Friday, February 26, 2010

wedding set-up


















































❃ so exhausted after spending the whole day setting up for the wedding tomorrow!! shit, that was hard yakka! but the place looks amazing! we did an awesome job, if i do say so myself...

ive finished my speech, which i hope is funny, and am just about to hit the sack for the best sleep of my life... tomorrow is the big day and im SO excited!!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

rat-bag tom-boys


















































❋ it was so nice having my oldest high school friend sarah come and stay for a few days... there's always a special friendship shared with someone you grew up with since childhood, like they know you more than anyone else, since they share so many of your oldest memories.

sarah's just as funny as she was back in the days of going on each other's family holidays, smoking our first cigarettes, running away from home, wagging school, stealing liqueur chocolates from target and getting drunk on them, fist-fighting over pimple gel, ripping each others hair out by the roots, playing with ouija boards, having trampoline sleep-outs, swimming in the river with snakes, jumping off dangerous tarzan swings and riding our bikes (called jo-jo and mary-jane) all over town.

fifteen years later, for old times sake, we drove around and checked out all our old hang-out spots, down the river and along the railway tracks, and we realized what brattish, rat-bag tom-boys we were as kids and what nightmares for our poor parents..

since we're both on holidays at the moment, we decided to eat out, drink up, go shopping and enjoy ourselves as much as possible... one night we went to pick up some rosé wine to enjoy on the warm summer evening on mum and dad's back deck and the guys at two different bottle shops didn't even know what rosé was! it seems we've become much too sophisticated for little old shepparton ;o)

i had more fun and laughed harder than i have in a long time and was sad when sarah went home today...

Monday, February 22, 2010

skype





















♡ i changed the default settings on my blog so that anyone can now comment, without having a google account and all that crap...
just to let you know, i'm expecting more comments now! ;o)

today i missed jerry so much that i would have kept him on skype all day if he didnt have to do other things, like have a life. god bless technology, even with the continuously shitty connections!

long distance relationships are made so much easier with skype! how could people have coped back in the days of letter writing..?! ...perfume-sprayed stationary, a lipstick kiss mark, a ribbon-tied lock of hair shoved in with the letter, written in sweet poetic shakespearean style... that's all quite romantic actually but i'd still prefer skype any day.

i'm half way through my holiday now! wow, time has flown....but im enjoying every minute of it, even if i am missing my sweetheart...♡

Sunday, February 21, 2010

friends and the city


















































❀ melbourne is a wonderful city; full of action, colour, variety, culture... a big melting pot of nationalities, fashions, cuisines... it's the second most live-able city in the world apparently, (whatever that means) and very international..
on the weekend, i saw melbourne through the eyes of my italian friend irene, who has just moved there and fallen in love with it...
we hung out down brunswick street, which used to be my old neighbourhood, full of outdoor cafes, quirky bars and vintage clothes shops, and talked about life and love and travel. we realized that once you work on a cruise ship, no matter how settled and happy you are on land, you always forget the down-side of sea life and feel that soft but steady pull back onto ships... at the same time, we're both glad we quit early before we got hooked forever like lots of crew do...

today i met up with my old friends pat and kim for brunch, coffee and an appalling one-hour game of pool at the Evelyn (i can't believe i ever was a pool shark!)... it's funny how even though we now see each other less than once a year, it always feels like no time has passed.

after lunch i went into the city to meet liz, an old friend and housemate from uni. as i got off at the tram stop where she was waiting, we briefly glanced at each other and away, like two strangers, and in that millisecond, we managed the all-encompassing 'size-up' that girls have mastered on each other, before (in shock) we scanned back, recognized each other and burst into delighted laughter...
after three beers we were already pissed in the summer heat and laughed our arses off at old memories; a vintage jacket of mine that we had a huge argument over, bedroom swapping and re-arranging, crushes on next-door neighbours, liz's special telephone trick: when calling to ask parents for money or chucking a sickie at work, hold the receiver 10 centimeters from your ear to achieve emotional distance from the conversation....

it feels like so long ago that i lived in melbourne and even though i've been traveling for years now, i still had considered it my home.... but as i was carried away on the evening train back to my parents house in my hometown, i had a pang of sadness wash over me and i couldn't figure out if it was nostalgia, or the realization that i don't quite know where my home is anymore...

