sites and spiders

that about sums up my april field session in the pilbara.

my favorite pic from the field is this guy:

its weird how a 12 day field session can seem so daunting and go by SO slow, and at the same time completely fly by and i have no idea what we did for all those days.

our flight up was unusually early (8:30 am), as such the following things occurred:

1. i had to leave my house at 6:30 am to be to the airport on time (holy early batman!)
2. i had to make small talk with my cabbie who was unusually chatty. they love my american accent and always ask me a million questions about the states. i always get asked if i know any celebrities and i feel like a turd for never having a good response.
3. i had to get airport coffee (overpriced and never very good)
4. *bonus* i scored a two hour nap on the plane! (although i have a sneaking suspicion that my mouth was hanging open like a weirdo...)
5. we got to site at 10:30 am and my room wasnt ready so i accidentally barged in on some guy who hadnt vacated the room yet. haha oops?
6. our early arrival meant we had to work the afternoon (which never happens since we usually arrive at dinnertime)
7. *bonus* our afternoon work consisted of organizing boxes of artifacts! for those of you who dont know me, i love Love LOVE organizing!!! i let the ole ocd run wild :)

i always thought we rallied our field trucks at home, but after being here and seeing what aussies do with their field trucks, turns out i was wrong lol. the land cruisers we drive get pushed to the brink. we drive them through giant mud holes, up crazy hills, across creeks, thru stream beds, thru the bush, over bushes, into bushes, sometimes accidentally into trees....

i think mother nature finally had enough of us driving over her and decided to get even. that, or our driver was an r-tard and didnt see the giant stake sticking up out of the ground haha

eventually i got to do some archaeology. love the terrain and red dirt. maybe because it reminds me of home.

remember a few posts back where i mentioned the big gross spiders? well, turns out they were EVERYWHERE in our survey area. i mean everywhere. i could hardly look for artifacts because i was too busy checking my gps (to make sure i stayed on my bearing. i have a tendency to wander, but i cant be blamed. i just do what i want), and checking directly in front of me to make sure i didnt walk into a giant web of death (which i accidentally did once this swing. i screamed like a sissy and flailed wildly in an attempt to fling off any spiders that might have landed on me) lol, its always an adventure in the field.

we also came across the biggest site i've ever recorded in australia. it ended up being about 420,000 square meters in size. you might be thinking, so? why do i care how big the site is?....well, that means that i had to establish a boundary around 420,000 square meters of land, map the entire terrain, identify a the locations of surface artifacts and concentrations and record a 2.5% sample of that. i admit that i did see some fantastic artifacts, but sweet CHEESUS it was a nightmare to record. every time we thought we had a handle on it, someone would find more and we'd have to extend everything and do more paperwork. it took us about 7 days in total to document everything. but we had some great traditional owners with us, and they made me billy tea every morning :)

 on the last day, the girth of the paperwork stack was meatier than my ham sandwich haha. sure wish i had a photo of that. but i DO have a photo of this:

its a dead snake hanging from a tree. best we can reckon is that the snake stuck its head in a hole to eat something, got stuck and died. so now there's a mummified snake covered in ants hanging from a tree. it was super gross but really cool.

ive said it before, and i'll say it again. being in the field is a love/hate relationship. it is super lonely and sometimes you feel really isolated. but other times you totally connect with a place or a moment and its amazing. before the weather turned cold i got to sit outside my room in the mornings and watch the sun come up. loved it.

made it home in one piece and am in full on hermit mode. lol see?

going to spend the rest of my weekend getting everything all sorted and ready for my big trip home in 3 days 8 hours and 30 minutes. so So SO EXCITED!!! 

cant wait to go home. makes me happy :)

hope ya'll have a good weekend

xo



oz-mazing!

haha okay not really....

so im up north for work and the "man" has restricted my internet access. it wont let me upload any of my cool videos or pictures that i've taken (what a gyp! i blame all the stupid miners looking up too much porn...also, my spell checker is also broke-d so please forgive any spelling errors). so all i'm left with is a text-y post. and i sat around figuring what would be entertaining for a text-y post and reckoned that ya'll would probably dig more aussie-isms. i've been keeping a list on my phone of things that i found interesting, amusing, and downright hilarous. without further ado:

• higgly piggly (ˌhi-gəl-ē-ˈpi-gəl-ē) i heard my co-worker use it instead of willy nilly. i mightve choked on the water i was drinking. used in a sentence:"we've got to go to the storidge containa to orhganize the boxes, someones put them een all higgly piggly". willy nilly is a wonky enough saying, but i think higgly piggly takes the cake (speaking of cake, i want some....)

