THE EXISTENCE OF TIM TAMS.
Tim Tams are like Australia's favorite cookie. Like the Oreo. Except better. Seriously I am an oreo addict, and I never thought there would come a day that I could possibly taste something better.
But trust me when I say, THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A TIM TAM. I plan on bringing back suitcases full of these delectable cookies, that way I'll have about a week's supply of the stuff when I get home...
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| Behold. Tim Tams.
My personal favorite flavor is dark chocolate.. just so so so yummy. Tim Tams are made of two chocolate biscuit-y things with a chocolate cream filling in between them, which is then coated in chocolate. There you have it--one of the greatest things I've found on this continent so far, and one I'm going to have a lot of trouble parting with.
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So a few days ago, Tommy hosted a "Girls' Night", complete with PJ's, Truth or Dare, face masks, hair braiding, nail painting, dancing to Britney Spears...we did it all. Well, while at Girls Night I learned about the legendary "Tim Tam Slam".
It rocked my world.
What you do:
- get a cup of hot chocolate and/or milk
- get a tim tam
- bite the ends of the tim tam
- insert 1 end of tim tam into selected beverage
- suck on other end of tim tam (like you would a straw) until you can taste beverage
- put entire tim tam, now soaked in chosen beverage, into your mouth
- chew
- experience EUPHORIA
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| My first ever Tim Tam Slam. AWW HOW CUTE |
So that's all I'll mention on the subject for now...although odds are I'll continue rambling about Tim Tams later on, simply because I won't be able to help myself. They really are that good.
Soooo a little over a week ago, I went on a field trip with my science class! The class is called "Our Solar System". And yes, it is as challenging as it sounds.
Since this was my first field trip since the age of about 7, I was prettyyyy excited about it. 150 UWA students took a 2 hour bus ride to the Gingin Chalk Beds and Observatory. To summarize the trip itinerary, we went digging for fossils, went on a "tour" of the solar system, listened to stories explaining aboriginal history/culture, and looked at an exhibit about the life span of the universe.
I'm going to be honest, that sounds way cooler than what actually went down. When I heard we were going to get to dig for fossils, I pictured myself out in the Australian bush, surrounded by kangaroos and the like, working with all of my expert archeological digging tools, and discovering billions-of-years-old fossils left and right. What did we do? We climbed over and under barbed wire fences into the middle of a field, where there was a big hole. We climbed down into the hole, where our professor told us to explore and start digging. It was uber exciting for the first 10 minutes, but then when I realized that we were being left to our own devices to dig (a.k.a. use your hands and dig like your dog, or you're not finding anything), the excitement factor quickly faded. I really committed to digging for a long time, determined to come out of it all with an ancient souvenir, but I didn't find anything!
Oh, and then the kid next to me found a shark tooth that was something like 37 million years old. My professor practically started hyperventilating when he saw it... That kid is definitely gonna get an A.
Luckily, it was a BEAUTIFUL day despite the sad outcome of my hunt for fossils. So after about an hour of searching I climbed to the top of the dig site and enjoyed the scenery (which I later learned was underwater hundreds of millions of years ago!) It was so beautiful there! Another day well-spent, enjoying the outback :)
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| There are fossils in there!! |
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| The dig site |
After my unsuccessful attempts at finding dinosaurs, we traveled down the road to the Gingin Observatory and Gravity Center. There, we went on a tour of a "mini" model of the solar system, that was scaled down in size so that it could be a walking tour. In class, my professor made this model sound like it would be one of the coolest things we'd ever see. He explained how it will give us a sense of how huge the universe actually is, it would help us conceptualize the size of the planets in relation to the size of the universe, etc etc.
So there I was, thinking I was gonna get up close and personal with some planets, when we start the tour. The tour was in the bush behind the observatory, and each planet was literally a marble welded to a block. The blocks were spread out through the bush in relation to their actual distance from each other in the solar system (which was scaled down for the model, of course). So, this tour turned into one of those tours where there is a guy up front with a megaphone, wearing really thick glasses, who is yelling things about planets that you assume are important but you can't hear or see him at all because there are 100 people in front of you so your mind starts to wander, and so do you, and you start exploring the australian bush by yourself for a few minutes because you want to find wild kangaroos and eat the wild berries that those aussies were talking about............ oops (I'm also really sorry about the extent of that run on sentence. But you catch my drift. It was that bad). It was a long tour that spanned about 2 miles and lasted for an hour and a half. What did I gain? Nada.
But its ok, because I did see 2 wild kangaroos. SO WORTH IT :)
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| marble + block = PLANET EARTH |
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| Toogar Morrison, an aboriginal elder who spoke to our group later on :) He was awesome |
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| sunset! |
After the riveting solar system tour, we went into the observatory where we were given a presentation by a local Noongar aboriginal elder named Toogar Morrison, who told us the stories behind aboriginal constellations. These stories had been passed down over hundreds of thousands of years, so we were essentially getting them straight from the source :) This was my favorite part of the field trip by far, because the stories were fascinating, and Toogar essentially insulted "civilized western culture" the entire time. It was hilariously awesome. Toogar also had featured paintings in the exhibit that we went through next--he is known for his indigenous cosmology artwork, done in traditional dot-painting style. I included a few pictures of his work below--it really was incredible to see, especially after learning the stories behind each of the characters!
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| Here is one of the paintings of the universe as understood by Noongar aboriginals--I'll summarize what I can! So, the woman in the top right corner, with the long hair, represents the milky way galaxy, and that is where it all begins. From her, the story moves counter clockwise around the painting. We were told that this woman stole "spirit children" from the aboriginals for her husband's dinner (the children are to the left of the woman's head). The children hid in her long hair (the milky way), trying to escape. Their escape route is long and involved (it moves counter clockwise around the painting), and basically they encounter each of the animals depicted, who are either trying to help them or hurt them along their journey. Don't worry, the story ends well--the kids make it home safe and sound! |
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| The spirit children, trying to make it home! |
After hearing the stories behind aboriginal constellations, we were left with an hour to explore an exhibit in the observatory that was about the life span of our universe. The exhibit showed some fun things, like:
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| A fossil shark tooth I didn't find |
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| Ancient aboriginal cave paintings |
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| All of the different ways the Earth will end! |
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| "It is predicted that in 7.6 billion years the earth will be swallowed and vaporized by the swollen red sun". Well, that's bleak. |
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| But really, how depressing/freaky is this |
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| I knew I was special |
So that about wraps up the field trip portion of this post :)
In other news, here's some more Aussie slang I've been picking up on:
"Bottle-o" = liquor store
"arvo" = afternoon
"cuppa" = coffee
"Maccas" = McDonalds
"Bogan" = a hick/redneck
"Cozzie" = bathing suit
"pissed" = drunk (important to know this one.. a very common misunderstanding between Americans and Aussies)
"spew" = puke
"Jug" = pitcher of beer
"Rock up" = to show up
"Veggo"/"Vejjo" = vegetarian
So, that's the gist of what I've experienced over the last week and a half! I learned a whole lot, I ate my first Tim Tam Slam, I didn't find fossils, I learned about aboriginal constellations, I learned that I'm a star, and I learned how to be an even cooler Aussie. Pretty solid few days! :)
Still having the greatest time, I LOVE EVERYONE
Cheers!!
Becca :)
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