its been a big weekend. first off, big exciting news.... I'M COMING HOME IN MAY FOR A VISIT!!! so So SO excited!!! it was a spur of the moment decision, and i havent been able to stop talking about it since i bought my ticket. cant wait to hug my family, kiss my bf, and squeeze the hell out of my hound!
as of now, im 44 days 7 hours 4 minutes and 58 seconds away from taking off in that airplane. not that im counting or anything lol.....
so, due to a crazy cyclone up north, noirin came home early (i.e., evacuated) and i got to celebrate my first st. patricks day with a real irish person! it was fantastic! we started out by meeting up with friends at the norfolk hotel. and yes, we had a mini leprechaun that came with us...(lol, and yes, thats him posing by a pint of guinness)
afterwards we wandered over to the irish pub in fremantle called rosie o'gradys. it was barely 5 pm and there was already a queue (lol, line) to get in. while waiting we saw a crazy drunk lady belligerently stumbling about in the street. something must have made her mad, because she started beating the hell out of a white van. it was highly entertaining and slightly scary (i wanted to look but was freaked that she'd see me gawking and come kick my ass). after about a minute and a half of this, the bouncers wearing "premium security" shirts decide to intervene between the chick/van fight, by elegantly yelling "oi, FUCK OFF!" at her. i burst into giggles. yep, thats premium security right there. she fought with the bouncers, and a big bystander, and then ended up knocking herself out on a mailbox. it was hands down, the most entertaining line ive ever waited in.
rosies was PACKED! shoulder to shoulder shenanigans. they had an irish band, people were wearing all sorts of crazy green outfits, and the guinness was flowing like, well, guinness lol.
we had a fantastic time! and i do recall noirin and i pinkie promising to spend a proper st. pattys day in ireland...cant wait for that one :)
ive said it before and i'll say it again, skype dates make my whole weekend better! technology you are amazing. i tried to capture some of the better moments during my skype calls, and these were my favorites (sorry mom, the ones i kept getting of you were funny, but i think you wouldve smacked me if i woulda put them up on the blog lol)
shane and i had a delay, and my screen was frozen on this. it made me laugh.
saying happpy st. pattys to brother, indy and pop
summer making jokes about being so "wasted" at boogs st. pattys party (its funny because shes 7+ months pregnant lol)
wrapped up the weekend by cruising down to cottesloe beach to check out the sculptures by the sea. its a free month long exhibition, and today was the last day of it. cottesloe beach is beautiful, and it was fun to get out and see something different.
thsese were my favorites:
these were so weird you couldn't not like them:
and i just didnt get these at all:
all in all, a fantastic way to spend my evening! topped it all off by stopping by cicerellos for fish and chips. i shoved in WAAAAY too many chips and my belly is stuffed. even now as im typing this. and, since im 14 hrs ahead in time from all of you in utah, its like im living in the future. so, based on what ive seen today, sunday is amazing and you are all in for a real treat ;)
miss you all heaps and cant wait to see everyone when im home in may!
the other day i was on my evening run and i was crossing the street, when a group of people started to cut me off. the lady reaches out and says, "phil, watch out for that runner". ive never been called a runner before. in fact, although i have been running for a few months now i still wouldnt call my spastic flailing down the track "running". nevertheless, there it was...i was called a runner. it got me thinking about titles (obviously my ipod had gone flat and i was without the musical stylings of britney spears and pitbull to distract my mind) and the titles that we fullfill everyday.
what were my titles? (besides runner) i started listing them off in my head as i padded down the path: archaeologist, girlfriend, roommate, friend, daughter, sister etc. the list went on and on. and then i started thinking how well do i fullfill all these roles? the answer was so simple it was kind of like a punch to the face....i can do better. think about it. we all fall into traps of comfort, familiarity, routine, and somehow stop putting in that extra effort. i realized that i was capable of doing a better job at pretty much all the titles i occupy. kind of mind bottling.
