The Adventures of a Part Time Professional Gypsy (and her ginormous teddy thing)

Friday, January 14, 2011

The "Before I happen to Die or Stop Existing" List


The “Before I Happen to Die” List
(The Jan 2011 version)

1)    Overcome my fear of tomatoes
2)    Start an empire (Look out Mr Branson!)
3)    Lick a kangaroo
4)    Get a criminal record for something cool (age 80+)
5)    Milk a goat // cow // camel // cat
6)    Accidentally discover a cure for a major disease
7)    Taxidermise a pet
8)    Drink a beer in every country in the world (and hence every continent)
9)    Elope // Get married (After I find “the one” of course)
10)    Have kids (3+ ...maybe)
11)    Give one kid a truly ridiculous name
12)    Add a word to the Oxford dictionary
13)    Survive a plane crash
14)    Brew my own beer
15)    Swim the English channel // Northern Sea
16)    Write and publish a book on why Speedos should never be worn
17)    Write and publish a travel book // novel
18)    Win a noble prize
19)    Plant 200 001 trees for future tree huggers everywhere
20)    Live on a deserted island
21)    Grow a beard (I have Portuguese blood, this may be possible)
22)    Cook and eat roadkill
23)    Bake a cake taller than my smallest friend (I may need to befriend some shorter people)
24)    Stow away on a ship // train
25)    Climb Everest
26)    Make a full length feature film
27)    Survive a month without a shower (yuck)
28)    Run a marathon
29)    Death road in Bolivia
30)    Find Unicorn Island
31)    Reunite Butt Mullett for at least one more awesome gig
32)    Fly to a country just for one gig // music festival (or maybe just for dinner)
33)    Walk on Fox or Franz Josef Glacier in NZ
34)    Spend a whole day eating junk food without feeling guilty
35)    Buy a camel // lama
36)    Complete a week(+) long “spiritual” pilgrimage barefoot
37)    Cycle across a continent
38)    Dive in the Jellyfish lake of Palau with Simone
39)    Lick the statue of Liberty
40)    Defy gravity
41)    Participate in Carnival in Rio
42)    Do the splits
43)    Join a nudist colony
44)    Smoke a pipe
45)    Survive the predicted 2012 world ending
46)    Raft through the Grand Canyon
47)    Own a pirate ship [or yatch or canoe] along with the crew and an illiterate parrot
48)    Attend Oktoberfest in Munich
49)    Finish two Eisbeins (Pork Knuckles) in one sitting
50)    Be a Mermaid
51)    Visit the Aral sea
52)    Leave my “mark” on at least 7 major wanders of the world
53)    Own my own homey home
54)    Go up in a hot air balloon for a sunrise breakfast
55)    Build a raft and sail it out into the ocean
56)    Lasso a cow (from the back of a horse)
57)    Sky dive
58)    Climb a pyramid
59)    Organise a rock band to trash a Celine Dion concert
60)    Get a random tattoo chosen by a stranger
61)    Lick a porcupine
62)    Patent something [preferably something awesome]
63)    Complete the iron man
64)    Swim the Golden Mile (Midmar mile X 8)
65)    Convert a Jew
66)    Look death in the eye and make it blink
67)    Tame a wild animal and make it my pet
68)    TP a national monument
69)    Sheer a sheep and turn it into to dashboard fluff
70)    Get someone else to add this task to my list
71)    Smash a guitar // banjo rockstar style
72)    Pick up at least 16.5 hitch hikers in a really small car
73)    Set a Guinness World Record
74)    Travel overland and sea from Australia to Spain
75)    Walk across a country
76)    Transiberian railway (and hopefully continue from there across Russia to Alaska)
77)    Live on the beach
78)    Marry two people
79)    Snowboard [in Kazakhstan]
80)    Swim in every ocean
81)    Learn how to play the guitar
82)    Swim in a pool of money
83)    Date a royal // celebrity [and dump them]
84)    Finish reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy (I gave up half way through the first book)
85)    Write a song and actually sing it to people
86)    Learn to surf properly [and then attempt to surf a tsunami]
87)    Learn a third language (Spanish??)
88)    Learn a fourth language
89)    Get my dive licence (and hence have ears that work properly)
90)    Bungee jump
91)    See the Northern lights
92)    Motorbike across South America
93)    Kite surf
94)    Snorkel the Great barrier reef
95)    Climb the stairs of a 101 story building
96)    Mug a hobo
97)    Orchestrate a mass burning of evil pop music CDs
98)    Running of the Bulls
99)    Moon a president

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The World by Toilets : Perth

It does not matter if you are man or child or ware wolf or criminal or woman or heshe... at some point or another you will need the toilet. If you do not then this is pretty unhealthy and you really should see a doctor.

So, here begins a journey through the toilets of the world. We begin with Perth. A fairly cosmopolitan little city with a park the size of a small country that has no kangaroos and a pretty river that smells a lot.But the thing that impressed me the most so far is the Exeloo.

Yes they have normal toilets and the paper one likes to find accompanying; but the Exeloo is special. With one button the iron door slides open, music starts playing and a God-like voice welcomes you and informs you that you have a maximum of ten minutes to whatever it was you came for. It also makes you wander if there might be someone watching you. The classical tunes continue; either distracting you from what it was you came for or making your 'stay' more pleasant possibly lulling you to sleep. And as you finish up, in aid of personal hygiene, the toilet does not flush until you have washed your hands.



Obviously there are other things to see and do in Perth: buy expensive beers, eat an array of oriental foods, visit the zoo, visit the plethora of beautiful beaches, go gambling, explore the roofs of hotels, claim to be the queen, ride the free buses... but a visit is incomplete without the Exeloo - Try it - you never knew public toilets could be so Star Warsy!