Catch up #2

Ok so yesterday I left you with my exciting adventures in Spain. I could talk about them all day really but, in an attempt to avoid gloating about how awesome it was - imma move on. (Note what a good person I am - I didn't even whip out the 10,000 photos of all the sights and people from my travels that you've never seen or met to show you....)

We're now in Zurich in Early-November 2012....

1. I went to visit a friend there after a loose invititation along the lines of  'feel free to come visit if you want' was given. In retrospect, I think it was kind of like those invitations I give to people when I have a big bag of chips or something - 'would you like one?' - I'll ask them, but of course their answer should be no, because if I only wanted three-quarters of my chips then I would have bought a smaller bag - get your own... And so with a half-hearted invite, offered very late one night two weeks before in mind, I found myself standing under a really fat and ugly thing/piece of art, that was supposed to represent the guardian angel of Zurich, waiting for his tardy ass to turn up (admittedly I was also running 2 hours late by that point too...) It was a pretty great weekend actually, I went to museums, spent a lot of money, went to museums, spent more money...I have privately-renamed Switzerland 'little-Australia', because only Australians would look at Swiss prices and think 'well, I've seen worse.' 10 francs for a beer? That's only $10 or so and we are out on the town after all....Germans though...Germans freak out.

And so they should, here the cheapest beer is something like 20 cents...

2. And Budapest. I went to Budapest to visit an awesome girl I met in Valencia and spend a week with the boyfriend I had abandoned for five weeks to go Spain. Budapest is my favourite. It is the magical fairyland of cake on a stick, thermal baths and lots of other stuff - but frankly you had me at cake on a spit. (Germans also have their own version of this...Baumkuchen...I love Germans). God I loved Budapest; it is magnificent, it is beautiful and it is super cheap. I will be going back. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is I loved about Budapest so much...maybe the giant castle on the river or the food or the Parliament building...but it's just...

Go there.

And that will be all for now. From then (a.k.a. now) on the simple story is that I had to quit travelling and get a job (or three as it turned out) to fund my studies and now spend my time either working or arguing with fools at the Rathaus over Visas, tax file numbers or...yeah, don't get me started.

Hope all is well.

Catching up #1

Ok so it's been a while - a very long while.

Here's post #1 catching you up on my life in-between...

1. I went to Amsterdam, it was off to a good start when somehow in ridiculously unlikely circumstances it turned out that my boyfriend's sister just happened to be catching the same train half way with me...at 5am in the morning. That would have been ok if not for the fact that I had a) been avoiding meeting his family for weeks beforehand - knowing that I'd get all awkward and make a terrible impression and b) been on the lush for about 5 hours by then. By that time my trusty friends Russian Standard and Jose Cuevo were joining the party and I found myself teary-eyed and saying goodbye to Pascal at the train station (note the tears...) Then his sister appeared out of no where - having recognised him - and probably regretting it, was forced to sit next to me, trying to make conversation in whatever language I felt my emotions would best be expressed for about an hour before I fell asleep on her for the rest of the way...

I'll admit it wasn't the my best impression I could have made...

2. I was in Amsterdam. Not my favourite place in the world, mostly because the whole place smells like weed and the few places that don't smell like weed smell like hookers. Ok ok - maybe that's a little harsh. It was actually pretty great -  I went with Ash and we rode bikes around and ran over tourists, ate burgers from vending machines and stared at windmills and hookers in windows (I can't even begin to describe how weird the whole thing is)

3. I was in Spain for a month wearing sun dresses and working on my tan (Well, not really - I need only think of the sun in order to score a hefty burn), trying to learn Spanish whilst my fellow Aussies and Germs were freezing their butts off and being useful to society by working or studying.

I regret nothing.


I tried to learn Spanish in Valencia - failed, but found that my terrible Spanish was often more than most Spaniards spoke. That's not to say my friends and I were efficient or always got what we wanted - with one of many requests lost in translation leaving my friend with a whole peach on a plate after ordering what she thought was peaches in cream..the peach was brought to her in a haze of confusion on every one's part of course...