Friday, February 19, 2010

summertime


coffee outside the theatre










































* last night we met up with my little brother in melbourne for dinner in the city and then 'jersey boys' at the theatre and we were so impressed! normally we enjoy picking a show to death afterwards, like real theatre buffs; which actors were great and which ones sucked, how well they nailed the accents, the singing, the choreography, the costumes... and we really couldn't pick a single fault with this one! ...and i kept reminiscing the whole time about the musical production my mum talked me into going in a few years ago and how much of a blast it was. im so looking forward to moving to london to watch more broadway shows...

i went to stay at my godmother's house and as soon as i walked in the door she greeted me with 'hello skin and bones!', which i was very happy about, after the effort of that last juice detox diet.

we gass-bagged all night and morning and then i walked around to my best friend lucy's house. in keeping with tradition, i found lucy on the edge of some disaster, sitting on her front porch chain smoking, with last night's party makeup still on, eyelash extensions all over the place, talking her way out of being fired from work for whatever the latest drama was... that girl is the human equivalent of a cyclone centre...

tonight im going out partying with an italian girlfriend of mine from the cruise ship who has recently moved to melbourne. the weather is so hot and balmy and all the outdoor cafes and restaurants are swarming with people enjoying that feeling of summertime that just soaks into your soul and makes you feel so happy....

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

hoarding




























✲ after much lounging around the house and the back deck, drinking fruit juice and soaking in this glorious summer weather, i finally decided to stop being lazy and do something productive. since mum and dad renovated my bedroom, all my stuff has been stored in bags and boxes down in the bungalow, along with all their other hoards of shit.
i began the task of sorting through my mound of clothes and belongings, which has turned into a three day project...

with 10 huge bags and 15 boxes full of random stuff, from dream-catchers to hot-rollers to steel-capped work boots, i was stuck with the dilemma of what to keep and what to chuck out. absolute keepers like my 8-piece antique kimono collection were hung straight back in the wardrobe of course, but my problem is that i form sentimental and very emotional attachments to all my clothes, no matter when or where bought and how often worn. each item feels more like a close friend with whom i have many fond memories.... chucking a piece out feels like ending a friendship and throwing out the photos.
this horrible habit of hoarding has left me carting around a truck load of baggage from one house to the next for ten years until it was finally all dumped at poor mum and dads.

ive forced myself to be brutal while doing the throw, and am already mourning all those old friends... but am keeping in mind the expression 'out with the old and in with the new' as a promise of some more retail therapy ;o)

Monday, February 15, 2010

juice



































✥ today mum and i decided to start one of our yearly juice detoxes, which involves not eating anything except fresh fruit and vegetable juices for as many days as we can bare... our last detox lasted one week and i lost 4 kilos and felt on top of the world.
we started the day with a brisk powerwalk, followed by vegetable juice for breakfast and i was feeling like it was gonna be easy. for lunch at friars street cafe, where we met my three cousins who are in the wedding party, i ordered two orange juices, resisting the tempting menu with a little more difficulty.

we then had a dress fitting at 'brides and maids' and laughed our arses off at how ridiculously huge the bridesmaids dresses all were on us, since the shop lady screwed up the order by choosing american sizes.
while pinning the crap out of mine, she pinched my boob hard, twice, and i was totally braced for her stabbing a pin into one, but luckily for her she didn't.

there was a sign in the fitting room saying 'no photography' so i pulled the sneaky iphone photo trick and nearly got busted, then found out its only if you haven't bough the dress that you aren't allowed to take photos!... i guess to avoid people pulling a 'muriel'.

i did a tad of shopping and then we picked up jordan, my cousin's little boy, from the same primary school i went to (which i havn't visited since the 80's) and as i wandered around, a million memories flooded over me.

by dinner time i was starving, and suffering so badly from caffeine withdrawal, that i said 'f#@k it!', sculled a coffee and decided to go out for pizza with donna and jords.

juice detox 'take 2' tomorrow...

Sunday, February 14, 2010

there's no place like home



on the plane (notice the red wine stain on my sleeve!!)








❉ what a magical feeling, finally arriving at melbourne airport after three days of traveling, to see mum and dad's happy faces waiting for me at the gate!

we managed to make it back to my home town by 1am and without even going home to shower, mum and dad took me straight to my cousin's hens party, stinking like sweat, with no make-up, greasy matted hair and wearing the clothes i'd worn for 3 days which were stained with red wine from my little airoplane piss-up.... (i'd met a lovely lady sitting across the aisle from me in the plane and we decided to drink the flight away in honour of my cousin!)

there were still a few drunken hens left at the party, so we just grabbed wine glasses and joined straight in!

after a whole day of sleeping on and off; on the couch, on the outdoor deck sofa and finally in my bed, i think i've finally killed the jetlag...
and i'm so happy to be home!