• capsicum. if you read that and wondered wtf i was talking about, its what aussies call bell peppers. pretty fancy name for a plain ole pepper. well, there must be something special about peppers over here cause to buy 3 at the grocery store will cost you about $10. i hope you just said "DAMN" out loud, because thats what i did in the store the first time i saw the price.

• oregano. yep the seasoning. its pronounced 'oh-reh-ghan-o' here. kinda like the state oregan, but say it with a canadian accent and you've got it. i was in the middle of a convo and didnt know what they were talking about, and then a little lightbulb appeared over my head and i chimed in, "you mean oregano? (but read it how we pronounce it)" and everyone looked at me and laughed. so i guess pronunciation can be funny both ways. but the aussie way is funnier haha :)

• how ya going? (ive learned a few things with regard to this one)
• number one: its not really a question, but rather, a greeting. so if you find yourself in australia and someone asks you this, just respond with a simple "hi". mostly because they arent really asking how youre doing, and secondly, because they'll have kept walking after saying it to you and will be halfway down the street by the time you blurt out a half-assed response (yes i know this from awkward experience haha)
• keeping with aussie tradition, it can be shortened. so far i've heard:
• (mumble)...ya going?
• (mumble)..yagng?
• (mumbling and garbled noises that sorta sound like 'how ya going' but without any actual words being said)

• boot and bonnet. nope, im not talking about the things that go on your feet or on your head. its what they call the trunk and hood of your car. i thought only folks from jolly ole england said this, but since australia is part of the commonwealth, i guess they say it too. wish i could say that when people chuck it into conversations that i'm cool and go with the flow. but alas, being a silly american i get a small smile and chuckle a bit when someone asks me to pop the bonnet.

• knob. this is a slang word used for....er, um.... well its definitly not something that belongs on a door. men have them?....
• if you didnt catch my drift, look it up on urban dictionary or just skip to my next aussie bamboozlement below

• thongs. get your mind out of the gutter. im not talking about the string underwear haha. its what they call flip-flops here. if you call them flip-flops you get weird looks from the locals.

• porta-loo. yep. its the aussie word for a porta-potty. and theyre FANTASTIC! i never thought id be one to rave about a portable toilet, but hot damn, these are pretty neat. id go as far as saying they are the rolls royce of portable toilets.
• first, they're quite roomy. i'd say i could could comfortably fit three average sized girls in one.
• secondly, they flush! yes, flush. no scary blue green water that may or may not smurf you. once business is "concluded" (lol) there is a fun handle that you pump and everything magically disappears.
• third, you can WASH your hands. no janky hand sanitizer, im talking soap and water. how cool is that? aussies are sanitation geniuses haha 

• trollys. nope not the san francisco public transport. its what aussies call shopping carts. again, probably the whole british commonwealth thing. either way, i still giggle when i hear someone call it a trolly.

• ta. its used in lieu of cheers, as a way of saying thanks. like if i held a door open for someone, they'd likely reply "ta!". it took me a really long time to work this one out. i could never tell if they were mumbling and i wasnt hearing everything that was being said, or if i was just retarded and didnt understand them. nope, they really were just saying "ta" and now that i know what it means, im spreading the word lol

• bikkie. quick! what was the first thing you thought of? i got five bucks that says you didnt think biscuit. which is what a bikkie is. and im talking cookie, not the fluffy buttery things you get at kfc

• partner. its the term aussies use to refer to your significant other. again, i was really confused until i figured this out. in america, when anyone says 'partner' in that context, its usually in reference to a gay couple (no judgement). like if i was talking about ellen degeneres, i'd say "her partner portia de rossi.....". welp, in ausralia it goes for everyone. my boyfriend is my partner, her husband is her partner etc. once i worked this all out it made loads of sense. but for awhile there i thought heaps of people were in same sex relationships. lol woops?

• billy. if you thought a person, you thought wrong. the boys the other day were talking about "billy tea" and i had to ask, wtf is billy tea? turns out its tea that you cook in a dinky tin/aluminum can with a handle. still confused i went to wikipedia for more info. here is what i got:
• It is commonly accepted that the term "billycan" is derived from the large cans used for transporting bouilli or bully beef on Australia-bound ships or during exploration of the outback, which after use were modified for boiling water over a fire.
• In Australia, the billy has come to symbolise the spirit of exploration of the outback. To boil the billy most often means to make tea. "Billy Tea" is the name of a popular brand of tea long sold in Australian grocers and supermarkets.

who knew? this girl does now :)

