Just a little idea I had while getting ready for work the other day that I thought I'd share.

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Honestly, I think "but Jesus had long hair, so why can't I?" was probably where it all started. Or at least, that's where it began. Because the whole thing really started several years after that, or about six months ago, with my best friend Claire saying, in a fit of joking frustration while we were studying on the way home from school, "How are you so freaking good at German? Are you secretly an exchange student in disguise?" And like, that kind of stuck with me.

See, my mum is a bit of a... well, a nutcase really. With religion I mean. Like ok, sure, so you believe your god's son died and came back to life or whatever, good for you, you don't have to get all culty about it and stuff. Except like, mum did. Which made my life goal basically just to survive the bullshit long enough to move out on my own. The fact that I was a trans girl was something we Did Not Mention. Because the one time I vaguely hinted at it, I got a week of specialist preaching and bible studies all about the evils of the gays.

So yeah, just a girl trying to survive the freaks.

Then Claire's comment gets stuck in my head and a few days later I'm all. "What if I was an exchange student?" Claire does know me, by the way, all about me. When we were ten we both started at a new school on the same day, and just sort of clicked. My mum moved to 'advance the work of the lord' or whatever, helping start a new chapter thingy of her church. Claire's mum at least just wanted to be closer to her new job; she's one of like three real estate agents in our tiny town that's an hour's bus ride from the nearest high school.

So Claire started sneaking me birth control pills last year, when she first got them, because we'd both read about the effects. Which is why I had to buy a binder over summer. Joy is being blessed with the family boobs, less so trying to hide them. Though her mum was equally responsible I guess, she is basically the coolest. Because when she found out the real reason Claire kept 'losing' her pills, she was all like "oh here have mine, I forget them more often than I take them so you might as well have them. How do you think Claire happened?" Thus, boobs.

Which brings us to my "What if I was an exchange student?" and Claire's intelligent reply of "huh?"

Long story short, I learned to speak with a Swiss accent, and Claire hacked some exchange student program database. Like seriously, she claims I'm the genius, but her and computers is just beyond me. Then a few weeks later I 'started' at my own school with a decent bra and my hair in braids as Lina (because we couldn't decide from 'Swiss girl names' lists online, and Claire wanted me to pick Liesel because Sound of Music, and this was the compromise point) from Switzerland.

This mostly worked because Claire's class schedule is completely different from mine, so I wasn't like you know, trying to pass myself off as a new girl in front of the same teachers. Yes we even have different German teachers, why one school has so many German teachers is beyond me, but hey three teachers whatever. So Frau Mitchell made me introduce myself to the class, and I think maybe three of them understood anything I said. But when I heard a couple of guys whisper "she's hot" in the back of the class I switched languages and said "and I also know English just fine." Which made them freeze and Frau Mitchell smirk.

So the first week I just changed at the bus stop, because there had to be a reason we had a big brick thing that made a perfect changing room as a bus stop. But then Claire's mum found out, and with a laughed out "that's fucking wild!" decided I should just move in with them as Lina.

Which is how I came to leave mum a note basically saying "fuck your religious bullshit, I'm running away" and started my new life as Lina Leuenberger from Frauenfeld Thurgau Switzerland. Yes, we did some research. No it wasn't particularly extensive research. But I did find some videos online that helped me pick up the right accent, eventually. My accent changed a lot in those first few weeks, thankfully no one noticed. I think it was a combination of languages being kind of my thing, and the discovery that boobs are great at distracting people from what you're saying.

This all means that everything was going perfectly, and smoothly, and just generally great. Then about two weeks before the spring holidays I got a letter.

A letter addressed to Lina Leuenberger.

From the Swiss Consulate.

OH FUCK.

After a few moments (minutes... hours) of general panic we (Claire, her mum, and I) reread the letter a few times and managed to piece together what we think happened. Basically Claire was a little too good at getting my name on the list of exchange students, and now the Swiss government thinks they have a citizen they've lost track of, and won't I please come in so they can sort things out? They even sent plane tickets for me to get to Sydney, along with my Host, Claire's mum Kate, to speak with someone at the Consulate General of Switzerland.

We thought about just sending them a letter in reply, but couldn't think of an acceptable way to explain everything that wouldn't probably result in police busting down the door or something. So on the first day of the spring holidays, all three of us flew to Sydney, really hoping we weren't about to get jailed or whatever. It was actually the first time there for all three of us, so Claire's quiet "if we get out of this, I want to go to the zoo" about summed up the mood.

So a little before nine thirty in the morning I walked into the Consulate or Embassy or whatever the building's called, and in what I later learned was perfectly Swiss-accented German introduced myself, as Lina Leuenberger, and showed them the letter. Claire and Kate sat in a semi-comfortable waiting area, and I was whisked away to a quiet office for an interview. It was a long day.

I started by apologising and trying to explain, but then got completely tongue-tied with nerves and burst into tears. They offered me coffee. It was good coffee. Eventually I got my entire story out to them, or him. And I do mean my Entire Story, basically I told him my entire life story. It took a while, and seemed to stun him silent. Just as the silence was starting to get awkward, I got an "excuse me" and was left alone in the office. Oskar, the consular or ambassador or whatever did not return for Quite Some Time. At some point a lady brought me in some lunch, which was a sandwich, some fruit, and a bottle of drink. I had no idea what Rivella was, but I liked it.