best way i figured i could start is by making myself a happier person...that way, my good mood would sort of infect the other areas of my life.
ive started cooking more (its healthier for me, love the smells, and it gives me something to do, and about half the time it tastes good too lol), running more, and are you ready?....started doing yoga. i went with a couple friends to a beginner class at the fremantle yoga centre. not sure what i was expecting, but it was FANTASTIC! it was very calming, relaxing and meditative, and i contorted into positions i didnt know i could do. i left feeling very positive about life. definitely going back for more :) (sidebar: woke up the next morning feeling sore in places i didnt know i had. hurts so good?) anyway now that i was actively working on making myself happier, i branched out...
bumped up roommate-jamie by going for a weekend bike ride with noirin. grabbed the bikes and headed out. nothing better than pedalling your own bike, cruising along a path that parallels the ocean, smelling that beachy smell, hearing birds, and just taking it all in. i know i sound like a total hippy douche bag, but i cant help it, its just the way it is :) got to see an amazing sunset and stick my pigs in the water
i had a chance to work on friend-jamie with an amazing skype date with two of my best friends, shannon and rachelle. yes, we had a three way (and no, not what youre thinking lol). i made coffee and brekky, they ate burgers for dinner, and we caught up on everything that had happened since i left. you know you picked good friends when you can not seem them for months and just pick up right where you left off. love you ladies and cant wait to be skyped into rulies baby shower...even if have to wake up at 6:00 am to do it haha :)
i worked on girlfriend-jamie too. guess its working, look what was delivered to me on monday!
i squealed with joy and all but ripped them out of the flower-delivery lady's hands. they brought the biggest smile to my face and brightened up my whole day. girls love flowers and ive never dated anyone who quite grasped that fact. definitely have a keeper on my hands. thanks again shane! love you xoxo
as far as daughter-jamie goes, i branched outside the box. even though i skype with my parents every week, i figured maybe a little something extra would brighten up their day. nothing crazy, but keep your eyeballs out for some aussie mail :) er...i mean, post lol.
today i worked a little bit more on me, but in a more superficial way...i had a hair appointment at a fancy salon. so back home, i went to a fancy aveda salon and LOVED it. they give you the royal treatment, delicious tea while you wait, an aromatherapy neck massage, shampoo with head massage, and then an amazing cut and style. so imagine my joy and delight when i stumbled across an aveda salon just a few blocks from my house! its called the djurra lifestyle salon, and a director named corrine cut my hair. i have to give her a shout out because i got the best hair cut ive had in a LOONG time. i asked for something, and she did what i wanted only better. see?
i spent the rest of my afternoon lounging on the porch, basking in the sun and reading a book on my kindle. you know how you see people milling about and enjoying a weekday like it was the weekend? (well, i used to see these people sitting outside at coffee shops or hanging in the park as i was frantically driving from work to an appointment or whatever, and hated them....and envied them). it was really nice when i realized that i might have become one of those people :) pulling a honey badger on a tuesday and doing what i want....it was pretty nice.
before i go, figured i'll leave you with this. it was written on the window at the salon i was at earlier. it says "the sky is not the limit. there are footprints on the moon". i liked it.
this has been such a fantastic experience. its effecting me a lot more differently than i expected, if i even had any expectations to begin with. im becoming a culture jumble. its not just my american habits, language, and speaking style anymore...ive inadvertently picked up aussie slang and mannerisms. add my irish roomate and all her cultural quirks and what youve got is an ameri-stralia-ish situation. lol, say that five times fast.
here are some things ive picked up on:
- beer. it has a stronger alcohol content than at home. which means i am a cheap date :) but the labels also have a handy thing that lets you know how many drinks you are consuming. so say ive got a bottle of little creatures pale ale, the label will tell me that it equates to 2.5 drinks. how cool is that? the u.s. needs to hop on board.
