Switzerland tried to kill me.

Today we went to Lindau. Today I almost drowned.

I'd like to keep my dignity and say that I didn't, that I was just taking a small break, gracefully lying on my back in the water - but I wasn't. I was struggling and the boat we had hired seemed to get further away every time I glanced up from the water in a panic - because unfortunately unlike normal Australians - I can't really swim. After years of weekly lessons and school swimming competitions my swimming skills pretty much cover how not to die - Or so I thought, seems I may have overestimated my skills a little there... 


Luckily for me, Pascal jumped into the water to save his damsel in distress as she put more effort into telling people to stop asking if she was ok than actually keeping her head above water *cue dramatic splashing scene* Unfortunately it seemed to be an out of the frying pan and into the fire kind of situation, with Pascal deciding the best way to drag me back to the boat was by my neck - Fate had it that I was going to survive drowning only to be choked to death by my lifesaver. 


Now when you almost die your life doesn't flash before your eyes, you don't get to see what you did well or where you went wrong - mostly you just see water, and a lot of it... Then you drink said water and think about how gross that is because millions of swans, ducks and fish have excreted their waste into your current drinking source, not to mention all the semi-(and completely) naked germans swimming in the water all around you... Then you realise you need to die gracefully and try to look calm and peaceful as you give up on doggie-paddling your way to salvation. Admittedly any elegance I had retained by that point was lost through the sounds I made as Pascal semi-choked whatever life was left in me trying to get me back on board but -


 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySzgYVqk4p8

(Couldn't help myself)


The real challenge with drowning though, is actually surviving it - because then you have to maintain your dignity afterwards... Of course I tried to play it off as an act, pretending that it was really just an overly theatrical performance and that I hadn't really panicked, just wanted everyone to prove their loyalty... That didn't really work though and instead I had four people asking "Are you ok?" at once. Thank god the hero of the day - Ash - went on to tell me that he would have come to my rescue but he felt there was no reason for two of us to die when he's going off to travel at the end of this week... 

Luckily I recovered my usual pep by throwing Pascal's underwear into the water as he awkwardly tried to get changed, hoping to watch a passer-by swim right into them and distract from my shame. However it would seem gravity is no one's friend, and we watched them sink to the bottom of the lake through tears of laughter before he had any chance of rescuing them,. Guess who had to freeball it for the rest of the afternoon?


My hero.


Hope all is well.

Smitten Kitten.

Sometimes I forget to write, other times I have nothing to write about, but more often - the internet is out and I have to find something constructive to do with my time here on earth.


Wow, that was dramatic - shame I can't keep that up...


So in the last few weeks I:


Went to Southside and drank and slept and ate and actually had the best weekend ever, bruises, unsanitary-ness and all. At one point I actually fell to the ground in the Rise Against mosh pit and quietly accepted my death as the crowd jumped up and down without considering what they were stepping on... Luckily a guy quite literally picked me up and gave me back to my friends, who laughed and asked why I made no attempt to get up - what can I say? I didn't want to interrupt the final film roll of my life flashing past my eyes.


Drama.


I headed to Berlin with the family I babysit for and went on a boat tour and ate an inexplicable amount of currywurst - it was lovely.


I was also attacked by a bear! Well no, not really but I felt there wasn't enough drama in that episode.


Amy, a friend from Australia came to town and we did a few touristy things and then proceeded to go out for a few quiet drinks one Tuesday night and come home at 4am with two random boys (one who was on crutches) and then dump them on the couch with a sleeping bag between them before heading to bed ourselves. Amy spewed all night - all night - luckily I had enough alcohol in my system to kill a small horse and slept through it, only to wake up to her having coated the right hand side of my bed with her body fluids. So I got to work with the bleach and any other cleaning product I could find and all is well again - can't say the same for the two boys though who were probably hoping to get somewhere with us - but instead were offered the couch, told to go to sleep and had to face my mother in the morning - That's a story they'll be telling the grand kids....


I also met a guy, he's quite nice. Well we've really only just met so the only reason I'm mentioning this is because last night my mother decided to give me "The Talk"  #3456789875,  which I'm pretty sure she did purely to amuse herself... In that hour and a half of pain she recommended different forms of contraception and used the words "sexually attracted to him" far too often - although as far as I'm concerned, saying it at all is one time too many. I sat there and tried not to squirm as she reminded me of those year eight sex-ed lessons where you all stick a condom on a chair leg or a banana or something (my school couldn't afford bananas for our year level apparently...) Well admittedly, she wasn't nearly so detailed and really she just wanted to recommend I avoid getting any STD's, the worst one of course being a baby, but that didn't stop me telling him this morning that my mum wanted to have a talk with him - he's living in fear now - so he should....


Hope all is well.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

There comes a time in every girl's life when she must choose: Leopard print or snake skin?

And for me my friends, that time has come...