I became a share bear (kind of), living with three other people in a small cabin and living through more than one storm that nearly blew our whole cabin away After Spanish classes and storms were over I went to Barcelona and stared at Gaudi's work (not my style Imma admit) and Madrid to...I don't know, be in Madrid?

And then I went to Montserrat and saw the famous mountain monastery and Toledo with it's ancient city on top of a mountain (both day trips from Barcelona and Madrid respectively and both better than the main cities) but I don't have anything amusing to say about either and I wanted to try to keep this brief - so with that, I bid you adieu -



Hope all is well.

Belgium - Chocolate, Chips and Children.

This week I went to Belgium with my boyfriend of two weeks. Well actually, we've been dating for about three months now but between the German need to take things slow and my probation period to sus the person out in case I've unwittingly picked up a serial killer, we have only officially been together for two weeks and hence we decided it was time to go on holidays together.

As you do.

Whilst we'd originally planned on going on a roadtrip, thus offering Pascal many places to discard my lifeless corpse on the way through Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland, the car broke down the day before we left and we were forced to make an emergency blind booking - ending up in Belgium.

It was awesome.

I not only survived, but I ate more chocolate, waffles and chips than I thought was possible. We saw Smurfs, the works of my favourite artist Rene Magritte and had an apartment on the fifth floor with a private balcony spanning the whole outer rim of the hotel which we managed to book on a random deal that saved us almost 80% of the normal rate - life was good.

Of course there were some minor hiccups...

Whilst travelling I like to take a photo of every second thing I see, so naturally as we were walking along the streets of Brussels and I spotted a fortress/tower thing I needed a photograph of, I completely lost track of what was being said all around me. Unfortunately it seemed that this was the moment Pascal decided to utter those three little words that Romeo whipped out after knowing Juliet for all of ten minutes like a creepy stalker pervert... Now I'm a one trick pony when it comes to keeping my mind on track (note my launch into how much I hate Romeo and Juliet), and I had already decided I wanted a photo of Pascal in front of the tower; So despite my extreme girlish happiness, gushing and such in the moment; not two seconds after I told him I didn't hate him in return I leaned in for a hug and whispered "now get in front of the tower" sweetly in his ear. Well at least I thought it was sweetly...turns out I sounded more like Golem threatening people for the return of his precious. Now Pascal doesn't like his photo to be taken at the best of times. If it must be done he grimaces and looks like he's hurting inside - but somehow this seemed to be even more awkward - did I ruin the moment?

At least my social faux-pas was nothing on Pascal's. As we sat in a little church somewhere in Bruges, a little girl dressed in a short red skirt, pink jumper and knee-high, shiny black boots walked past us. I remarked that she was adorable and that I loved her little boots, to which Pascal replied by suddenly turning into something out of Mean Girls and calling her a special S-word that wasn't sweet or sassy, (or sexy...just for the record). Unfortunately for him, her Scottish father was sitting next to me and overheard it, but for what it is worth Pascal was in his own little world and kept repeating it, completely disregarding her father talking under his breath and giving him death stare from four feet away - I grabbed his arm and speedily dragged him out at that point...luckily no black-eyes were received this trip.

Well I better go for a jog now, work off all those delicious waffles I ate you know?

Or maybe you don't...

Hope all is well.

Achievements.

So I bought a 'Deutschland Pass' this month which basically entitled me to go anywhere, on any train I liked within Germany as many times as I liked to truly realise just how utterly useless Deutsche Bahn is.

And boy was it useless.

I think for every hour I spent on a train, I spent another waiting for said train to turn up. "Please excuse us but today's train, scheduled for 5:45, has now been rescheduled for 10:45. Have a nice day from the Deutsche Bahn."

For what it is worth though, when I wasn't living on a train, I saw some awesome places and swear I saw like 50% of Germany's churches. I went up to Berlin for three days just because I could, going out with a friend to some club called Berghain that she made me wait an hour and a half to get into and got home at 9:30 in the morning after talking these two Dutch guys into buying us a box of dunkin'donuts goodness and then I went to Koblenz and played 'spot the castle' with the million fortresses that line the rivers' banks.