-beer also has several names. ive heard it called a frothie, piss, coldie, and grog. it also comes in several confusing choices lol, there are pints, middy's, schooners, stubbies, pots, pony's, and jugs. and if you try to order a a plain ole glass of beer, you better know where you are, because even that is called different things in different places (here in WA its just a glass, but everywhere else in australia calls it a seven, unless youre in SA, then its called a butcher) bamboozled yet?
- its not a called sweater or jacket here. its a jumper. and its pronounced "jump-ah"
- everyone is really considerate and courteous. i get a hello from everyone in my office every morning. if someone goes to the coffee shop, they ask everyone in the office if they want something. i had no idea americans were so self involved and unfriendly until i came here. way to go aussies.
- coffee is complicated. aussies dont really do drip/filtered coffee (which is a huge bummer for me), the closest ive found is something called a long black. best i can figure its what we would call an americano. they have lattes, but they also have flat whites. im still not sure what a flat white is, it looks and tastes like a latte, but is apparently different. i wish they had something called a shiny white. it sounds like it would be more fun than a flat white.
- aussies are really big on sugar in the raw. you know, the big square granules? its everywhere. i never realized how many sugar choices we have in the states....stuff in the white packs, yellow packs, blue packs, pink packs....the possibilities are endless! well, if you come here, you get one kind. so prepare yourself :)
-silly vocabulary. aussies dont use "z" in words. its realised and not realized. and they add a fancy "u" to certain words. like "colour" or "favourite"
- wrong side driving. aussies drive on the wrong side of the car and wrong side of the road. not so much a big deal now that im getting used to it, but there were definitely a few times where i looked the wrong way crossing the street and almost got creamed....and a few times driving the rental car that i forgot what i was doing and almost left turned into oncoming traffic. lol woops....
- rubbish in the bin. all garbage is referred to as rubbish, and it goes in the bin, not the garbage can. ive noticed that ive started using the aussie terminology, and get shit for it every time i accidentally use it in front of my american buddies.
-the word "heaps". its used instead of "lots". it makes me think of big piles of things, and i quite enjoy the hyperbole.
- everything is smaller here. im talking about food portion sizes at restaurants, boxes of food at the grocery store, stove top and range sizes, refridgerators, and the smallest washing and drying machines ive ever seen. i cant quite work out if i like it or not. i think im a fan of the smaller food portion sizes (who needs all that extra food anyway?), but i really miss american appliances. nothing like chucking two-weeks worth of laundry into the washing machine and it handling it like a champ (im lucky if i can fit five days worth of clothes in my washing machine here).
-maccas. thats what they call mcdonalds here. and guess what else? they actually still have the small size!! i can order a small drink and its a small drink. not like in the states where my choices are regular or large...which if we're honest, are more like large and extra-large.
-if a word can be shortened, it will be. bottle-shops are bottelo's, afternoon is arvo, documentaries are docos, physiotherapists are physios, kindergarten is kindy, a mosquito is a mossie, presents are pressies, relatives are rellies, university is uni, sunglasses are sunnies, televisions are tellys, vehicle registration is rego, and yes, i've heard things referred to as thingo's lol.
-tea. any meal can be referred to as tea. so far i've picked up on morning tea (10 o'clock pop-tart for you archaeologists at home!), tea (lunchtime), high tea (which is like fancy afternoon tea, which i think actually involves real tea...), and tea (dinnertime).
-mobile. the term "cell-phone" is rarely used, and people dont call you, they ring you.
- carparks. not parking lots
-EFTPOS. its what they call debit cards. and when you use it to pay for something you get options! they ask if you want to pay out of cheque (which threw me the first time since im used to hearing "checking"), savings, or credit. the only bummer is that lots of places require you to purchase a minimum amount for if youre using EFTPOS.
-funny money. aussie money is colorful, durable, and has little see thru windows. the notes come in all different sizes too. it was really hard for me to start thinking of it as real money and not monopoly money. and are you ready for the kicker?....at ATM's you can get out any amount you want! no multiples of 20 crap. if you want a $50, you get a $50. i think i clapped with joy when i found this out.
