Indiana Jones Number Five.

Seriously, work was like an Indy movie today. No guns though I guess. Okay, really it wasn’t except for like a teensy bit of it.. I’m mostly just thinking about the ride at Disneyland.. and like dangerous animals, but not like snakes or anything.. Though the zoo does have dangerous snakes. I just didn’t have any mishaps with them. Yeah, okay it’s a big stretch. Whatever. I’ve been thinking about Indiana Jones all day, okay! I’ve decided that my life is better than the fourth Indiana Jones movie, without guns and all. Take that Indy! Ha!

First off, today is Mel’s birthday! At least in the States.. Hah. Her birthday was yesterday her in Tassie! So Mel gets two birthdays! So Happy Birthday to my baby sister!

So today, I decided that it would be a real good idea to get a few more piercings. I apparently was not satisfied with just my ears pierced once. A few animals helped me with this unrealized dream of mine by giving me some new piercings. I was feeding frozen baby chicks to the quolls, and there is this one quoll that is always trying to escape. When you feed him, you have to like hold the bottom of the door shut while putting his food through the top of the door. Anyway, I had the bottom shut with my leg and I had two frozen chicks and I threw them in, but the nasty little quoll jumped to get the chicks when I stuck my hand in. He got my finger instead. He didn’t bite me hard or anything. It’s barely even a scratch. I bled a little. It was my first animal bite at the zoo though. Ah, but that isn’t the end of it! It was Capuchin time. Those Capuchins are nastyyyyy. So I went into their cage offering food, which may have been a bad idea because one of them thought, “Oh outstretched arm? Don’t mind if I climb up it!” He wasn’t being mean yet though. He was sitting on my shoulder, which was actually kind of cool.. BUT then while he was munching on some fruit or something, I tossed the rest of the food in the bowl on the ground. Clearly this was a bad move because the one on my shoulder, as well as the one watching nearby, went wild. The one on my should nearly scratched my eye out and gnawed on my ear, the other leapt at me and bit my elbow and was pulling at my clothes. I had to wait until the one on my shoulder got off before I could leave.. It was pretty crazy. I’m okay though! Huzzah! No other animals attacked me, and yeahhhh, the bites weren’t even that horrible. Shocking more than anything. Ha.

Okay, I seriously could drink twelve billion gallons or water and still want to drink more. It’s insane. I’m like a whale.

So the actual reason I thought of the Indiana Jones thing is because I rode in this jeep thing today that is pretty much exactly like the jeeps on the ride at Disney. That’s about the extent of my Indy related ness.. Sighhh. Maybe I’ll buy a whip here and learn how to use it really well. New resolution for the year: become a super rad girl version of Indiana Jones. First step: Learn how to use a whip! Second step: Go on cool adventures with foreign people and make lots of enemies that will shoot at me and miss because I’m too sneaky and smart and fast to get hit by silly bullets. Third step: Find that place where they get that cup and have the scary obstacles. I will outsmart that death obstacle course. It’ll be awesome. Okay, I’m getting distracted. Anyway, today was branch day! Which pretty much means that all the branches in the aviaries (Which when Aussies say it, it sounds like avries. Ha.) need to be switched out for fresh branches for the birdies to hang out on. To change those branches, they need to go out into the bush to get branches. They’ve got the jeep reminiscent of the Indy Jones ride jeep with a little trailer thing hitched to it. I went with Adam into the bush to get the branches. So it was pretty much like the ride. The roads were way awful with lots of bumps and holes and what not. No windshield, so the bugs flying at our faces were kind of like the “bugs” in the ride. Branches from trees on the sides of the road that would hit us are like those spears that get thrown at you in the ride. See. Ha. We also went off the road, so it ride got a bit wilder. It was fun. Adam is really silly. It’s fun working with him.

