We Want Pinkie!

This past weekend was quite a busy one. One Saturday, our Australian History professor was going on an archaeological dig near the southern end of Freo. Two from our school decided to accompany him and his crew and we left early morning to spend all day in the bush digging. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

At the site we were at, there were already three houses and a mass graveyard discovered. We were to beginning the fourth site and after a few minutes of background history and setting up, the dig began. We worked on two squares and were all divided up into sifters and diggers. I started as a digger in the square that was thought to be near the rubbish pile (there is supposed to be a house in the area, the other group started on what was thought to be the front of the house so we worked where the backyard would have been). Four of us worked in the square and had to be careful that we were digging down in levels. Early on I found the a neck of a glass bottle which I thought little of until our professor was running around explaining that it was from 1820 and asking where it was found. So I’m pretty good at it.

It was a very exciting day. We uncovered a lot of artefacts, mostly old iron pegs, clay pipe necks, and ceramic pieces. I’m glad we were actually finding things otherwise it would have proved to be quite a long day. After lunch, I was put on sifting duty which was not as exciting, due to the tedious job of picking out everything that was of human origin: iron flakes, shot, etc. I didn’t envy the woman who was in charge of cataloguing everything.

On Sunday I spent a lot of the time reading up on Evolution but did have some excitement. Late afternoon a bunch of us went down to Swan River for a bit of cliff jumping. The cliff was about 35ish feet and quite terrifying the first time. Plus there were boats anchored nearby cheering us on. I was in my pink shirt and seemed to quickly become their favourite. After calling out for me, I was the first American (James, my African friend, jumped first) to make the plunge. The hardest part was getting out of the water because it was a cliff. You had to swim down a little bit where there were ledges cut in and then climb up. We did see a guy that just climbed up the face where we were jumping, pretty nuts.

After evening mass I met my adopted family here. Three of us were ‘adopted’ by this Australian family and we went out for dinner to get to know them better. They seem very excited about it all and want to take us out to wine country but we might have to wait for their youngest to turn 18...

Now the week is underway and I’m just trying to keep up with classes and do whatever. My paper last week put everything else on the backburner for a while so now the focus in on an assignment for my music appreciation class. I get to pick a song and ‘dissect’ it down into its elements. Should be fun. Next weekend I’m heading up north with my trip advisor to visit a Benedictine monastery. One of their monks is over at St. John’s right now studying and was the first Australian I met before coming over.

Hope all is well back in the states. I hear the snow is finally coming off!

Take Care,