- mate. yes, people actually say "g'day mate". and they say it A LOT! turns out, girls can be mates too. for some reason i only thought guys were called mates, but i guess it applies to everyone. who knew mate?
-you cant buy pillsbury rolls or biscuits in the grocery store. they dont exist. neither do q-tip brand cotton swabs (i'm dying for q-tip brand q-tips!, who knew i was so picky about such a stupid item?)
-TMI ALERT....its really hard to find tampons with applicators. most places only sell the ones where you have to er...ahem, self applicate.
--wine is cheaper than beer. im talking $5 for a bottle. its because there are so many wineries nearby. summer, you'd be in heaven here :)
-dress code is HUGE here. you can wear whatever you want anywhere until about 7:00 pm. after that, if you have a singlet (lol, tank top), or thongs (lol, flip-flops) you can pretty much guarantee that you wont be let into any of the respectable establishments.
-glassing. yeah, id never heard of it before, but i guess it happens quite a bit. its when someone smashes a glass on someone elses face and/or head. remind me to never get into an aussie bar fight...
-metric system! omg, you never realize how backward us americans are with this stuff. im having to learn everything again. distances are measured in kilometres, meters, and centimetres. liquids are measured in liters and millilitres. weights are given in kilograms and grams. little tip from me to you, dont look up a recipe on an american website (ahem, allrecipes.com), and write out a detailed shopping list, and then get to the store and realize all measurements are different. SPAZ! i was walking around google converting everything from ounces to grams.
-dont call it gas or fuel. if its for your car, its petrol. gas and fuel are like propane for your bbq. believe me, ive gotten several quizzical looks from folks when i said the wrong thing.
-car hire. you hire a car, you dont rent it
-australian chocolate is BOMB. can someone explain to me how america fucked this one up?
-sharks fatally kill 1 person a year. however, they bite heaps of people annually. and conveniently enough for me, most shark-tasting occurs off the coast of perth.
-twitter. its huge here. unlike anything ive ever seen. everyone is tweeting and twatting and i feel super lame for not joining in. perth sharks even have their own twitter account. its quite funny. check it out if youre bored: http://twitter.com/#!/PerthSharks
-"throw another shrimp on the barbie!". hate to burst everyones bubble, but nobody says this. and ive been told that no self respecting australian would ever cook shrimp (which they call prawns) on a barbie (bbq). although this clip is hilarious and worth a looksie:
- and while im bursting bubbles....nobody drinks fosters. ever.
-restaurants. okay here's the deal. restaurant service here SUCKS! waiters dont get paid on tips, so they act like honey badgers and pretty much ignore you. ive actually had to flag down servers to get a drink, or even pay my bill. friends and family in america, be extremely thankful for good servers. i miss them. also, lots of places dont even have servers. you just go up to the bar and order your food, they give you a number and you go find a table. i think i like this more, since i get what i wanted quicker....the only bummer is you still have to go to the bar if you want more drinks (lol first world problems)
-whinge. its not called whining here. its whinging. dont say the wrong thing, or someone'll whinge that you've stuffed it all up
-stuffing up = messing up
-the swearing is EPIC here. ive always had a terrible trucker's mouth, so i love that people here quite frequently say "get fucked!". ive also noticed that the c-word (not typing it out, but we all know what word im referring to...) gets a fair amount of play here. a gal in our office uses it about 40x a day. cant say im quite used to that one (as evidenced by my open-mouth staring at her when she drops it, loudly, and in front of everyone, including the boss)
-its air-con. not air-conditioning
-they're called chips. not fries.
- the chemist. its a place where you go to get medicine, toiletries, and pharmacy-type stuff. they arent in grocery stores like at home, you have to go to a specific shop. but on the bright side, they have lots of friendly minions who are willing to assist with your every need.
