The Port Festival and a Ryan Update

Again veering away from the spellbinding tale of our trip to Perth, I thought I'd recount what I actually did today!  For once I did something fun while Ryan is away and I'm excited to share.  Spoiler alert: I met a real Australian celebrity!

As you may remember, a few months ago I went to Port Adelaide (think dolphin cruise), which incidentally was the location for the Port Festival.  From what I can gather, it's a weekend long festival celebrating marine heritage and local artists.  Being the multitasker that I am (in case perspective employers are reading this) I also wanted to hit up the market there for some used books.  Unfortunately I forgot that that was the Sunday market and today was Saturday, but the festival more than made up for it. 

I prepared in advance by looking up the events happening today and found out that Mark Olive was giving cooking demonstrations!  (I know you're all like, huh, who the heck is that?!)  Mark Olive, a.k.a. The Black Olive, is an Australian chef specializing in modern cuisine using traditional aboriginal ingredients.  He uses, for example, kangaroo, emu, crocodile, and seafood, and seasons them with unusual herbs found in the wilderness.  Again, I'm sure you still don't care.  BUT he was on MasterChef last season as a guest chef!!!!  He ALSO has his own TV show!  (Yes, I'm still obsessed with MasterChef.  I recently discovered a Junior MasterChef version which is much more my level.)  Anyways, he did a cooking demonstration and passed around a lot of delicious smelling spices which was pretty cool.  I was sitting right at the front, so he usually passed the spices to me first!  After the demo I went up and thanked him (this was a really small and casual venue) and told him I moved from Canada so I really enjoyed learning more about Australian produce, and he told me he was recently cooking in Vancouver with some native Canadian chefs.  See?!  I met a celebrity!

I told you it was informal...well there was a band setting up and even tuning their instruments in the background the whole time.

The rest of the festival was really nice because it was all booths by local artists.  I bought a really pretty copper necklace, so now I have something to wear with the copper based earrings I have from Aunt Jeanne/Uncle Ben and Ryan's parent!  Also I think it's the first jewellery I've bought in Australia so it will have nice memories.

In other news, as some of you may know Ryan started a new job this week.  He had about 3 weeks off in between jobs for much needed relaxation, and now he's back to 12 hour days.  This time he has been contracted out to one of Australia's main mining companies, Oz Minerals.  He's working on the Carrapateena Project, which is kind of a big deal.  There's even a website: http://www.ozminerals.com/Operations/Carrapateena.html  If you have any questions at all, look at the website.  There's also a map there.  I already know more than when I spoke to Ryan!  Currently he's staying in a town (he said it was Penetty Station, but I can't find it on Google) that he described as a "ghost town".  There are apparently four houses, all of which are vacant except for the one they're staying in.  The project is brand new, so right now they're literally just setting up the camp.  For now it will be a small operation, but they are expecting 50+ people to be working there by Christmas.  Consequently the camp they're building is going to be pretty pimp (eventually there will be a bar and pool tables, etc.) so it's a good project for him to be on.  Also it's good experience for him to see the start of a project.  Unfortunately they don't really have phone/cell reception/internet, so he's a bit out of touch except for the odd call from their work satellite phone.

On the subject, you also may know that I've been trying to get hired as a fieldy with Euro as well.  There's been a bit of waffling on the subject, but currently Euro is waiting for Ryan to prove himself competent on this current job and then they will test the waters to see if Oz Minerals wants to send me to their other major project, Prominent Hill.  The plan is that if I can prove myself there, then there's a chance that they might be able to place us both at the same camp.  It seems far fetched, but I'm bored sitting at home so it's worth a shot.

Wow, that blog seems a lot more "dear diary" than I'm used to.  I'll get back to my travel-blogging self tomorrow.  Until then, everyone enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend.  I'm sad I'm missing out, but that's what I signed up for being all the way out here.  It doesn't make me any less thankful for everything I have though.  Much love to everyone!