I also hit up Freiburg at the edge of the black forest, Ulm with it's giant cathedral, Lindau at the border of Germany, Austria and Switzerland where the lake tried to kill me and a million other places. My favourite though, was probably Kassel where I saw the Documenta, which is an art show that seems to have taken over the whole city. I hate art galleries. I generally think they're the place people go to die when the golf course is in use, but this was amazing. The galleries, theatres, historical sites and hotels were overflowing with art so the park was filled too just to fit it all in. They say you need at least four days to see it all, but a week is advisable if you don't want to rush...awesome. Sadly I only had two days there before I had to head home because my pass ended and I didn't want to actually have pay for Deutsche Bahn to be useless, lest it encourage them...

Anyways that was my very dry and informative post about what I've been up to (I remembered that was the original point to this blog after all), now to plan my next trip. The boyfriend (oh yeah and I have a boyfriend now - his name is Pascal and he is German) (and lovely) (Imma stop bracketing things now) is taking me on a roadtrip through Switzerland and Italy on the way to France...Life is good.

Hope all is well.

The Poo Shelf.

Now there are probably only two reasons you're reading this: a) You normally read my blog or more likely b) you saw the word 'poo' in the title and wanted to see what all the fuss was about...

Well I'm here today to talk to you about the great german invention - the Poo Shelf.

Normal toilets....

Here's one I prepared earlier...

Eww. No.

Anyways it's probably not what you think. I mean it's not a shelf in the German's pool rooms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5KbMolsUPA) or even a cupboard where they keep all their toilet related collectables. It is in fact a shelf on the inside of the toilet that...well, makes creating collectables a lot easier....

Not that they collect - I hope.

Now in Australia during the great droughts of like, every four years, older people liked to reminisce with me (and I'm sure any other young person they could freak out) about the good old days when the 1970's slogan "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown - flush it down" was in force.

German toilets....

Eww old people. Just eww.

However, it strikes a certain chord with the Germans, not that they let anything mellow of course, but they are very health conscious and environmentally aware, so they have a little catchment in there so they can take their time checking how things are going on the inside...and just in case they want to take a sample or two before they let it - slip out of their grasp - for lack of a better term...

Well actually there were many better terms, I just felt that one induced the worst images.

*evil cackle*


For what it is worth though these things do seem to be more common in the north of Germany, where people actually want to look at what their body has been digesting for the past 10 hours. I rarely see them down here in BW or Bavaria - I guess we're not much for a long farewell...

That being said, neither am I. So with that I say -

Hope all is well.

Weekend away and a world to pay.

This weekend I caught a train north in search of Currywurst and Emma. Both were found, one was eaten.

When I finally got to Berlin we headed straight to a lake Em wanted to check out. Partly coz it was hot but mostly because her uncle owns a boat. Luckily for Giorgia's #1 rule of water - Boats only increase your risk of drowning: Avoid them. - it wasn't windy enough to sail and we had to settle for swimming in the shallow depths of a lake populated by children....the water was rather warm - eww. 

However, the was no swimming before this delightful conversation could be had:

Emma: Hey, what's FKK in english?
Me: You mean like nudists? 
Emma: Yeah exactly
Me: Umm why are you asking?
Emma: Hmm well it's just that we seem to have gone to the wrong lake....


Yup, you read it right. We had accidentally (or so Emma says....) stumbled on to a nudist retreat. There were large, old and hairy men alike but do you think we found one attractive person in the whole place? No; Not that we were looking...

Luckily the whole trip just kept getting better, from getting kicked out of a bar for climbing through a window (we wanted to get to the outdoor seats before someone else took them - Unfortunately they thought we were doing a runner and yelled at us in broken...whatever language that was) to trying (and failing) to persuade one of the many Aussies we ran into that I really am Australian ("but....you don't sound Aussie?")

The highlight of course was Berghain, a club I had never heard of for which I stood in a queue for 1.5 hours (and that was after we cut in towards the front). Em was DESPERATE to get into this place and the closer to the door we got, the more she wanted to maul the bouncers for being so randomly picky. They would refuse girls in gucci but allow guys in thongs and wife-beaters in and then refuse the next group dressed in the same way...random.