- adult stores. they are on every corner. however, it is illegal in WA to own hardcore porn of any kind. this includes homemade videos and/or photos. ive heard of peoples laptops being confiscated at airport security. they are also against prostitution, but there are somehow several brothels around perth city. they arent listed in the yellowpages as brothels, but everyone knows how to find them. i was told that they tried to outlaw brothels awhile back, but that piece of legislation stopped when the brothels threatened to reveal their client list. it made me chuckle.
-and despite what anyone tells me of how cheesy and outdated this song is, i still hear it pretty much EVERYWHERE!
im sure there are plenty of things ive forgotten that are trippy and fantastic, but you know when you try to remember something and your mind suddenly blanks? thats happening to me right now. hope i entertained some of you at home, and potentially explained why ive been saying and doing odd things :)
guess what i did this weekend? absolutely nothing. and it was fantastic. i was lazy master to the extreme, probably a reaction to my crazy 10-hr days and 12-day swing schedule. i did a lot of sleeping in, a lot of tv watching, book reading, and internetting (mightve just made that word up, but its true, i am an internet whore. mostly spent on facebook. dont act like you dont do it too. one in three americans use facebook while in the bathroom. its true lol. look it up).
however, the weekend wasnt all fun and games. i was battling a nasty cold, and by sunday i was a bit cage-y. noirin reckoned that fresh air would do me good, so she talked me into accompanying her to the perth zoo. i stocked up on cold medicine and my vicks butter menthol drops and headed out. tip from me to you, just because the throat lozenges have yellow coloring on the package doesnt automatically mean they're lemon. i snagged the pack assuming they were, and was slightly horrified and pleasantly surprised to find out they were butter flavored. i feel confused when i suck on them. am i having candy or taking medicine? its weird.
anyway, the zoo. since we dont have a car we had to take public transport to get there. which equated to one train ride, a walk to a bus station, a bus ride, and one more short walk. take your cars for granted people. turns out, the zoo grounds were fantastic! it was like being in an exotic jungle. all these amazing old trees with crazy roots and heaps of birds chirping and flying around. see what i mean?
i saw the usual zoo fare, but there were some animals that struck my fancy. the saltwater crocodile was hands down my favorite! look how huge this guy was!
there were all these signs around the enclosure saying "danger, dont go swimming, crocodile infested waters". it made me laugh. obviously some wingnut has tried this, hence the signs. this croc was 12+ feet long. i learned that crocs dont chew their food either, they just sorta swallow it (hey bueno, he eats like you!). here are some other animals that made me happy
i know its kind of lame, but when i saw the hyena i got super excited. they are crazy cool in real life. they have the body of a dog, but sorta lumber around like a gorilla, and have crazy eyes like they might rip your face off if you look at em too long. being at this exhibit gave me an overwhelming urge to sing that lion king song "naaa sin weeen yaaah, baba eeets si uhm weeehn ya uhhh". i mightve started to sing and the look on noirins face told me to stop lol.
i decided that the zoo was great for seeing exotic animals, but the place i went with shane to pet the kangaroos (caversham wildlife park) was way better. the animals had more space, better enclosures, and you could interact with them more. and yes, i call shoving pellets of food into fat kangaroo mouths "interacting" lol.
across from the zoo is a great place called the windsor hotel. id been there before and remembered it being a good time so we wandered over for a sunday beverage. love the architecture of the buildings in perth. feels very colonial. i had a cider and noirin got a beer. we snagged a table on the patio and just basked in the sun and good music. salt lake is definitely lacking in places like this. i kept thinking of how much fun i'd have if shane and my ladies could join me :)
monday was labour day in australia. which, for those of you at home is a total trip, since our labour day is usually in september. apparently the holiday here is to commemorate the granting of the eight-hour working day for aussies. who knew? i chose to celebrate the holiday with noirin at south beach :) rode our bikes down, locked em up against a tree and spread our towels out in the white sand. sunshine makes everything better. it was a fantastic day. worked on my skin cancer...er, i mean, tan, gossiped shamelessly about people we know, and watched dogs play in the water. wish indy was here, he'd absolutely love it (and prob be the cutest mutt on the beach....but then again, i might be a bit biased lol)
today was my first day back in the office since the early part of february. i forget how hard it is to knock out an 8-hr day behind a desk. time drags and ive developed this crazy urge to nap after lunch. im turning into a senior citizen. at least its only a 4-day work week! HOT DIGGITY! and, i think my cold is finally better enough that i can go running tomorrow without hacking up a lung. its weird how different i feel when i dont exercise. i need those happy endorphins :)
i'll leave you with an aussie word that i heard recently that made me laugh. "fair dinkum". i honestly dont know what the hell i thought it meant, i just knew i had no idea what was going on in the conversation. so i looked it up.