By the time he came back I'd nosed around his office a little, because I was bored so why not? So he found me on the couch in the corner, reading a book of short stories. What followed was, to say the least, unexpected.

We got to see the zoo, and why are Tasmanian Devils such cute little balls of terror? The opera house is kind of cool, and the bridge is ok I guess. We had to go back to the Consulate several times though. Because they needed my picture taken, and Claire had to show someone how she hacked that exchange student database. It was part of a deal they struck, because they "appreciated her loyalty and protectiveness toward her friend" but they also really didn't want that happening again. Sometimes I'd have to fill out forms, or meet someone who'd literally just flown out from Switzerland. I'm kind of surprised I remembered everyone's names, with all the new people I was meeting.

Which all meant that when we left Sydney after almost two full weeks, I had a brand new Swiss passport in the name of Lina Leuenberger. Because apparently my whole running away from home sob story, along with speaking German with a Swiss accent. Then I switched to French, with a Swiss accent, at one point while speaking with someone who clearly knew French better than German, and essentially they just loved me so much that I was offered freaking asylum. That I was already in their system, thanks to Claire being too clever, was a bonus for them; less paperwork. They just invented a new birth certificate that said I was born in the hospital in Frauenfeld, same year and day, to a single mother who had unfortunately passed away during the difficult birth. A birth certificate that clearly stated that Lina Leuenberger was born female.

So I somehow stumbled upon the greatest way ever to get my name and gender legally changed. Thanks to my hacker bestie, my own natural thing for languages, and a country that decided it was easier to just adopt me than try to untangle said bestie's mess.

Then we just went back home, with me as an actual Swiss exchange student, and not just a pretend one. I even had a bunch of Swiss people to keep in touch with. Partially because I was an exchange student, and partially because I was considered an orphan. Which meant there was like a billion extra complications that meant life was about to go from interesting to Interesting.

Because at the end of the year I finished year ten at school, got my Junior Certificate, and then had to move "back" to Switzerland. You know, that country that all the legal stuff said I was from, but I'd never actually been to? Yeah, that one. For extra fun I was going straight from Australian summer to Swiss winter. Fortunately, I was able to spend a pretty good chunk of my exchange student allowance, which had been going into my new Swiss bank account, on weather appropriate clothes. Most of which I had to buy online, because real winter clothes were just not going to happen during a Gold Coast summer.

So after teary hugs goodbye, I got on a plane dressed for summer, and a day or something later got off it dressed for winter. Very stylishly dressed for winter, I hoped. I'd kind of binged a whole lot of fashion vlogs. The haul video for winter school looks in Switzerland was an unexpected bonus. Also, thank goodness for thermal underwear, along with some warm boots they made my leggings cozy. Layers, it was all about layers.

I thanked the guy at customs who said "welcome home miss" and stepped out and into a warm hug from Anna and Hans, my new foster parents who I'd been keeping in touch with since first meeting them in Sydney. They were great, truly the best parents I could have asked for. Within a couple of months I was calling them Mama Anna and Papa Hans, and by the time I finished school it was just Mama and Papa. We had a small house on the outskirts of Frauenfeld, so I could still see the countryside like I was used to, even if it was wildly different. Yet I could still walk around town whenever I wanted.

On my second day in the country Mama Anna took me to the hospital, where I was put on a proper hormone regime. Wow did that work wonders for me. I went from being a scraggly thing with boobs, to actually pretty. Which got me a lot of attention from boys at school. "Smiling at them with boobs like that, save some for the rest of us Lina!" My new friend Sophia said, but I wasn't really interested in anything beyond flirting. Something which Mama and Papa were pleasantly surprised by. Not that I was completely uninterested, I was just waiting for a spark or something. Mama just nodded in understanding when I told her this.

Claire came to visit during her next summer holidays. Which was so much nicer than just messaging and facetiming each other, as we had all year. Claire's German abilities hadn't improved at all, which made dragging her to school with me an absolute riot. Plus I got to share Sophia's fun of seeing the new girl try to adjust to a snowy winter, straight out of an Aussie summer. Claire and I had our revenge though, because all three of us took a gap year after school and went backpacking around Australia. Sophia pretty much melted.

Then we all went to university together and I met Sven. Needless to say I found the spark. Three years later we married near Sven's family home in the Alps. Life was grand. I never did get bottom surgery, as Sven said "You are happy, and I love you however you are happiest." A few years later we adopted twin girls.

Claire spent her entire time at university arguing furiously with a German guy named Michael who was in most of her classes. Then they both got jobs in Hanover and turned up a year later, married and expecting their first child. The first of three. Kate, Claire's mum, eventually retired and moved into a granny flat in their back garden. She spent her time doting on her grand-kids and reminding Claire to take her birth control pills before she ended up a mother of twelve.

Sophia met an Austrian girl named Annika in France, and fell madly in love. They were soon married and opened a bed and breakfast together not far from Sven and I. It didn't take long for it to became the gathering place for us all. Where we'd all get together several times a year with our growing families, and share in the joy of our combined happily ever afters.