I found out that Aaron and Erin, the names, not the people I work with, aren’t pronounced the same in Australia. So when I said something about them having the same name, they were like, “Wait.. what? No we don’t. They don’t sound anything alike.” Haha. Apparently Erin is like Air-in and Aaron has more of an ah sound at the beginning. I dunno. Aaron tried teaching me how to pronounce it, and then gave up and said just call me Az or Azza. Hah. Also, they think all of the following words are really really silly: popsicle, jell-o, french fries, soda, and pacifier. I don’t remember what they call popsicles, but Erin was having a laugh about the word. They call jell-o, jelly. So Erin was like, “I used to think you guys ate peanut butter with jell-o because you eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I even tried it once..” Hahah. I’m pretty sure most people know they call fries, chips. Aaron always tries to get me to say words with an Australian accent. Today, he wanted me to say cobber for everyone (It’s the same as them saying mate I guess.), it sounds like cah-ba (Seriously I dunno if anyone would read that and actually understand it. It makes sense to me. Soooo oh wells.). He says it’s cool when I can say things and actually sound semi Australian. He also says that it provides him more entertainment for the long zoo days. I’m pretty much just a toy I guess. Hah.

I fed the Marmys by myself today again! I was trying to get them to get on my shoulder. I would hold a little piece of banana above my shoulder and try coaxing them off of their branches and stuff. One of them would try really hard to reach the food without leaving the branch. The other one would jump on my shoulder and snatch the banana and stay there for like two seconds. If I tried to walk away with him on my shoulder, he would jump off. It was so cute though. I also fed the Lion tail Macaques by myself today. They are cute. I stood there while Ingrid I think was picking through the bowl looking for something that she wanted. Haha. I also fed the Curlews, Kookaburras, and Possum (which is a billion times more adorable than our possums) by myself. As well as the kangaroos, emus, deer, wallabies, wombat, and bunnies. I’m practically a pro. Hah. Kookaburras are sooooo silly looking. I really like them. I also picked up poo in the baby devil pen. I’m not allowed in the older devil pen, but the baby devils never ever leave their little shelter, so it’s not very dangerous being in there. I picked up poo in some of the quoll cages. Not the demon quoll’s though. Thank goodness. In all fairness, I did have food in my hands.. I’m sure he’s a sweetheart. Quolls are extremely adorable. They have a cuteness factor of like 50,000. For serious. So do the devils. I love the devils.

Yeah, I think that’s about all I did today.. I changed some of the branches in the aviaries. The birds are pretty scared of everyone, so they don’t bother you. Unless they are Marigold the evil macaw. Stupid evil bird. Oh, I fed the blue tongues today as well. Not that hard though.. Skinks are silly lizards.

Adam told me that the zoo is only allowed to have animals native to Australia, and I think specifically Tassie. Because most of the species they have are endemic, which means they are only found in Tassie, and if you introduce new species, things could get messed up. Everything there is really cool though.

Ohhhhh yeah! I watched Rob feed the croc some frozen baby chicks! It was actually a little bit scary. there wasn’t anything between me and the croc except for a few feet of empty air.. Eek. We were standing at the little door into the enclosure and Rob coaxes the croc over to him by wiggling the little bird around and the croc like jumps outta the water at the bird! So scary! Rob just tosses the chick at him when he comes up for it. The freaking croc could easily have just crawled outta the door and eaten me! Rob thought it was hilarious that I was little freaked by the croc. I’m a constant source of entertainment I suppose. Ha. Hurraaaay...

So, I usually go to bed way before Justine. Last night though, I stayed up a bit later. I think it’s cause the previous night I had fallen asleep at like 8 and slept until 6.. Haha. So I usually don’t have trouble falling asleep, but since Justine turns on music to go to sleep I had a really hard time. So I didn’t sleep very well. Huzzah.

On a happier note, I’m getting tanner! Of course by “getting tanner” I’m only referring to my face and part of my arms, since I have to wear pants and a t shirt every day while I’m out in the sun. So I’m going to be like a million different shades by the time I come home. It’s going to be real fun to be all sorts of discolored. Hah.

So there are these weird little bugs that swarm our house all the time. We come home and there’s like a zillion every where. They are little black bugs and they look like bigger rolly pollys and they just sit there on their backs and wiggle around. It’s the strangest thing ever.. I found one in one of my shoes. It was so gross. So every time I come home, I have to go around snatching them up so I don’t accidentally step on them.. Ha. Yeah it’s a bit gross. I guess Justine found a pincher bug in our living room today too. We are apparently a haven for all things gross.

Yeah that’s about it for today, I think.

Oh, I’m going in to town tomorrow for a bit. That should be exciting. Of course it’s mostly for groceries.. But I like groceries. Food’s always good.