Now I'd been up since 6:30am by this point and wasn't really in the mood to club. Luckily for me we got in, I danced a bit and then had naptime on the couch. I also seem to have picked up two guys from the Netherlands at some point, which was lucky coz when we finally left the club at 8am I was in need of Dunkin' Donuts...and thanks to them I had a 12er box to choose from....I think I chose and ate like 8 of them.

Then I had to stay awake till 2pm. Em wanted to go to a flea market and I knew if I fell asleep I'd never get up again. So I got home, zombied my way around, bought some seriously random stuff at the market and barely avoided passing out on the train home. By the 32 hours of consciousness mark I was set to kill - if I'd had the energy that is. Luckily for everyone it was enough effort for me just to keep my eyes open and I fell asleep the second I got to the weird new-age/Tibetan hippy style house I was staying at. 

Next time I guess....

Hope all is well.

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.

Too much information?

Our apartment didn't come with curtains, blinds or anything that would maintain our privacy when wandering around the house whatsoever. We do have big metal window coverings to put over the windows at night and during the long, cold winter but they do have a tendency to look like we're turning our house into a bomb shelter as we prepare for the apocalypse, so we don't tend to use them.

The point to me telling you this is that our neighbour's patio is directly next to ours, and therefore they can see through our kitchen window and into the lounge room. This wouldn't be an issue if I ever remembered this, but I don't, and I think they've probably seen enough to paint me like one of Jack's French girls....

Just thought I'd quote Titanic there...too much information?

Anyways, so I am quite the ninja when it comes to drunken text messaging. Mine are usually grammatically correct and roughly spell checked - ever the perfectionist - and usually go something like this:

"Look I'm drunk but I just wanted to tell you I love you and you're so pretttyyyyyyy and smart and funny I love youuuuuuu"

At least I'm complimentary?

Usually I do cringe face and check my facebook and phone immediately when I get up and sure enough there are always messages from me and usually people replying with "Big night? :D "

Yes. It was. Now excuse me whilst I tell you and anyone else I messaged that whilst you are smart (debatable), funny (also debatable) and pretty (Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...) - I don't love you, I never have and am probably not about to start....mah bad.

Now my friends, knowing that I do this, nearly always take my phone off me, log me out of facebook and keep an eye on me so this doesn't happen. How successful do you think they are? Somehow I always find the phone, get on to facebook and tell everyone just how special they are to me...

On the bright side, I am a peace loving drunk who just wants to sing and dance and tell people they're beautiful and maybe cry like that girl out of mean girls who "doesn't even go here!" when people tell me they get it, they're beautiful and I really want to say "NO, YOU DON'T GET IT! You're so pretttyyyyy". Well, at least I'm not the red-headed version of Paris Hilton getting a little too affectionate and making a film of it or Mel Gibson punching people and being racist, see - silver lining to everything!

Anyways study to do and a cat to feed -

Hope all is well.

The morning after...

I'm in pain this morning.

My head is saying "I told you so," my stomach is doing playful somersaults at the thought of food and the rest of me is praying for McDonalds and Panadol. That being said, Eurovision was great (after a few drinks) and despite the sad lack of Switzerland in the finals I'd call it a good night.

So yesterday I went to Filderstadt to look after a friend's cats. Resisting the urge to give in to my crazy inner cat woman, I didn't take the cats home with me and instead ventured to the bus stop only to find I had a 20 minute wait in the sun. Rangas don't like the sun. It doesn't suit us, we burn or freckle - not sure which is worse. So I casually sat on the steps of some random's house to get in the shade. I did notice the curtains shuffling about and a head peering out at me but I pretty much ignored it until a man in his late forties came out and started nervously questioning me about my reasons for sitting in front of his house. Now, judging by his reaction, I can only assume that he thought I was planning to kidnap his wife and children or something... Luckily before he could shoo me away, his wife came out and told him to leave me be - I was clearly harmless - she then topped it with "wow, just look how white she is honey, she'll die in that sun" Accurate. But hurtful...