• putting "o" at the end of a word. i think i mightve touched on this before, but it still kills me how words are shortened here. you can pretty much shorten anything by sticking an "o" at the end of it. registration is reg-o, breathalizer is breth-o, bottle shops are bottle-o's etc. im going to start a jamie-fication of the australian language and just start making up my own words that end in "o" and see how people-o react-o (haha-o) (lol)....-o.......(okay i'll stop)

• bloody. yes the curse word! its used quite frequently here and i LOVE it! feels like i time traveled to england, or to the 1800s. i wish i could use it and not sound like a douche-bag. sadly, i dont think its possible for americans. just have to stick to the good ole basics: shit, damn, and hell. or if youre my grandma thompson, combine them all into one master curse word: shitdamnhell! haha, love you grams

• rockmellon. if you were hoping that some sort of new amazing fruit had been discovered, im going to burst your bubble and tell you that its just aussie terminology for cantaloupe. kinda sounds more badass than just regular ole cantaloupe tho. "yo dawg, gimme some rockmellon" haha (im a dork and its been a long day lol)

• nappies. the term for lots of small naps! haha, just messing with you. its what they call diapers here. nappies. put your baby in a nappy. savvy?

• up the duff. heard this gem this morning. its another term for being pregnant or knocked-up. sounds way dirtier than it is doesnt it? now this is a term that i can definitely slide into casual conversation. just have to wait till someone i know is up the duff.....

anyhoo....thats all i have for now. hope i didnt offend too any aussies, and hope i entertained/educated some of you at home :)

g'day

xoxo

wine not?

hey there!

last week i mentioned that i was going to bike to cottesloe beach...well, i did it and it was amazing! it was was an 18k round trip, and took about 45 min each way. it seemed so daunting and such a long way, but once i hopped on the bike and started going, it was really  a lot of fun. the route we took was gorgeous, following the coast the whole way up. these are some snaps of us crossing a bridge over the swan river

riding the bike is always an adventure. you never know whether a car is going to slow down and yell out cat-calls, or if its going to mangle you into a jamie-street-sandwich. thankfully all we got on this trek were cat-calls. although they didnt slow down enough for me to hear them correctly, i assume they were commenting on my general fabulous-ness :)

cottesloe is be-A-u-ti-ful!

we rode up to the ocean beach hotel for some lunch. its a very cool atmosphere, like a pub with several tv's showing aussie footy, and then the front portion is covered in floor to ceiling windows that open up like a garage door so you can enjoy the ocean view and feel the breeze. its a fantastic spot that i discovered with shane in february, and it was fun being with noirin and having her see it all for the first time.

aside from that my work week was pretty boring. however, it picked up again on friday. my old friend tina was in town! tina and i went to high school together. after graduation we lost touch and then ran into each other again when i started working at barnes and noble during my undergrad. life happens and we lost touch again until she found me on facebook a month ago. she was in town for business and we decided to meet for dinner. we had a BLAST! so much fun laughing and catching up. after about four pints, we somehow decided that a spontaneous road trip down south was in order! so at 7am the next morning, my alarm went off (i wanted to smash it with a hammer haha), i packed a bag and met tina downstairs at the coffee shop. we snagged some hangover survival food (ham and cheese croissant) and coffee and started driving. we decided to go check out western australias most famous wine region, margaret river.

its about a 3 hour drive from perth, and it flew by! we made it before noon and checked out the visitors center to get recommendations on where to go. we found out that our spontaneous road trip happened during the weekend of the annual margaret wine festival! (how lucky is that?) the only bummer was that the event was at a winery 40 min north in the town of dunsborough. had to laugh that in our spontaneous haze we drove right past it lol.

by this time we were starvin marvins and decided to grab lunch before driving to the festival. we stopped off at the colonial brewery. it was this side road off the main highway, the brewery itself was tucked in between giant fields filled with grazing cattle. not an average surrounding where id expect to find a brewery. it was a unique atmosphere with a great patio, fun music and a big fake lake that i quite enjoyed.

we ordered the brewery sampler and got to taste each beer

they gave us a tasting card with descriptions for each beer. omg, ive never seen anything funnier in my whole life. the descriptions were completely ridiculous and were likely written by someone who had dropped acid.

