"Summer Vacation Report"

As the title says, this is a report. Reports are long. Unless you’re bored and have a lot of time to waste, you've been warned.

First & Second Week: Horse Riding Camp

The good thing about going to camp for two weeks is that the second week is just fucking awesome in comparison to the first. My case was quite extreme. On the first lesson on the first day my horse – ironically called For Pleasure – threw me off, the mean way. Diagnose: contusion of the left hip bone. I couldn’t even touch it, it hurt so badly. Anyway, the oh-so-wise owner told me to move as much as possible until it stopped hurting. I did. Which resulted in my hip swelling terribly and me being driven to hospital. I was told to move as little as possible and they gave me some ointment. On the third day after the accident I was so bored that I just went to class. Turns out it doesn’t hurt when you sit on a horse. Good for me. Anyway, the show they throw after each week of camp (basically jumping a parcours) was a big fail for me since For Pleasure is the type of horse that kicks, bites and bucks out of spite and that neither goes forwards nor stops. Meaning that either he wouldn’t move from the spot or he’d just gallop away. Yay.

The second week was much better. My new horse was called Orlando and was a sweetheart. Easy, made me regain my confidence and joy of riding. Love that horse. The only problem is that he doesn’t like to be cleaned, which is pretty dumb. But no matter, outside his box he’s just wonderful.

Also, during the second week we got some guys. The first week was just me, my two roommates and two girls in the neighbouring room as the eldest in camp, the rest were 7-12 years old. You can imagine. The second week on the other hand brought with itself two “older” guys, of which (sadly, in a way) only one is worth talking about. To my horror he was only 15, but I could have sworn he was 17. Seriously, he looked perfectly 17: Too old to be 16, too young to be 18. But that’s not the point. He turned 16 two days later so it was okay. Everything turned back to legal again. Just kidding. But he was cute. Only so damn innocent in his own way. You can imagine all the girls started chasing after him since he was basically the only attraction in camp.

Third & Fourth Week: Lake Serwent

We come to the less amusing part of my report. As you know, I was – more or less – waiting the whole year for this moment. I was finally going to see D again. So far, so good.

The beginning of the first week of my stay was relatively unspectacular: The weather was shitty so there was nothing to do; I spent most of my time at Z’s place with her, her friend O and D. Now, D acted weird from the first day. He was distanced, barely talked and mostly focused his attention on Z when we were together. I tried to pull him away so we’d have some time alone, but it didn’t work, absolutely nothing happened. I was beginning to get frustrated. Here I was, believing his “I love you”s and so on, and here he was, acting like we were almost strangers. Z and O kept telling me that he was just shy and that he needed time to get used to me actually being there. I chose to believe them and hope for the better, though time was running out. After all, two weeks to make up for an entire year are just nothing. The affair reached a culminating point on Thursday (mind you, time runs slow there) when Z and O decided that on the eve of my birthday, we should celebrate it the” teen way”. Long story short, I got drunk, hit D in the face and left two blue marks on his left cheek (cheers for me), shouted at him for ignoring me and cried a great deal. I kind of made a fool of myself. On the other hand he got what he deserved, though I got hurt a great deal too. Apparently he’s “not able to love” and “thinks only about himself” because “that’s how it is when you grow up in the surroundings he was in”. Fucking bullshit if you ask me. It might be vain of me, but I believe he is able to love and loves me somewhere deep inside, he’s just scared of it.

Anyway, by now I had sobered up pretty much. But here’s the snag: I had promised to be home at 10:30 and it was already 11:15. We could hear the little brother looking for us so we ran back home. Of course we all reeked of alcohol so Z made me drink half a litre of milk and had me chew mint gum. Now it might sound funny and all, but we were panicking then.

Father of course smelled it anyway and I wasn’t allowed to leave the house from then on unless it was to swim in the lake. Naturally I was in a terrible mood on my birthday. The following week made me feel like I was living in a golden cage, no dramatizing here. Yes I had two friends stay over for the week at my place, yes the weather was great and yes being locked up didn’t mean Z couldn’t visit me. But she didn’t, and I just sat on the balcony all day either sleeping in the sun or looking out like a lost dog just in case Z happened to walk past. Yep. Of course there were some cool moments, like me bravely ignoring D when he happened to be at the lake at the same time as me and the two girls and seeing his face – oh that face was just priceless! – or the awesome rainstorm that caught us on the way home from a really long walk…

Yeah. My bad luck, huh?

Fifth Week: (undefined)

Not much here, just some days in Danzig and horse riding… my first time riding a horse with a hackamore by the way. It feels weird at the beginning when you know the horse doesn’t have a bit. Then two days at the cabaret theatre of friends of ours. That’s it.

Sixth Week: Sailing Camp

Kids afraid of the sail of their tiny nutshell boat. No nice instructors (S was in Zurich so my main attraction wasn’t available). No wind in the morning.

The rest was cool. Texting with someone who's a bit of a sociopath deep down (so it seems) and sometimes murders people in his head too (yes, you).

I like sailing. You feel a bit free, in a way. The wind tussling your hair and making you look like Medusa, water splashing on you and making you catch a cold… it’s worth it. No irony here. You feel complete at the end of the day.

And now I’m back in Basel.

Conclusion:

I’m free as a bird.

And I intend to stay this way for some time. Mess around. Laugh. Have fun.

After all, we’re on a timebomb.

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