Later on that day Ash came over and we were quickly taking out the rubbish so I didn't bother to a) put shoes on, b) take my phone or wallet with me or c) bring the house keys, instead choosing to leave the door open just a crack.... So of course the door didn't stay open and we got locked out. Now, I don't deal with stress particularly well....and after I had completely flipped out, I proceeded to check if any neighbours were home and flip out a bit more each time no one came to the door. It's school holidays - no one is home. So I went in to the restaurant that is below our apartment, looking like some kind of hippie with my lack of shoes and asked for a ladder. Now I live on the second floor and it's at least 7m up if not more, so whilst telling the waiter what had happened, the boss there recognised me and couldn't breathe he was laughing so hard. Luckily his young bartender came to the rescue and brought the ladder and held it as Ash - The best friend of all time - climbed up the suspicious looking ladder and monkied his way onto the porch.

So whilst I'm freaking out, hoping my best friend doesn't fall and crack his head open on the concrete, the young bartender is hitting on me. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but surely he would have assumed Ash - the boy who despite my ear-splitting tantrum, is climbing up a wall for me so I can get into my home -  was my boyfriend no? I think that was the only time I've ever wanted that error to be made, because bartender boy clearly wasn't really holding the ladder secure for Ash and I highly doubt he would have caught him if he fell. Luckily Ash proved himself quite the ninja and succeeded, leaving Bartender Boy to mumble something about me coming to the restaurant more often before quietly shuffling off.

So what have I learnt from this you might ask? Well it would seem that stress drives boys up the wall...

Hope all is well.

Poor Switzerland.

Yup, it's that time of the year again kiddies. The trees are singin', the birds are swingin' and Ash and I are gearing up for the highpoint of our annual social calendar - Eurovision.

Now I know you're probably thinking - get a life - and trust me, I'm working on it, but until then we are hosting a Eurovision party tonight during which we shall - well, watch Eurovision - and drink until it's bearable...

You see the game runs roughly the same way the Smurfs drinking game works. Basically every time they say the key word (Eurovision), or no one votes for Switzerland (sucks to be neutral), you drink - Simple! Now of course there are other rules, but unless anyone is planning on putting themselves through the pain of actually watching Eurovision I won't go into too much detail...

And what is the history of Eurovision I don't hear you asking? Good question! And to be honest I have no idea, I could just google it but it's easier just to assume that in a bid to avoid any more warfare, Europe have decided to fight their battles out on the stage in glitter and spandex and have even invited Israel and other clearly non-european countries along for the EUROvision ride. What I do know is that no one is ever any good, England cheats and gets famous people like Justin Timberlake to perform for them, ABBA won it back in the 70's and because every country is diplomatic about their choices and votes for the biggest threat/their neighbours in a bid to avoid starting a war - no one votes for Switzerland.

Poor Switzerland. Well, at least they have their army knives and cheese...

Anyways my satanic cat is begging to be fed now. Bubba has recently taken to licking my nose till I get up in the mornings...I know where that tongue has been - eww. Oh and he seems to be developing a nasty habit of trying to sit on our guest's faces...I think I prefer the tongue to nose action really....

Hope all is well.

(Possibly Hypocritical) Fashion Rant.

Ok let me be honest (as ever) - I hate German fashion. I hate the scarves, I hate the coloured pants and goddamnit if I see one more camel toe jump out at me coz girls think it's ok to wear their jeans so tight that I can see their birth canal then imma have to hurt them...

1. Coloured pants (with the exception of crimson) are NEVER ok Germans. As Dr Seuss said "I do not like green eggs and ham" - ok maybe the quote doesn't work here in anyway, shape or form but if the pigmeat shouldn't be green then neither should your pants! Orange is also out and if I see one more of you wearing bright yellow pants with a stripey top imma have to drag you back into H&M so you can buy black or blue pants or some other shade (and not COLOUR) that doesn't rape my retinas.

2. Scarves. Functional yes, attractive....matter of opinion, ok in 30 degree heat? NO. Just stop it, all of you! The fact that the average german male owns more scarves than the entire population of Australia is of great concern to me, not only does it make me think they're trying to be Indie...(don't even get me started on those.....damn hipsters) but it means that they are almost guaranteed to be wearing coloured pants with said scarf....and I've made my position on those babies quite clear I should think....

3. Floral. I hate it. I really hate it. To make matters worse Germans have now introduced skin tight white floral pants that make the fashion gods want to cry tears of hate. This is also an item that people love to match with a nice coral coloured tank top and offensively bright scarf....just no.