"deep amber in appearance, the colonial india pale ale is a complex amalgam of pronounced honeyed malt with grapefruit/citrus/earthy aromatics. the palate is bold, chewy, deep and rich, with a notable 'blackcurrant pastille' edge and a touch of residual sweetness, ahead of an earthy and warm 'forest floor of hops' supporting and balancing the malt character."

lol wtf? we had a good time reading the mini novels describing each beer before tasting them. we also ordered their brewery tasting plate which came with a variety of fancy meats and cheeses. some of the more odd things on the plate that i tried were venison pate and pickled octopus. the octopus was tasty but i couldnt look at the tentacles...they freaked me out (yes, i had to close my eyes like a 5-year old haha).

we then continued our drive to dunsborough. the scenery was absolutely GORGEOUS! it was like northern california had sex with italy and produced the margaret river wine region lol. the roads were lined with these big ole australian trees and then you could see these bright green vineyards behind them.

we parked the car in town and and rode the shuttle to the festival. i really liked how they coordinated transportation so nobody was drinking and driving. for $35 i got a souvenir wine glass and entry into the festival. it was held at the palmer winery. see how purdy?

the main venue was held under big white tents and each winery had their own table, and had every wine they made available for tasting. since im no wine connoisseur, i chose to sample from wineries that had fun logos or cool names (haha such a nerd).

lol). it was really neat because each winery would explain their wines as you tasted. i learned about grapes and fancy terminology.

if you didnt like what you tasted, they had little spittoon buckets where you could dump out the crap. i found out that i dont like semillion wines, or shiraz wines. but i did fall in love with pinot noir wines, and chenin blanc wines. it was fun tasting the differences and discovering what i liked, but honestly, you could give me wine from a box and i'd probably still think it was good (#classy). i purchased some of my favorites to bring home

when in rome...

cant wait to share these with my sweetie over dinners and sunset patio nights xoxo!

after festivaling ourselves into an oblivion, we took the shuttle to our hostel for the night. turns out that the hostel was essentially across the street from the winery, and we didnt even need to take the shuttle haha. oops? it was my first hostel experience, and i have to say it wasnt that bad. for $30 i got a bed in a girls dormitory room. we shared with a really nice irish gal from dublin, too bad noirin wasnt with us so they could reminisce about the mother country (can i call ireland the mother country or does that only apply to russia? hmm....) we were beat from our socializing the night before and after a day of wine in the sun. we mightve gone to bed at 8:30 pm. haha, can you say party animals?

we drove back early this morning so tina could make her noon-thirty flight back to sydney. such a fun spontaneous weekend of reunions, wine and adventure. i feel like it lifted my spirits, and eased up on the homesick feeling thats been plaguing me all week. now im in a great mood and great place and am looking forward to flying up north for work tomorrow. all i have is this field session, then i'm home for four days, and then on my way home to visit!!! so close i can almost TASTE it!

hope everyone had a good weekend. cant wait to ramble in a few days about my field exploits

xoxo

-j

easter: its a big deal here

who knew?

to illustrate this point more clearly, i'm going to rub it in and tell you that friday AND monday are paid days off. booya! america you are way behind on the easter celebrations. i dont even think i got that much time off for christmas last year (fact).

i kicked off my easter weekend by getting sick...and eating this chocolate bunny.

he was delicious. and chocolatey.

so you'd think with all this time off that i would have done something totally fantastic with my long weekend right? wrong. it turns out that when you live in a foreign country, dont have too many friends, and no car, your options are pretty limited lol.

friday i tackled the mountain of laundry that magically accumulated on my bedroom floor. i honestly dont know how it gets so out of control. one day the laundry is manageable and i've got loads of clothes to wear, and the next day i cant even see my floor and have run out of underwear and jeans. its mind bottling. once that project was under way, i got showered up and went with noirin and our friend alana to the monk for a late lunch/early dinner. not many places were open on good friday, and we were at one of the only places serving alcohol. so naturally we had a beer (...or two)

our drinking on such a religious holiday sparked a conversation about sinning. which in turn brought up a convo about the story of easter and hey-seus (jesus). turns out that none of us knew the history very well. okay i lied (add lying AND drinking to my good friday sins...). none of us knew the story at all. so for your entertainment here is a jamie-fied version:

easter is complicated. stretch your pea-brain minds all the way back to february. it all starts on a day called fat tuesday (or perhaps you know it as mardi gras?). which is pretty much a condoned day of drinking and debauchery before lent (40 days of fasting of whatever you choose). the first day of lent is called ash wednesday. according to google, folks rubbed ash on their foreheads to show hey-seus they were sorry for being jafi's during the last year. lent ends and then its good friday. turns out, good friday is actually bad friday because its when hey-seus dies/is murdered/kicks the bucket. so folks are bummed until easter sunday when zombie hey-seus arises to preach and spread love once more. i did a lot of searching and cant really find out why easter monday is easter monday. best i can figure is that its the monday after easter (lol)...and because folks wanted another day off from work...

so there you have it. a quick history of easter (im probably going straight to hell)

saturday we went shopping. i love all the small stores and shops in my neighborhood. i enjoyed an ice coffee in the market and snagged some warm clothes for winter (yes, winter).

