Road trips from hell

We were on a 4WD tour of Fraser Island. I was about 12 years old, but I remember the traumatic experience like it was yesterday. I had been feeling travel sick for a while, but I had been told in the past by my parents that it was "all in my head" and that "no one else in the family suffers from travel sickness, it is obviously psychological". Of course this meant I kept quiet and tried to ignore the feeling.

You can guess what happened. By the time I realised that I was actually going to vomit, there was no time to tell anyone let alone source a plastic bag or get out of the vehicle. I vomited all over myself, my Dad who was sitting next to me, my chair, the back of the chair infront of me, the floor etc.

I couldn't eat sundried tomatos for several years afterwards. Let's just say that if you gulp down whole ones the day before, they take a long time to be digested and whole sundried tomatos don't look good on the floor of the bus amongst other gunk. Too much information? Yes, I apologise!

Unfortunately, it all happened early in the morning on a full day tour. This meant I didn't have clean clothes to wear for the rest of the day, and I was very unpopular on the bus. I was mortified as the bus driver tried his best to clean up and spread ecalyptus oil around the bus to mask the smell.

 For those of you who have never seen a 4WD bus, they look like this - source

Later in the day we stopped for lunch and were instructed to leave our belongings on our seats in the bus. A rude German family joined the tour, and decided to appropriate our seats which were towards the front of the bus (they simply sat on top of our belongings). My Mum told them, "Excuse me, those are our seats" to which they aggressively replied, "We are not moving". She tried to explain that we were happy to give up the seats, but that I had vomited everywhere and they were sitting in vomit. They couldn't speak much english so obviously didn't understand, and simply shouted aggressively that they would not move (and proceeded to throw our belonings into the aisle). The rest of the bus witnessed their rudeness and there was a lot of laughter as they realised which seats these tourists had stolen. Talk about karma, you have got to love it!

Do you have an interesting road trip story? Do share!!!

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Brunch Review: Zil Cafe, West Perth

It was 11:30am on a weekday. Thankfully, Zil were still happy to serve me from the brunch menu, and who can resist a second breakfast? Not me!

My meal:

Mushrooms and spinach with balsamic reduction + a poached egg (OK, so it's not hand poached... but at least it had a good consistency!)

The Scoring

Menu variety / creativity: 6/10. A short and simple menu. I probably chose the only ‘creative’ option.

Taste:  7.5/10. Very good, I really enjoyed my meal and thought it was a great combination of flavours. The egg wasn’t hand poached, but at least it had the right consistency.

Coffee: 7.5/10. Pretty good.

Setting / location: 7/10. Nice, simple décor. Around the back there are some bookshelves and wall decorations. The front has a wall covered in music/concert posters.

Service: 8.5/10. Very fast and friendly, personalised service. Love it!

Price: 7.5/10. Reasonably priced, with my breakfast costing $12 and the coffee coming in at average.

Verdict: Cute café and I wouldn’t hesitate to order the same dish again if I was in the area. Free wifi was handy too, but the service is what really made it special.

Necklace Giveaway!

 These lovely necklaces are up for grabs, to thank those who comment and make blogging so enjoyable!

To enter:

*You must be a follower via GFC or Bloglovin. If you're a regular commentor you're eligible if you're neither.

*Leave a comment telling me which 2 necklaces are your favourite. Don't forget your email address!

*Entries must be received by the 15th of AUGUST 2012 (To those that noticed the typo, sorry!).

I haven't decided how many necklaces will be awarded, I suppose it depends on how many entries I receive :-)

Ways to Wear the Flag (or not)

Flag Loincloth:

Flag pet costumes:

Flag body paint:

Flag bur-qua:

Flag condoms:

Flag vajazzling:

Flag lip tattoos:

Flag that Grandma should never have knitted:

Flag yarmulke:

Super sweet flag tutu:

Clashing flags, little old man style:

Flag morph suit:

Flag onesie, ala Bieber:

Flag overload:

Flag prom dress:

Flag on your horse:

Flag turban:

 

Flag Mohawk:

Flag haircuts:

Just plain weird:

Borat did it better:

The Americans seem to the cake in showing us how not to wear the flag... but the Brits come in a close second!

Brunch Review: Source Foods Cafe, Highgate

Source Foods Cafe markets itself as an "eco cafe" serving sustainable food made of ingredients sourced from local farms, markets and producers. It's located on the corner of Beaufort and Brisbane streets so is close to the city. We parked in the Brisbane St carpark (annexed to the Brisbane pub) which has free parking for the first hour (and paid thereafter).

The Scoring

Menu variety / creativity: 6/10. A simple menu, not overly creative but everything is organic which adds a different dimension.

