that you have an idea of what it sounds like, I've included a short clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8UE8ADvF_s&feature=related

Admittedly it's not entirely my fault, with even Germs having to double-take when they hear it and with one of the sayings here being "Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch" (We can do everything - except speak standard German), I don't feel so bad for not understanding one word of it. Actually, it is a language of it's own really, with tours of Stuttgart being offered in both German and Schwaebisch, so I guess the dialect must be extraodinarily different. I think that maybe it sounds a bit like this to actual Germs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj82ZUn7mLs&feature=related






Did I get you again? Hehe....

But I kinda like that Stuttgart has managed to maintain such a hardcore dialect whilst the rest of the German language seems to be becoming more and more anglicised - not that I'm complaining, 'der Computer' and other eingedeutscht terms totally work for me. And even though I will never understand what on earth it is the Schwabs are saying, I'll just smile - just in case it's my murder they're plotting...

Hope all is well.

It's important to always make a good impression.

My neighbours love me.

From the first moment we laid eyes on one another I knew it was meant to be. Admittedly I was in a leopard print onesie and he was probably trying to keep his eyes off the camel toe the aforementioned onesie was no doubt giving me, but none the less...the moment was perfect and we have continued to build a strong connection ever since.

There seems to be three children, with the two brothers being my age if not a little older and a young kid about five or so, then there are the parents, although I've only managed to terrorise the two older boys so far, mummy and daddy are staying out of my reach - for now...

After our first meeting when I asked the neighbours who I hadn't met up until that point if I could borrow their vacuum, the older brother was forced in to my house to grab a glass I could not reach. I noticed he seemed to be a little uncomfortable, almost nervous really. I'm not sure why considering I was as appropriately dressed as he'd ever seen me, actually managing to have put jeans and a t-shirt on; but then again, my fringe was sticking up at a 90 degree angle and I wasn't wearing any makeup - I know, I go out of my way to impress....

What's has made it difficult for our relationship to progress though is my inability to remember names. I'm fairly certain the younger one said they had just moved from Turkey, but maybe I just made that up to fill in the gaps where their names should be... Luckily I need to get our TV fixed and there a few more things I need moved around in the kitchen, so we'll have plenty more time together for me to work it out... Let's just hope they're looking forward to it as much as I am.... *Rubs hands together whilst laughing evilly* For now imma choose my next outfit - snuggie this time? I can belt it to show off my waistline?

Hope all is well.