my neighborhood was putting on a big street arts festival this weekend. i saw some fantastic stuff. i saw a giant scotsman with a robotic wolfhound playing bagpipes...

and i saw a man straight from the guinness book of world records. he started out by swallowing a sword .as you do...

it was like a car crash. disgusting and i wanted to look away, but it was freakishly awesome at the same time. i stood there with my eyes bulging and my mouth hanging open like a spaz.

honestly didnt think there was a way to top sword swallowing, but it turns out there is. all you have to do is climb on top of a 3 meter-tall  (9ish ft) unicycle, and juggle knives.

we wandered through the rest of the festival checking out booths, and seeing other performers. wandering lead to meandering, and we ended up in several places ive never been before. its weird how you can live in the same place for months and wind up on streets that are totally foreign and new. we wandered up to the fremantle round house, which looks out over the indian ocean. i guess it is the oldest public building in WA and used to hold criminals before the prison was built. too bad for us it was closed because of easter sunday. kind of bummed, but at least it had a fantastic view.

i got a little snap-happy on our wandering...

pretty casual sunday, with an amazing sunset ender. tomorrow i am going to bike up the coast to cottesloe beach and bask in the last bits of summer. hope you all had a great weekend! love all you at home and cant wait to see you in 23 days!!

xoxo

they cant all be gems...

so the survey continued...

i spent the remainder of my time in the field surveying. it was HOT! we hit over 103° F pretty much every day. remember how i was ranting about not wanting to get the pilbara tan? well, i got it. it looks like i have black gloves on and light brown sleeves. thank god my boyfriend lives on another continent and cant see how silly i look. such a spaz lol.

so the traditional owners are jokesters, and they asked me one afternoon if we have tomato sauce in america. i told them we do, but its called ketchup. i have no idea why, but they fell over laughing. ketchup was somehow funny. i attributed it to the heat. yeah, the next morning i see the fellas and holler over a "good morning!" and my response is "mornin ketchup!". i was called ketchup for four days. it might be the most odd nickname ive ever been given.

i kept asking them questions about the tracks i was seeing in the dirt and this is what i was taught:

• the thin narrow swiggly line with tiny feet marks is a goanna

• the thick straight line with feet marks that look like hooves is a kangaroo

• these circles are where the roo's sleep 

i was highly entertained. once you know what youre looking for, you can see tracks and signs of animal life EVERYWHERE! safe to say i geeked out for most of the day. the area we were surveying had lots of short low trees that were close together and i guess those are ideal conditions for giant freak-pie killer spiders of death. their webs stretch from tree to tree and if you arent looking up from the ground every other step, you run the risk of walking straight through a web. which i almost did. i seriously almost SHAT myself when i saw this spider about four inches in front of my face!

although now that i posted this photo, it really doesnt look all that impressive. but believe you me, it WAS! lol

we also encountered a few angry bulls. apparently they dont like it when you walk into their territory, disturb their children and beep at them with car horns. weird. but yeah, seeing a squillion pound bull make death curdling noises while stomping its front hoof into the ground while heavily snorting is a bit scary. the fellas kept teasing me, "hey ketchup, dem cheeky bulls they lika yellow and red tings". i was wearing a yellow shirt and had a red backpack. the look on my face mustve been pretty good, cause they the burst into laughter again. clifford told me, "nah dem got betta tings to do than git you ketchup. but if he do come over maybe run up dat tree". lol so there you have it...when in a situation where you could potentially get charged by a bull, best chance for safety = run up a tree (just make sure there isnt a killer spider in it lol)

there are some neat artifacts in the pilbara as well. this is a grinding stone (how'd you like to prep your dinner on this bad boy?)

this is a tula adze. they are made from the top portion of a broken lithic flake. they are used in wood working (think scraping wood for spears....)

and this is a blade. it might be my favorite type of artifact out here. besides being rad as hell, think of all the cool stuff that you could cut and stab with it!

we wrapped up the field session with a trip to the camp's wet mess. if you just read "wet mess" and thought i was talking about something dirty, i wasnt. its what they call the on-site pub. and let me tell you, pretty much nobody goes to the actual mess hall where eating happens, they go the wet mess where drinking happens. we got in on the action before things got rowdy. and i have to say, that first beer after working 10 days straight in the middle of the desert is DELICIOUS!

made it home safe and sound. currently loving my big bed and enjoying the freedom to waste time watching mindless rubbish on tv. big bang theory, its ridiculous but i love it.

everyday is one day closer till i come home to visit! miss everyone so much <3

29 days and counting....