Cuddly Animal Farm

Today I had an awesome time at the Swan Valley with my friends from uni. As a (late) birthday present, they decided to take me out for breakfast at the Margaret River Chocolate Company, followed by a visit to the Cuddly Animal Farm and finishing off with lunch and drinks at Oakover winery.

OK so the whole day was great, but Oh My God the Cuddly Animal Farm is the best place ever! Despite the fact that we were obviously not the target audience (and apparently I'm too big to ride the pony... yes I asked) we all had a really great time! I patted so many things!

My animal highlights are cuddling the baby bunny with the white nose (I want it), seeing a turkey (I had no idea they actually said 'gobble gobble' and their face looks like chewing gum), feeding a piglet (but he went a bit crazy and I got milk everywhere), and hanging out with my duck buddies (I was the duck whisperer today, all the ducks and me go way back).

Cupcake Month

Well it seems like August has been a month of cupcakes! It was my birthday earlier this month and I decided to have a crack (well two cracks) at Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' cupcakeified. Then Amy and I decided to do 'Cupcake day for the RSPCA' to help raise funds for all animals great and small :)

Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' in Cupcakes

As a tradition, I always make cupcakes (instead of having an actual cake) for Matt and I on our birthdays. I try to keep it cute and geeky (e.g. last year I made Mario Mushroom cupcakes for Matt's birthday), and this year I came across an amazing idea that immediately stole my heart.

It turns out that Van Gogh has been translated in to all types of sweets (I found a great summary of a bunch of different attempts) but since we have a print of Starry Night hanging in our lounge room I thought I'd give that one a shot.

I did a practice run before my birthday and took them into work as an early birthday cake. Everyone loved them! Only one person guessed what the painting was without any hints, but that certainly made my day :)

For my actual birthday I asked for Amy's help and managed to do a much better job with help from her infinite cupcake knowledge! It took us about 3 hours to ice the whole lot (I baked the cupcakes the previous day just to rush things along) but it was great fun! So much better with two people.

Cupcake day for the RSPCA

After how much fun we had making the Van Gogh cupcakes, Amy suggested that we put our baking to a good purpose and take part in Cupcake day for the RSPCA. The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) is a really great cause, so we were happy to do whatever we could to help, and thought it would be great fun having a go at some animal themed cupcakes!

Amy signed us up and the RSPCA set up a fundraising page for our team, and set our fundraising goal as $500AU. I personally thought that was very ambitious, and didn't think we'd get anywhere near that amount. Turns out we're currently the 6th top fundraising team in WA (we actually got up to #3) and we've raised $729.35AU! Go team!

We each baked a huge amount of cupcakes and got together for a marathon icing session. We had some really big ideas to start, but because we had so many cupcakes to ice we thought we'd keep it simple so that it wouldn't take us all night.

We had paw prints (big and small), gummy bears, sharks, and (everyone's favourite) kitties. People at both of our work places were really generous, and my books actually overbalanced! I guess who can resist cupcakes or helping animals in need.

Europe Trip 2010!

Last night we got back from a 5 week trip to Europe, and I'm feeling so good after a night's sleep in my own bed! It was the family vacation that Matt's dad wanted us to have to meet his relatives in Italy, and we also had a chance to do some detouring while we were there.

Paris

Paris was lovely as always! After almost missing the plane to Europe (Matt's mum has a talent for being late for everything) we arrived at our Paris apartment in the central 7eme district. Matt and I had been before but this time we had a solid 5 days to look around. We managed to see:

• The Eiffel tower - First time we went to the top, the view was amazing at night! Worth the 3h wait for sure
• The Louvre - We took it a bit slower and saw heaps more this time
• Musee D'Orsay - Van Gogh's galore, our favourite artist
• Musee Rodin - The most fun museum, we spent a lot of time eating icecream in the gardens
• Musee L'Orangerie - The Monet rooms were breathtaking
• Versailles - The hall of mirrors was beautiful, but the gardens were the highlight
• Notre Damme - I guess church can be fun!

Geneva

Geneva is a wonderful city that felt like home, probably because we stayed with Yvonne (my cousin) and Stefan! It was so great to finally visit Yvonne and see where she's been living for the past 3 years :) We were happy to just hang out with Yvy and Stef, but managed to see the Jet of Geneva, Saleve Mountain, Saint-Pierre's Cathedral, and even ate some horse (it's a common cut of meat there, ick).

Rome

Matt and I spent one night in Rome in the Oxford Hotel before heading off to Calabria. It was a nice break, and prepared us for the loooong stay with family to come!

Calabria

This was the purpose and heart of the trip, which is where we met a whole lot of family from Matt's dad's side. We stayed with Matt's Nonna's brother in Girifalco, but spent a lot of time visiting Caraffa di Catanzaro.