fair dinkum:
- australian slang meaning fair or true;
- to proclaim a fact or truth in a statement in such a manner.
Na mate, i'll tell ya what...the guy come roun heah gain, I'll give it to em right...bloody fair dinkum mate!"
its true. you heard it here first. i survived my first field session up north.
it was....interesting.
i left you last time after eating goanna and sweltering in the heat. not much changed the rest of the session. i saw some beautiful country and recorded some great sites.
its okay to feel jealous after looking at these photos. chances are that my job is cooler than yours. but chances are that you are at home, and near your family and friends, which i am not. so there you go, im jealous of you ;)
i could bore you with my day to day ramblings, which believe me, i thought about. but i figured i go with the tidbits that i found particularly interesting myself. so since its a mining site, camp is dominated by men. i think someone told me the ratio of men to women is 6:1. thats a lot of testosterone walking around and operating heavy machinery. i was also told of something called a "pilbara princess". sounds exciting right? i thought so too, so i enquired further. turns out, a pilbara princess is a girl who is average in every way, and probably wouldnt get looked at twice in the city, but up at the mining sites where gals are rarer than i dunno sushi? lol, they are suddenly getting loads of attention from sexually frustrated mining men. the idea of it really intrigued me, so from that point on, i was on the lookout for one of these princesses. it didnt take me long. you can spot them quite easily. my favorite was a gal with two-tone hair, you know, the kind where her roots are brown and the tips are blonde? who liked to strut. yes, strut. she strutted around the mess hall like it was a fashion show, and after sucking down several cigarettes outside the gym, strutting all over inside the gym. she wasnt so much working out as posing next to the machines. the men dug it, and i found her highly entertaining. i might sit next to her at dinner next swing. i mean, who doesnt want a princess as a bff?
speaking of the mess hall, it so happens that they have an entire dessert bar where you can gorge yourself silly after dinner. or if dinner is sub-par (which was about every other day), just go straight for the desserts. mom before you roll your eyes in disgust, i only had dessert for dinner one night. okay, two nights. but in all fairness, you shouldve seen what was on my plate. in no way was it classifiable as dinner. i digress, thats neither here nor there. the really shocking part is this:...australians put jello on their ice cream. nobody seemed to think it was as ridiculous as i did. not even kidding, i saw piles of yellow jello (or as they call it, jelly) on top of mint choc chip ice cream. BARF! maybe im the odd one, any of you ever seen jello put on ice cream? i must get to the bottom of this weird food quirk.
i discovered the on-site convenience store midway through the field session. by "discovered" i mean i finally noticed all the big signs pointing towards the big store with all the people constantly going in and out of it lol. im not very observant for a trained observer. after a wander thu, i purchased two things. the first was ginger beer. look how cute the bottle is~!
ginger beer isnt really beer. which was a bit disappointing. but it did taste like ginger ale, just slightly stronger and sugarier. aussies go nuts for this stuff. weird what works in some countries and doesnt in others. i also purchased a pack of skittles. now we all know that skittles taste like their colors. red tastes like red, yellow tastes like yellow, etc. i think they are supposed to represent flavors, but honestly there is so much sugar in them i couldnt tell you whats what. however, i guess the aussie pallet is a bit more refined and theyve monkeyd with my skittles! the purple tasted like black, and the green was well,...oh god i'll just come out and say it,....ugh. green apple....