Friday, February 12, 2010

qatar




























❉ snowstorms over germany caused all my flights to be delayed so that now, instead of being back home as i should be, i'm lying in bed in a 5-star hotel suite in qatar, a country i never knew existed before i booked this flight.
will i go exploring outside? no. i know what it's like outside...... wide deserted streets, lined with stunted palms, high-rise construction in progress. perhaps a beach with no people on it. bearded men in white robes and head cloths, strolling around in groups. maybe the odd woman, head to toe in black burkah, rushing around doing errands. slimy taxi drivers slowing down to stare at the foreign girl with no burkah and no escort..'hello miss, where you going?'....
perhaps i judge too harshly. nevertheless i'm spending the day in my 5-star suite.

with my suitcase stuck back in frankfurt, all i have to entertain me is the 'E' channel (and 50 arabic channels) and the contents of my handbag (a laptop with near depleted battery and a magazine twice read)..
meanwhile, my poor cousin is preparing for her hen's party, that i, as maid of honour, was supposed to be hosting, but which i'll now miss.... :o(
at least i'm not missing the wedding...

Thursday, February 11, 2010

the black hole





















✻ perhaps in the stress or excited anticipation of going home, my whole day yesterday was a catastrophe.
coyote ugly night was planned at the bar and an hour before work, i couldn't find my jean-shorts, which was absolutely the only thing i had to wear for my coyote costume. i spent an hour ransacking my wardrobe, then jerry's, then all my housemates, in search of those damned shorts and got so angry at not finding them that i was screaming, cursing, slamming doors and punching walls the whole time.

jerry still didn't help me look, so i emptied his closet on the floor then accused him of throwing the shorts out, knowing he never liked them. this caused such a huge argument that by the time i even started work i was already exhausted from screaming. then i slipped and fell on my arse at work, smashing a tray of glasses and hitting my back and knee really hard.
as a small consolation, the coyote night was lots of fun, once i finally revved up, and pia lent me some of her jean-shorts ;o)

i got home from work at 3am, packed my suitcase and at 4am, jerry drove me to the airport. half way there i realised i'd lost my new camera. since it was jerry's birthday present to me, he was a little peeved, especially after i just lost the beloved furry hat that was his christmas present to me, the week before... :o(

there seems to be some kind of black hole that's been following me around lately, gobbling up my personal possessions when i'm not looking. as well as the hat, the camera and the jean-shorts, in the last few weeks a heap of other things have mysteriously disappeared. i began to wonder if i have one of those disorders that makes you constantly lose things, but jerry believes it's just share-housing. not that housemates steal things, (with the exception of the jean-shorts ;o)), just that things get all mixed up and tucked away and lost with so many people and all their shit in one house.

im sitting here in stockholm airport, with my flight delayed, and i'm so tired that i'm hallucinating, but alert enough to watch over my handbag like a hawk, that nothing else slips out of it and into the fiendish black hole.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

snowstorm ❄

































































❄ i'm getting SO SO SO excited about going home on thursday!! regardless of the 35 hour voyage or the fact that i'm gonna miss jerry to death, there's nothing like the feeling of arriving back home, laying on mum and dad's back deck in a bikini, sipping freshly squeezed fruit juice and soaking in the summer sun. nothing ever matches the wonderful and comfortable laziness that i feel at mum and dad's.

jerry took a day off skiing yesterday to spend with me and we went driving, looking for a picturesque place to take some photos. we arrived at an old mine site and jumped out of the car with two camera's loaded and ready for action, but it was snowing so hard that we couldn't walk anywhere without falling knee-deep in snow and i was worried my cameras would be destroyed...

so we went and had coffee in a cosy bakery, cuddled up like two honeymooners and sopped about how much we're gonna miss each other....

Saturday, February 6, 2010

it's a swedish tradition!
















❆ a group of young guys sitting in my station at work last night, asked me what a girl like me from beautiful, sunny australia is doing in a place like åre...
of course i didn't tell them i'm here for love. the tips are always better if customers think you're single. i told them instead that i like to travel, which is not a lie.

'do you ski?' they asked me... 'no, i don't like it much'.
'then why the hell aren't you back enjoying the summer in the land of sunshine, beaches, drugs and free love....' .... is that really what australia is known for? how horrible!

i know australia is much more drug liberal than sweden, and its sad actually, to see a club full of 20 year olds, all off their heads on e's every weekend. god knows what's gonna happen to our generation in 20 years time when mass dementia kicks in... it's actually refreshing to go out in stockholm and be surrounded by happy people sipping rosé wine instead of pin-heads grinding their jaws and sucking on water bottles. its a much fresher party scene...

as for the free love, i was under the impression sweden was the country that had a reputation for sexual promiscuity and easy women, (apparently ever since they were the first to legalise birth control and abortion in the 1930s)...

anyways, as i picked up the cheque from the guys at the end of the night, one of them slipped a folded-up note into my hand. with huge grins on all their faces, they said goodbye and i unfolded the note so see they'd drawn a diagram of their table, with numbers representing the seats each of them were sitting in and all four phone numbers. at the bottom was written 'pick one! its a swedish tradition!'

Thursday, February 4, 2010

student week
















❖ it's student week in åre and to attract them in to 'nova', the cocktail bar, we did a cheap beer promotion. i was in the bar by myself, prepared as usual for a quiet night, with some tabloid magazines and the 'words' game on the iphone.

all of a sudden, 50 eighteen-year-olds piled in to the place. i watched them as they looked around in wonderment at the black and white nude photography; bought two beers at once in excitement at the price; downed the beers like it was their last night on earth; filmed themselves having beer-skulling competitions; banging the beers on the table and emptying the exploding froth into their mouths; singing with no tune, dancing with no rhythm, banging their heads on the hanging lampshades; sitting on each others laps and kissing in the kind of shameless public displays of affection that teenagers don't care about.

i watched them in complete embarrassment, remembering myself at their age......exaclty the same!

at the end of the night, with only two kids left at the bar, daffy joined me to flip through the hollywood scandal stories in my magazine. ten minutes later, the bathroom door bangs open and a guy and girl tumble out, heads down in shame, the girl with the worst case of 'bed-hair' ever. we had no idea anyone was even in there! while laughing under our breath, daffy overhears them claiming she was vomiting in there. come on! probably vomiting at the same time as shagging. we've all been that age!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

victory!




































✩ ah the sweet smell of victory! without even having to hit the courts of london, our enemy has surrendered and backed out of the scam that would have ruined us. perhaps they heard that we had david beckham's lawyer on our side... or maybe their guilty consciences got the better of them. anyway, we stood up for ourselves against the top knobs and we won! .....

'No Way San Jose' is free again, and as we speak, ABC are writing up contracts to distribute it for us internationally!!! yay!!!!

cheers to the little people!

Monday, February 1, 2010

saunas, thai food & balloons






















































the hangover

























✬ on our day off yesterday we all went to 'saunaworld' in the holiday club hotel. a wonderland of steam rooms, eucalyptus saunas, ice saunas, ice baths, waterslides, jacuzzis and swimming pools, (including one that even goes outside into the snow), we spent the whole afternoon relaxing and pampering our skin and bodies. we were so tranquilised afterwards that jerry and i had to have a siesta!

we then headed out for dinner at the new thai restaurant that our boss has just opened up. the thai chef (and our friend and colleague), toto, cooked up the most delicious feast for us! i had vegetarian spring rolls, tom kai gai (spicy coconut and lemongrass soup) with rice and deep fried banana split. i ate until i was nearly busting out of my little black dress. we started the rounds of shots early and our friend natalia, who's visiting from stockholm, came to join us for pre-party drinks.

the rest of the night is a blur of drinking shots and more shots, pole dancing,
covering peoples mouths and blowing through their nostrils, jumping ahead of people in the line to the toilet because 'i was more busting than them' and knocking on the occupied doors to hurry people along, slipping a hundred times on the ice in my gripless boots, breaking my earrings, loosing my new furry hat, hitch-hiking home (jerry's idea), collapsing in our front entrance and falling asleep in the pile of boots....i woke up with a hangover to rival the one from the movie 'the hangover'.

jesper's been in stockholm all weekend. as a practical joke, the boys bought 1500 balloons and we spent the last few days blowing them up to fill jesper's room as a surprise for when he got back tonight. you could barely open his bedroom door, there were that many balloons and it was so funny watching his reaction! the balloons have now spilt out to fill the whole house and every five seconds you hear the popping sound of balloons bursting.
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