It was really nice to meet so many people that looked like Matt! Unfortunately almost no one spoke english, but this was an opportunity for everyone to learn a bit of Italian, and we all did pretty well. By the end of it we were understanding almost everything and managing to put some words together ourselves.

As well as meeting family, we did some things around Calabria. My highlights are:

• Eating a mountain strawberry (a fragolina)
• Seeing "Comi alley", where all the Comi family houses were and where Matt's dad grew up
• Feeding a reindeer
• Tropea beach

We had a nice time, but got a bit bored, and got a lot fatter. They eat like maniacs there! I packed on 4kg so I have my work set out for me for the next couple of months :(

Bucharest

At this point in the trip, I took a detour and went to Romania while Matt and the rest of his family went to Northern Italy. I stayed in a beautiful pre-communist era house with my dad's friend Mitica and his family, and spent some time in the city where my dad grew up.

Mitica used to be a tour bus driver, and his son Catalin is studying tourism at uni, so I had a pretty good set of guides! We did a lot of sight seeing around Bucharest (the obligatory stuff including the Village Museum and Casa Poporului), and they took me to the most wonderful places where I really got to see the beauty of Romania:

• Brasov - "Probably the best place in the world" as is written on umbrellas all around the city, and they're "probably" right! It was a stunning city which was right near Bran Castle, the (fake) Dracula's castle where Vlad Tepes apparently spent some time (but probably not).
• Sinaia - The place where Peles castle is. Peles was the most beautiful rich place I've ever seen. It was extremely well preserved, and the riches were mind boggling. I also had a taste of mountain raspberries!
• Snagov - The island on Snagov Serpentine lake is where Vlad Tepes's remains are said to be. We had to row there on a crappy little row boat we hired from a gypsy, and I strengthened my arm muscles by rowing all the way back.
• Comana - Where I met my grandparents (from my dad's side) for the first time in my life! It was such an amazing experience. Our family in Perth is so small, and it was very strange to meet other people that looked like me. For the record, I look exactly like my grandma :) I also met my dad's brother Cristi, who laughs exactly like Tati.

Bucharest was an amazing place, and all the bad stuff I'd heard about it was really wrong (even the stray dogs were so cute!). Family stuff aside, it's really a place I'd love to go back and spend some more time.

Cluj

The largest city in Transylvania, and where my Mina grew up. Here I met some more family on my mum's side including Mina's brother Silvi (he's hilarious and a little bit insane) and my cousin Vlad (I have a cousin that's not Yvonne or Simona!). Until Matt arrived in Cluj, I spent some time with Mina and Licia (my mum's cousin) and took it easy for a little while. Cluj is lovely, but it's small so I spent a lot of time at the apartment and at the Mall.

When Matt arrived, we took a trip to Turda to see a beautiful salt mine. It was extraordinary, and not just because I'm obsessed with salt. I don't know what you think of when you hear the word salt mine, but I was certainly surprised! It was a beautiful 13 story cavern carved out of salt, with walls made of swirling grey patterns, and a salt lake with row boats at the bottom. Isn't salt wonderful?

We took another day trip to Lita; a quaint small town where everyone knows their neighbours, and is the place where Mina grew up. We had a barbeque at Mina's cousin's house, complete with plenty of visinata and tuica, the national moonshine of Romania.

As well as meeting with family, my highlight of Cluj was going to an underground "club", Janis. The club was a converted wine cellar filled with candle lit tables and red spot lights. The music was pretty awful, but the place was amazing, and my god do Transylvanians know how to drink! We gave up at around 2am and left blind drunk, but Vlad and his friends went on until about 5am. Needless to mention none of us could stomach any visinata the next day at lunch!

Back at Home

So now we're back at home (after 35h of travel!), and I'm back at work on Monday, but I'm actually looking forward to it! Being away for 5 weeks really makes you appreciate being at home, especially your own bed :)

I've feel like I've got a lot more stuff in perspective now, and I really appreciate how my family (and Matt's family) came to be where they are now. It was very strange to see the places where my family grew up, and meet the family that is still there now. I've always been proud of being an Australian with Romanian blood, and it's so great to know where that blood came from!

Phoenix

Last night was hands down the best concert I've ever been to; Phoenix played in Perth at the Belvoir Amphitheater on their Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix tour. I've never seen anything like it before! I guess I knew that they're meant to be stunning live, but I certainly didn't expect this!

The Belvoir venue is kind of like a big semi-circle crater with wide steps (where people can sit) leading down to the stage. There's also a wide open area directly in front of the stage where people can dance. When we arrived the crowd seemed pretty tame and most people were sitting down on the steps, but we decided to stand at the front for Miami Horror (the support act) anyway just in case it got crowded. Well that's an understatement! Toward the end of Miami Horror's set everyone started pushing like crazy into the dance area. We were actually in the 2nd row from the front, and being vertically challenged as I am, I was getting really pushed around and could barely breathe most of the time!