we were finishing up salvaging a site this one afternoon when i looked up and saw a dust devil. it was amazing! it pulled up all the red dirt from the ground, and all you could see was green trees, a blue sky, and this red mini-tornado cruising about. aussies call them whirly whirls, but the traditional owners believe them to be angry spirits. we saw them a few times after that day, and the traditional owners always got shifty and wanted to move from where we were working. i never picked up on any weird vibes. they were mostly just fascinating to watch
camp was average. im told its one of the nicer camps, but it at the end of the day it was just a metal barrack with a twin bed and a bathroom. however, the sunrises and sunsets were A-MAZING!!! who cares what your room is like when you get to look at these every night?
so beautiful. there was this fantastic little hill just west of my building and it was practically begging me to hike up it and watch the sun go down. buzz kill alert: im not allowed to leave the camp premises unless its into authorized areas and/or im wearing high vis yellow. neither of which apply to my hill sitting and sunset watching mojo. so i resigned to watch it from a green plastic chair behind a metal railing outside my room.
the weather here changes quite fast, and the rain moved in about halfway through the session. they have this handy little sign posted near the main reception area to notify us of any severe and impending weather problems (ahem, cyclones). according to the sign, everything was "all clear". thank god lol.
but it did rain a lot. i know, because i heard it every night pinging off the metal roof of my room. we tried to go out to site the day after the big rainstorm but it was still pouring and the roads were getting muddier and mooshier by the minute. after sitting in the car watching the storm, we decided to call off work due to rain.
WOOHOO right?! lol not so much. turns out a rain day at a mine site means sitting in your room for six hours. and i can tell you from first hand experience that tv and internet get boring after about three hours. i did however exercise my credit card with a little online shopping (i couldnt be bothered to exercise myself though...on account of the rain (lol, yeah right)). bought little jonesy and chewy lots of toys from petsmart. i know their puppy pea brains will be overjoyed with glee when they get that package in the mail. i wish i found squeaky toys as satisfying as they do. after sending that package off, i decided i couldnt neglect my step-dog, weezy. so i sent him a package as well :) shane asked me today, "so what did you end up sending me in the mail?", i had to tell him flat out, "buddy i didnt buy you anything. however, i did send your dog a little something". shanes a keeper. after flashing me a big grin he goes "oh okay, i wont tell weezy. it'll be a surprise". lol. i know im a weirdo. but i love my dogs. and they should be spoiled.
the rain continued all day and throughout the night. when we tried to access the project area the next day, the road looked like this:
it was beautiful. and also a huge pain in the ass. we sent james, our fieldie, in a truck to test out access across the muddy road river of death. felt like i was watching some crazy extreme four-wheeling episode on the discovery channel
the truck made it back across, but im not sure how. it was a combo of driving, boating and sliding. i think i made a comment to one of my colleagues about james's gnarly driving skills, and they go "oh its nothing, he used to wrestle crocs with steve irwin, this is nothing for him" so there you have it. ive been hanging out with goanna eaters and croc wrestlers. who knew?
wrapped up the field session and headed to the airport. my "plane ticket" was a laminated piece of paper given to me by the reception office when i handed in my room key. i wasnt required to walk through security of any kind. so weird. just handed them my bags and was told "g'day mate". it reminded me of how remote i was, and how nobody really cared about anything other than going home.
walking through my front door was one of the best feelings. nothing quite beats that feeling of coming home. twelve days is a long time to be away. it was great seeing noirin (i missed my irish-aussie faux family member), it was wonderful to eat delicious food, it was heavenly sleeping in my own bed, it was sublime sleeping in, and it was beyond FANTASTIC to have skype dates with my loves! you know who you are, and i love you all lots :)
you definitely have to travel/leave/wander/walkabout in order to gain perspective and appreciate all those wonderful things you take for granted every day at home.