4. Tight jeans. Ok good and bad. Germans have the best legs in the world. They are long, they are skinny and they are just awesome. Now that was the good part, unfortunately they know this and proceed to wear the tightest pants plausible. That's ok really, if you've got it flaunt it I guess. However, most women I think, also have the potential for camel toe and I would think you'd want to avoid showing that no? Apparently not....and now that summer is here I'm beginning to see the camel toe extend its reign from jeans...to shorts....eww.

Ok on the bright side, Germans have introduced me to tan pants (thankyou) and long sleeved dresses (thankyou), so it's not all bad....but there's definitely some room for improvement, just sayin'....

Hope all is well.

Summing it up.

Ok so it has been two months and I could go into detail about what has happened in that time but I realise you don't care and I don't really have the attention span for that, so there's an abridged version of my life's events at the bottom of this post if you feel like reading, otherwise:

I thought I'd inform you about Germans in the crossover period between Winter and Summer. You see the change of season is a difficult time for Germans everywhere. The Germs, usually accustomed to packing their summer clothing down in the cellar for the long winter months, don't really want to go back down to the dark and dingy depths of their houses in April or May to retrieve the aforementioned clothes and hence are confronted with the difficult decision as to whether they should change over their wardrobe yet or not. Of course they choose not to, because after all, it's not officially summer until June 21st -

- This then leads to them being inappropriately dressed in hot weather as only Germans can be. Tight pants and a long sleeve top with a scarf to match is not really my ideal outfit for the 30 degree weather we've been having of late and yet the Germans just sit in silence and suffer....staring me down for wearing shorts and a tank in the sweltering heat. I guess they're expecting Stuttgart to somehow turn into Melbourne and for it start snowing randomly or a downpour of rain to suddenly bring the temperatures back down so they can cackle at me and tell me that my shorts aren't long enough and that I might catch a chill....but let's face it, that's not gonna happen Germs...

Now this is not a criticism per-say....all I'm sayin' is that I have enough clothing to dress at least four African nations and yet I still manage to fit it all between my useless IKEA furniture and the floor....

But maybe I'm just feeling touchy about the large number of german women who do not believe me when I tell them I am an adult, (barely, I'll give you that) but none the less! The sheer number of German women between the age of 30-55 who think it is ok to tell me that a "girl just hitting her teenage years" or "someone so young as you" shouldn't be wearing makeup, or heels - even skirts seem to be off limits from the looks of it, is just ridiculous! I think it would be ok if they retracted their comments once I told them my age but it's usually followed with "now come on, don't lie" or "Oh. Seriously?" Somewhere between my 5"2 stature and bob I seem to have lost at least five years....well, flat shoes - the new anti-aging solution it would seem....

Anyways I'll leave it there, have some study to do so I at least only fail this exam (see below) a little bit....but here's the shortened version of my life in the past two months as promised:

- Went home to Australia, but you knew that already. I did manage to drag out my birthday celebrations for three whole days and fit 17 people into a hotel room for four... Then I proceeded to drag Magenta clubbing every night of every weekend as soon as she turned 18, *sigh* I miss my wingman.

- Found a new wingman, unfortunately this one is actually a man and people constantly ask if we are together before proceeding to look at us questioningly...don't be ridiculous - he has much better taste than that...

- Decided to stay in Germany to study and proceeded to begin preparing for the TestDaf (uni entrance exam for foreigners), which is both the most complicated and pointless exam I have ever attempted to pass....but if I fail I'll just go celebrate in Spain and if I pass - Poland's looking nice.......

Hope all is well.

Home sweet Home

I am now back in the homeland for the next six weeks after a painful 22.5 hour flight which saw me sit next to a fifty year old german man discussing his relationship issues (he was single and had never been married) with me for the first 14 hours, followed by a rather nice couple from the Netherlands on the second flight who were forced to get up at 45 minute intervals so I could pee.