When Phoenix finally came on stage (about 40min after Miami Horror's set) the crowd went ballistic. They started with Lisztomania which created a huge mosh pit - yes a mosh pit for Phoenix! Well the mosh pit didn't let up at all throughout the set which was absolutely amazing, with my highlights (from the main set) being Love Like a Sunset and Too Young. After finishing Funky Square Dance they said goodbye to the crowd and left to huge cheers for encore. After a couple of minutes of leaving us hanging and teasing us by taking their instruments off the stage, they came back and did acoustic slow versions of Everything is Everything and (OMG) a cover of Air's Playground Love which was INCREDIBLE. They then brought back all the gear and played If I Ever Feel Better and 1901, which (along with Too Young) is my favourite Phoenix track ever.

They're such amazing performers. Thomas is such a show man, climbing on the set scaffolding and on various occasions coming up to the barricades and performing while the crowd (yes including me) touched and grabbed him. It was hilarious watching security try and keep a handle on him, they certainly had their work cut out for them last night!

In conclusion, if you ever get a chance to see Phoenix, my god please take it! It's a night I'll never forget, best performance ever! (Oh and also because I touched Thomas and managed to get Deck's guitar pick)

Rottnest Island Trip

What an awesome island! I'd been to Rottnest once before, but I was a lot younger and it was only for a day trip so we didn't get to explore too much. This year I went for 3 days for a short relaxing trip with Matt's family. We stayed at the Rottnest Central Bungalows, and spent our time relaxing and trying to see as much of the island as possible.

We took it easy the first day, and decided to spend it on the beach and finish it off with some jetty fishing. I'd actually never been fishing before so I was a bit worried about how I'd take the whole fish-murder thing. While everyone was still settling in, I had already baited and lowered my line. About 30 seconds later I had two herrings fighting for my hook! I managed to catch one of them and pull it in, and after about a minute of it slipping out of my hands like a bar of soap we had our first catch in the bucket. How exciting! It did surprise me a bit how difficult it was to get the fish in the bucket after it had been caught. I guess I just sort of expected it to give up once it was caught, but it really struggled to live which did upset me a little bit :( I'm glad that I saw it through though, and we ended up eating it the next day which made me feel very self sufficient!

That night we caught 4 edible fish, and a lot more aquarium fish. I caught a weird frilly black thing with lots of spines, and Elissa caught a pretty yellow and black stripy fish. Apparently I had a very exciting first fishing experience, because usually you don't catch that many fish, especially not so many varieties!

The next day we hired some bikes and decided to ride around to Mary Cove to do some snorkeling. A tip to anyone deciding to hire bikes - get the mountain bikes! It's only about $7 more expensive, but it just did not occur to us that it would make such a difference. Everyone got single speed bikes except for James, and he was the only one who didn't struggle up the multitude of hills.

It was an awesome ride with heaps of beautiful views. It took a while to get to Mary Cove since the wind was against us and the aforementioned one speed bikes whipped our asses on the hills, but it was certainly worth the effort. It was the first time I'd even been snorkeling, and it was amazing! The conditions were apparently quite bad because of the waves, so I can imagine what it would be like on a good day.

On the way back we stopped at a couple of the lakes. From the map I think we stopped at Serpentine, Pearse, and Hershel lakes, which each had gorgeous crystal formations of salt, and really strange red to blue gradients in the water. I'm not sure what causes the strange gradient but it was really eerie and beautiful.

We took it easy on the last day and played some putt putt at the Family Fun Park. It was another first for me, and I managed to come 3rd! I usually suck at all ball sports in general so 3/5 is not bad at all.

Despite the sunburn and bruised bum from the bikes, I had an awesome time. I'll definitely be going back even if it's just to spend the day on one of Rottnest's secluded beaches!

Painting the House

Over the Christmas/new year's break Matt and I painting the main rooms of the house. We'd done the bedrooms a couple of years back, and decided to tackle the rest of the rooms this year. All we have left is the bathrooms, then the doors and door frames, and our whole house will have had a nice new coat of paint!

We were a bit adventurous and used Dulux "Puddle" for the main colour in the front room. It's a bit dark (in fact we used it as the feature colour in the bedrooms) but the room is really big and we thought it would contrast nicely with the annoying pink of the carpet. We did a dark feature colour (Dulux "Baton") for the entry wall, and eventually we plan on plastering the feature brick behind the TV and painting that the feature colour too.