Next weekend I'm going to a massive festival down in the south of Germany called Southside. Now that is of no interest to anyone unless you are going to it or tried to get tickets before they sold out and are now crying in the corner whilst I do my victory dance and prepare to see Mumford and sons, Blink 182, Florence and the Machine, rise against etc. etc. etc. But for this three day camp-out I require gumboots (and a tent...working on that) and considering gumboots are quite possibly the least sexy thing anyone could possibly wear (with the exception of perhaps a fanny-pack/birkenstocks), I have decided that my gumboots must be either leopard print or snake skin and over the knee, because wearing giant blocks of rubber on my feet just doesn't seem poor-taste enough....

I hate camping though. It's dirty and I feel it should only be reserved for those creepy mountain people who own ugly shoes and loose, khaki shorts and say that they 'enjoy' hiking, or for those people who take their ancestry far too seriously and want to go bush to rediscover their native-indian side - not that everyone is native-indian, maybe they're like amazonian or something, but I'm pretty sure they lived in trees like those blue things in Avatar... - either way, camping is wrong and should only be resorted to if there is an awesome band line-up in it for you.

So naturally I need to eat on this weekend away and have therefore packed bread, poptarts, vodka, water and more poptarts because I like a bit of variety in my diet. Admittedly I'm not sure there is enough vitamin-C in poptarts to really boost my immune system so I may end up with scurvy...which really just proves that camping is a bad idea.

None the less though I am mind-blowingly pumped for this festival and I even met the girl I'm going with last Friday after my plans changed and my friends dropped out. I felt my poor teenage heart being ripped out of my chest at the thought of selling my ticket though so instead of doing that - I agreed to go to a three-day festival with people I didn't know...determined? I think so. Luckily they seem great and I have now ordered my gumboots and they will be arriving tomorrow - Leopard Print or Snake Skin? That is the question.

Hope all is well.

So much for VCE being the be all and end all.

So last night I had an interesting dream....

Somehow whenever I hear that sentence, I either die a little bit inside to prepare for the boredom that will surely ensue as someone describes their subconscious antics to me in extreme detail or wait for a boy to tell me he dreamt about my mum (why would anyone think it's ok to tell me that? - refer to "forever alone" sentence one)....but then maybe that's just my past experience

But none the less, last night I had a dream that I was fiddling with one of my teeth and I accidentally pulled it out - and then one by one started working on all the others. Now this is either because I am going to be a toothless old freak or because I have most certainly failed my German exam and the stress of failure is making me insane - but more likely I'm just going to be Madame McGumster from age 20 onwards...

On Thursday I sat the TestDaf, which is an entrance exam to prove your German is good enough to study in Germany, but more accurately - it is a test to suck everyone's will to live. I had the fortune to be sitting this exam during the European Cup and therefore a good half of the questions were somehow related to soccer. Now it's not that I don't enjoy soccer like every other European here, but I don't know the rules and if there is no alcohol involved in having to sit through a game of it then count me out... To add to that, the written part of the exam asked me to write an essay about whether there were too many english expressions in the german language, and if that was also the case in my mother-tongue...which just happens to be English... Well I guess from the looks of it usually the people who sit this exam are eastern-European or Asian, so it was a fair question for anyone else in the room, but for me all I could write was "well... English is the main language spoken in Australia so....it's not really an issue if we use too many english words and expressions in English...." 10/10 right there Giorgia, you go girl! Not. Then I did some awkward explanation of the slang we use in Australia being different than in the US and GB and therefore easily misunderstood before retiring to the corner to have a cry about my impending failure notice.

So now I am now preparing for the year of prep-school I have to go to to be able to study in Germany. I had to do it regardless of whether I passed the TestDaf or not but I was just hoping I'd be able to ask the Uni Officials really nicely if I could skip that year and go straight into uni....seems I can't, but I liked my optimism. So in February I will move up to Berlin and study there for a year (and hope that if I ask really nicely that they let me finish in 6 months) and then start to study, but for now I am planning trips to Spain, Finland and Greece - I figure I might as well have fun before high school starts up again -

- And here I thought all this uni pain would end with finishing year twelve...

Hope all is well.

Forever Alone.

I don't understand boys. Well, I know that they require food, oxygen, sleep and sunlight to grow and corn chips and porn to continue on living, but other than that I'm completely missing the part between the "Hey" they start with and the "Umm..." I get when I realise I've said something weird like how disgusting I find the words "moist" and "orifice" or telling a story that a) has no clear punchline and b) probably wasn't that appropriate anyway.

So I'm single...

Hard to believe I know considering my winning personality and classic good looks, but somehow between my uncanny ability to make a terrible first impression and general habit of saying things that seemed much funnier in my head, boys tend to run for it, or climb up a tree or something - I don't know, they're a very limber bunch...

Limber....a word that should never be used in conjunction with a human being, let alone a group of them.