I don't know what it is about flying exactly, but it just makes me angry. Certainly the idiots I am always forced to sit next to don't help. I mean seriously, I don't know at what point Mr. Germ thought I was interested in discussing his lack of a love life but the whole thing was like one really long and uninteresting episode of 'How I didn't meet your mother and turned to prostitutes instead' without the lovable Barney Stinson to make it funny. To add to that I felt exhausted the whole second flight but couldn't sleep. I'n not quite sure what it is about sitting in the window seat with two people sleeping peacefully next to me, but the whole thing just makes my bladder fill, which of course means that they have to get up every time I need to go...which was a lot...for no real reason. Maybe it was just subconscious revenge for the first 14 hours? Or maybe I was trying to find myself a man so I don't assault people with tears and cats at the age of 50. None the less they suggested that we switch seats - I refused....

And then comes the Jetlag. I slept all day Thursday and none of Friday. It is now Saturday and I'm debating playing dead fish till 7pm when I have a party to go to...I know. I am the party person. Can you sense just how much fun Imma be?

My bed is calling and telling me it's nap time now. I know - this post was mindblowingly riveting but I hope your day is somewhat more eventful than mine will be.

and as per usual -

Hope all is well.

Long time coming.

Ok I've been bad. There's been a shamefully large gap between posts but I've been travelling and got addicted to Game of Thrones...it's not my fault!

So during this rather large break I have:

Got a lot of my hair cut off (see picture). Worked out nicely really because they will now use the 38cm of hair I cut off to make a wig for a child with cancer. So I not only gave to charity, but I created a new Ginger without getting knocked up, I'm like a modern Virgin Mary

Got arrested. Well that was more of a misunderstanding really. Unlike in Australia, Germans take even the smallest law far too seriously. Cross a road whilst it's still red and they look like they're gonna die of shock and don't even THINK of eating a grape in a supermarket to check if they're any good (admittedly I don't do that...people touch that fruit and they are dirty), anyways so I was with my Russian couch surfer and we wanted to go one stop forward (he wasn't much of a walker...) so instead of paying the 1.10 euro for one stop, we just hopped on and got caught with no ticket. I cried, pretended I didn't speak any German and told them I was a tourist and yet those heartless controllers not only fined me 40 euro, but called the cops coz I didn't have my passport on me and apparently every other card (including my LICENSE) with my name and photo on it wasn't proof enough that I am in fact - me. For what it was worth though, the Police were so awesomely hot I felt that my being arrested at 11pm and having to call my mother was totally worth it...

I also went and saw one of my favourite bands (Rise Against) perform and watched the shameful efforts of the German Mosh Pit, I mean really people, is fist pumping all you can really manage? I want to see stretchers by the dozen taking people out of the crowd with broken ribs, black eyes and clumps of hair missing...that's moshing as it should be. That being said I never get in the mosh pit. A) because I don't want to die, B) because I'm too short to actually see the stage and C) because I don't want to die, so maybe I'm not exactly an expert here...

I also went to Paris with a large number of stereotypes in hand and not enough money for any normal person to get by on. I did Paris in five days on 180 euro (including transport), luckily if you're a citizen of the EU or live here and are under 26 then everything is free - Bazinga (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfL4-C8OCys&feature=related) For what it is worth though I came back with 10 euro in hand and got a new perspective on stereotypes. I mean if one more person tells me that the French are rude, girly or that their capital city is filled with dog poo imma have to tell them that - well ok that's kinda right in some cases- but for the most part I found Paris to be quite clean and as long as they didn't think I was a gypsy asking for money they were up for giving me directions - shame they were nearly always in French...

Although I did almost have to become a Gypsy at one point when I missed my train back home to Stuttgart and was told I'd have to buy another ticket. Now if you book three days ahead it will cost around 50 euro, two hours before and it'll be around 200 euro. Given that I had exactly 10.40 euro to my name and that my phone was dead I knew I wasn't going anywhere and after a week of travel and...lots of wine tastings with my awesome hosts....I had no voice and a nasty cough. So I did what I always do when I want officials to feel sorry for me - I cried - and you know what? Not only did I get on the next express train to Stuttgart for free, but I was in the First Class cabin and got a free lunch to go along with it. I am the Ginger God.

That's it for now, need to go pack - My plane for Australia leaves in 9 hours! So excited!

Hope all is well.

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.