We actually decided to split the front room into two smaller rooms using an Expedit shelving unit from IKEA. Instead of being one long awkward room, it's now a cozy TV room and a small reading room, which desperately needs a long chaise chair :)

The kitchen and dining we did in Dulux "Crewelwork Half" which is nice and light, and we tried to separate the little lounge from the rest of the house by painting the whole room Dulux "Puddle". We were a bit worried at first because this involved changing colours on a convex corner, but we used painters tape which was absolutely amazing and meant the line was perfect!

We also painted the walk in robe, which has been really nagging me. The previous owner had obviously changed storage a few times, and so there were about a million drill holes in the wall and ceiling, whole sections of missing paint, and giant chips in the plaster. It's SO much better now and it's a real pleasure to walk in the walk in robe!

The best thing about all of the work we did is that we don't have giant drill holes all over the house. The previous owner was not shy about drilling, and she had a like of heavy curtains, tapestries, photos, calenders, etc. Even the bathrooms and toilets have drill holes everywhere!

Triple J Hottest 100 of 2009

My votes:

• Phoenix - 1901 (My obvious #1, the rest are in alphabetical order)
  
• Animal Collective - Brother Sport
• Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes
• Basement Jaxx - Raindrops
• Bat For Lashes - Daniel
• Big Pink, The - Dominos
• Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
• Peter Bjorn & John - Lay It Down
• Phoenix - Lisztomania
• Royksopp - You Don't Have A Clue (Ft. Anneli Drekker)

Would have loved to fit in:

• Bon Iver - Blood Bank
  
• Kid Cudi - Pursuit Of Happiness
• Little Birdy - Brother
• Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man
• Muse - Undisclosed Desires
• National, The - So Far Around The Bend
• Royksopp - Happy Up Here
  
• Royksopp - Vision One (Ft. Anneli Drekker)
• Yeasayer - Ambling Alp

I Have Auryn

I was recently feeling nostalgic and decided to re-watch the Never Ending Story trilogy. Usually I try and stay away from watching films from my childhood because they're never as good as you remember (I recommend you NEVER watch Labyrinth again!), but NES #1 and #2 were just as good as they were when I was a kid! I actually hadn't seen #3, but it was absolutely rubbish and I'm just going to ignore it completely.

For some reason I decided to look into the Auryn, which is the necklace that Atreyu wears in #1 and Bastian wears in #2 given to them by the child like princess. Anyway it turns out that there's quite a few people that have made replicas as costume jewellery! There's quite a big range but I found one that I really liked and managed to pick up for $40AU (including postage) on eBay from a guy who also has an online shop. However he's selling them for $180US outright so if you're looking for one I suggest hitting eBay first!

I wore my Auryn for the first time on Friday night and one fellow NES fan went nuts! Turns out we both were scarred for life when Ortex succumbed to the Swamp of Saddness :( There were a few other people who asked about it because it looked familiar, and of course I was happy to explain, but I was surprised that anyone actually knew what it was! I'll definitely be wearing it again :)

Matt's Newest iPhone App - Pocketball!

Matt has been working on his latest iPhone app, Pocketball, for a little while now, and it's finally out!

It's an awesome physics game where you have to draw ropes that direct balls into their respectively colored pockets while avoiding things like boosters, gravity wells, and nukes that explode your ball up into tiny pieces!

It's a really fun and addictive game, and the app as a whole came together really nicely. The graphics are really shiny, the sounds (which I helped on!) are cool, and I'm so proud of Matt for putting the whole thing together from start to finish :)

It's out now at the AppStore for $1.99US, so check Pocketball out!

Waiter, there's a Bug in my Table

Okay so maybe it's not a bug, but there's something strange going on with our table!

About a year ago we bought a beautiful and massive Shesham table from Classique furniture. After a couple of months we noticed that it was making a funny noise every now and then, maybe once every fortnight for around 5 minutes at a time. We just assumed it was the wood settling, and everyone we told said the same thing.

I managed to get the sound on film a couple of times, and we started getting really worried that it may be something a bit more sinister, like a bug crunching away at our table! We had a few worried reactions from friends and family when we played them the sound, so we finally decided to go back to Classique and play it to them too.

They had absolutely no idea what it could be, and all of them said that they'd never heard anything like it! They assured us it wasn't a bug, since bugs don't make noise, and if they did, there'd be a lot of separate noises instead of just one. They also mentioned there's other signs like small holes in the wood, and sawdust on the floor that usually accompany bugs eating a table. Apparently this particular table is quite popular, and they said they'd never had any complaints about noise in the past! Regardless, they said they'd be happy to exchange it for a new one, so at least we won't have a crazy noisy table anymore.

If anyone happens to know what the noise could possibly be please let me know! Even though we're getting a new table it will still bug me for a while!