Now I have a friend who has a new girlfriend nearly every month - but he'll tell you he's not a player - he can't help it that so many girls fall in love with him... He's like an overly available year seven, changing his relationship status every few weeks - and hence he's my go-to-guy if I want 'quality' advice. Now I won't mention his name, because Trystan wouldn't like that, but he does offer me quite possibly the worst dating advice I have ever heard, and hence I blame him for all my errors - Among many of his great suggestions were:

1. If you're ever nervous about meeting up with a guy - just drink until you're calm! Because if ever you are at all emotionally unbalanced - numb the feelings with alcohol - and a lot of it! It will make you more attractive to the opposite sex and if you drink enough, you won't feel the nerves for days after under that hangover!

2. If you're ever going through a hard break up, you should just find a rebound boy for a week or two. Don't bother to consider his feelings because let's be honest, he's male and will therefore be more than happy to go along with it -

- and people tell me Gingers have no souls.

Alas, today I have things to do, people to see and cats to collect as I slowly head towards my inevitable fate as a crazy cat-woman... so we'll talk soon hey?

Hope all is well.

Apologies - Where to start?

I have noticed I've made a lot of disapproving comments about Germany in the past few days and felt I should make amends. I live here, so clearly there must be a few things I like about the country - and here is just that - a few things:

1. I like that Germans are so organised. They will say they're not, that their trains sometimes run 2-4 minutes late and that there was this one time (at band camp), that they had to catch a BUS because the train broke down. Well honey, in Australia you might as well walk coz that bus is going to be fours hours late and only have enough space for twelve of the 200 people waiting.
Not only that but Germans even schedule their uprisings. Every year on May the 1st (Mayday even....), the Germs up north smash stuff, throw rocks and call for equality...or something. The point is that police KNOW that people are going to rebel against Germany's awesome education system, great healthcare and fair treatment of women on Mayday and hence know when to up the security - Brilliant.

2. Germans feel completely comfortable telling people exactly what is on their mind. Now I've mentioned before that there is no point asking a German how they are (wie geht's), because it is just a cue for them to give you their life story, but that's more because unlike in english where it's just an ice-breaker, if you ask a German how they are then they think you actually want to hear about the upcoming finalisation of their divorce and how their kids have been in the past two years since you've seen them....so don't say it unless you mean it. However, I think it's kind of nice that Germans are more open about how they feel. Complaining in a restaurant would make me cower and run but Germs have no problem telling the chef that he is a complete failure; What's more is that you'll never hear a German asking "does my butt look big in this?" because chances are - they've already been told.

Saves a dress malfunction and a bad meal - Useful really.

3. Germans know how to party. *Sigh* I sound like a drunken 16-year old posting on her facebook wall saying that, but I have to hand it to them - they do. They start drinking after 10, don't even consider hitting a club till past one (and frankly that's still a bit early) and often don't come home till they've visited a recovery club (which don't even open till 5-6am). I love it! And if it weren't for my love of stripper heels that make my feet weep by 3am before playing dead around 4-5, I'd probably be right there with them. Unfortunately my partner in crime Ash usually sits in the corner and has a cry around 4 and we have to catch the tram home so he can be tucked into bed with his security blanket and teddy....nah I'm kidding, the security blanket and teddy stays at his place.

I sense he probably won't find that crack nearly as amusing as I do.....

He's gotten much better though. I'm impressed really, he even got a girl's number after I gave him the best pick-up advice I could offer - be foreign -

And that dear reader, is all for today.

Hope all is well.

Penguins belly flop better than I do.

So last night I had a shower, as I often do. However, unlike the showers of Christmases past (ok and other days...) this one decided to ruin my day's efforts of washing all the towels in the house by overflowing. Not only did the water flood the entire bathroom, but it made its way into the hall and towards the kitchen too and like some demonic wave of destruction the more I tried to stop it, the further it spread. Naturally, when I realised what had happened I ran down the hallway in panic mode towards the towels - which just a few hours earlier I had neatly stacked, ready to be put away - only to face-plant it onto our hardwood floor. I'm pretty sure I could actually hear the flood cackling at me as I stood up, holding on to the side of my face in pain and grabbed the towels to throw them down wherever the water level was 3cm or higher.

Bubba - ever the hero - looked like he was going to have a stroke as he swam through the wreckage, sobbing loudly as his fur became more and more drenched. Luckily for him he then proceeded to hoist his fat, wet body onto my mum's bed and give me death stare until the crisis was over. I knew we should have gotten a dog....

So that was the highpoint of my day.

Other than that I failed to really achieve a lot today apart from writing a few essays, feeding my hateful cat and nursing my face-plant wounds... my life is so riveting.

Luckily now I know the chaos that will be unleashed just by showering, so if ever there's a dull moment I now have a new party trick - time to befriend my neighbours I guess....

Hope all is well.