Taste:  6/10. My vego breakfast was quite nice. I wasn't much of a fan of the homemade beans and everything else was pretty standard. The bread was spread with hommous which was an interesting touch but it wasn't mindblowing. Likewise my friend enjoyed her scrambled eggs with spinach but said she wouldn't return especially for them.

Coffee: 6/10. Below average, I wasn't a huge fan.

Setting / location: 7/10. It's simply but nicely decorared and has a few tables in the sun outside if you can get one. Chilled, slightly alternative vibe. 

I liked the knitted 'mmm source' sign, cute!

Service: 7/10. No complaints here, and the food came out quickly. You order at the counter and meals are brought to the table. Staff were friendly and seemed happy to be there. No one brought us water but we found some at the bottom of the drinks fridge and helped ourselves.

Price: 7/10. The meals were slightly more expensive than usual in my opinion but that can probably be put down to them locally sourcing organic ingredients. My vego breakfast was around $18 or $19.

Verdict: A nice laid back place. I wouldn't go out of my way to return for breakfast, but they do burgers and live music on Friday nights which I'd like to try (although, it's a very small venue and if we didn't get a table I probably wouldn't stay - luckily the Brisbane is right across the road!)

Another week in the office

Last week was slightly less crazy at work, primarily because my managing partner was on leave for 2 days. I'm not looking forward to his return to the office on Monday, it could potentially be very busy.

Since I haven't had time to leave the office to buy a coffee, it's a lifesaver that we have an awesome coffee machine. It uses Lavazza coffee pods, which I like a lot better than both the Nespresso and Expressi (Aldi) variety.

I have become partial to a 6:30pm coffee every evening, which is when I should be eating dinner but inevitably still have a few hours of work to do!

This is the view from my office window:

I actually love it. I have worked in a big firm where I had a panoramic view of the city, foreshore and river... and it was so depressing. It made me sadder to be in the office, I wanted to be out there enjoying the outdoors. At least this boring view doesn't make me yearn to be somewhere else.

I have put a few things in my office to brighten it up. I can't go overboard like I did working in Government, this office is a lot more conservative. Most people don't even have a single photo frame! I don't think anyone has noticed these things yet, so I've gotten away with it.

 My changeable sign

 Very cool paperclip holder

On Sunday my sister and I got up at 4am to go to the Karrinyup markets (swap meet). When we got there there were already heaps of cars lining up.

We sold quite a bit of stuff and this time I didn't catch anyone stealing, which hopefully means that people were honest. The markets are a great way to offload your stuff but it was exhausting, I don't think I'll do it again in a hurry while I'm working long hours during the week.

I wish I had bargained more when I went to the Melville markets a few weeks ago - I just accepted whatever price the vendor suggested (or what was marked), most people at these markets haggle down to the last 50c!

 Some of the takings

Thrifted Tumblers

I don't usually have much luck at the op shops in Morley, but they are quite close to me so I occassionally check them out. This time I managed to take home a few things, my favourite being some retro tumblers.

 Retro tumblers - $1 each

Brand new bow heels, $5

 This gorgeous tea cosy actually didn't come home with me - it felt damp and smelt funny, and I'm not sure if a wash would fix the problem. I also wasn't sure about the shape- it would only suit an extra large teapot. Cute and unusual none the less so I took a photo :-)

Linking up with Sophie.

New(ish) Funny Blog Discoveries

I have stumbled upon some very entertaining blogs recently, which I thought you might like to check out.

1/ If you're from Perth, you will want to check out the Worst of Perth blog. The editors post contributions on anything ugly, drab or silly that is found in Perth. Popular topics include "worst architecture", "worst signs", "worst sculpture", "worst advertising" and "uncategorisable worst". There you have it!

2/ I can't believe it took me this long to discover Things Bogans Like. It has already been made into a book, which shows just how lagged I am with pop culture. The concept of the blog is to define today's bogan and capture the changing concept of what is bogan. Sometimes I disagree with their classifications, as they consider that being into vintage and the alternative fits this mould. To me a bogan is still a beer bellied, crass lad in thongs or his shiela and their six bare footed kids. Of course you also have the "cashed up bogan" (especially in WA), thanks to the mining boom and high FIFO wages. For some hilarious unofficial definitions (and if you don't understand what I'm talking about), check out Urban Dictionary.

source

3/ White Whine contains user submitted content of first world problems (primarily people's tweets, facebook statuses etc). For example:

4/ Lamebook - the funniest and lamest of facebook. Some really hilarious stuff here.

5/ Passive Agressive Notes - reader submitted funny (if not necessarily "passive-aggressive") notes from pissed-off people. It also contains some hilarious management requests. For example: