Project: Lure...

[phrasemuffin]

... in which David is uncharacteristically social/camp, and teaches Steph to Snap like a black woman/gay man.

Project: Lure didn't go quite as planned. I had hoped that at some point I'd be able to bring up the bracelet while Manuel (?? :S) and I were just, you know, alone off to the side. That didn't happen though, because I somehow bonded with three more local girls (and came out to one of them after she asked me if I'd found any nice German girls :P), and I was with at least one of them all night.

Plus, you know, it would have been totally awkward to just say "Hey, so uh, that bracelet... did I hear that it was given to you by a boy back in Germany?", especially slowly while watching him translate it. I have to admit though, that that is part of his charm - softly spoken and tentative; it sort of just draws you in. Perhaps the next quesetion would have been more awkward though: "So, is he someone special? Or just a friend?".

However, I still have at least one more shot. There's a barbeque lunch on Wednesday that I am being made to go to (I don't think Steph would take no for an answer), so I will likely see him there. Problem is, though, that he'll probably have a whole bunch of new German friends by then. If I find him on Wednesday surrounded by a gang of Germans, all speaking their native tongue, I don't think I could just squeeze myself in next to him and start up a conversation.

But I hear you ask "what's he like?", so here's the skinny:
- German, obviously
- blue eyes, dark brown hair
- 23 y.o. (just scrapes in!)
- high cheek-bones, strong chin
- doesn't drink because in his village, there isn't any public transport at night, so getting home he would have to either walk or ride his motorcycle, which he used to do but then had an accident which broke his wrist
- rides a motorcycle
- blue eyes
- thinks Australia is really nice because not everyone is an alcoholic (polite way of saying Germans are drunks, okay?)
- doesn't play sport (woot!)
- thinks beaches are boring
- can't swim, possible reason for thinking beaches are boring
- thinks the city is boring
- apparently has crappy guides because no one is showing him a good time in Sydney
- wants to go to a wildlife reserve, may be interested in zoo
- blue eyes
- is on a working holiday visa or something of the sort for a year (I think that's right?) - basically backpacking across Australia, I think, working and whatnot as he goes
- recent convert to Catholicism/religion; unsure as to reason; suspect possibly has something to do with drinking and motorcycles but could be very wrong
- shy
- does better one-on-one with the speaking

Most of this was learnt this morning while taking him for a walk around town - from the school, to the main road, to Maccas/Subway/TAB, back the windy way to a nearby park, rest stop, then back to the school for food. It was at the park I learnt about the bracelet.

I'm fixating though, aren't I? There were so many cute/hot German guys that I didn't even speak to because I didn't want to abandon Manuel. We lost him twice: once for about a second (he just went to get food), and then a second time for at least half an hour (... I still have no idea). That scared the group a little, not just me, so I'm not the only one who's bonded with the guy on some level. And none of us wanted to abandon him for other Germans, but I think we sort of hindered his socialising with them... that or he was a little scared of going and speaking to new people from other parts of Germany. I saw him speak to two unattractive German guys the entire night and I thought yes! no competition! except in ease of communication and I felt a little guilty that that might have been our fault. He will be bunking with these people, after all, sharing three showers among 200? Should really be on good terms with them in such close quarters. (it probably didn't help that he came by himself though, and not just not in a group of friends, but without any strangers arriving at the same time, hence our looking out for him, despite his being older than all of us! :P)

There really was an awesome community spirit tonight from the locals, I must say. So many people, even people I'm pretty sure I've never seen before. AND SO MUCH FOOD! Everyone wanted to feed the pilgrims and make them welcome. We kept hearing/talking about other schools taking in people and not being anywhere near as generous as us - no heaters, single showers, single bar of soap, no enormous food stash for breakfast, no huge welcome, and worst of all, no me. Ashbury will be remembered across the world (or at least in Germany, Italy, Africa and Brisbane) as the pride of Sydney's World Youth Day. It'll finally put us on the map!!!

I'm hungry. On an unrelated note, I got five hours sleep last night thanks to Inspiration. She struck at 2am to tell me about an add-on to Project: Ether Engine - a bunch of off-shoot tunnels, one of which houses an imaging platform and was designed for testing Artefacts and their properties, which took an hour to completely transcribe so I wouldn't forget anything. There were also a couple of broad ideas for people to populate the world, namely the cybernetically-altered (for reasons of efficiency) science officer in charge of said room's goings on, the chief engineer on special first-name basis with the head of the entire base, and the head of the base himself. There was also a scene where the base was infiltrated and a scared chief engineer had to hide within the projections of the imaging platform (which at highest resolution is affected by physical interuptions to the projection [i.e. sticking your hand int he projection makes random blurry dark bubble spots to appear across the projection]).

[also, I just wanted to say how awesome it is that you guys support Project: Lure! :P)