1) James moved to
Canberra
2) I have never been to Canberra
3) I made it through semester one and needed to get away from
the University of Melbourne
I snapped up cheep
flights to and from Canberra, and it worked out perfectly that the day after my
exam was also Jamesmas. So it was practically perfect. I had an early flight,
but it meant that I had the whole day to get to see Canberra. I was wrapped up
in my winter woolies so the cold wouldn’t get to me (3˚ colder than Melbourne… surely I could deal with that!).
After arriving and trying to direct the Taxi
to where James was meeting me, I was ready to enjoy what there is in our
national capital! We started with my way,
Canberra’s equivalent to myki. To obtain
student price transport the lady needed a letterhead to say that I was a full
time student. She was very lovely, and said that I could bring my letter in at
a later date, to which I replied, “I don’t anticipate being here again any time
soon”. So ready to travel Canberra, James showed me his house in Gungahlin.
Next we took the bus to Parkes, and we visited
the National Library of Australia. We looked around an exhibition, in which we
saw the Olympic torches from the Melbourne and Sydney Olympics, a musical map
of the London underground, an old medieval book, a book of Marie- Antoinette’s
criminal trial, books on flora and fauna, maps and globes and many other
things. We didn’t see any normal library books though…
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| The National Library of Australia |
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| Olympic torches |
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| The musical London underground |
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| a Medieval book |
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| Procés Criminel de Marie-Antoinette |
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| Dreaming of home, WW1 |
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| World map |
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| Globe of the world |
After the National Library, we wandered
towards the Australian National Gallery, but we distracted by a big white
building in the distance. It was the Old Parliament house building. It was only
$1 to get in, and it was more awesome than I thought it would be. We walked
through the Senate and then the House of Representatives. We wandered though
all the rooms, sat in seats in party rooms and sitting rooms, pretended to be
the media during a parliamentary sitting, put on a costume, watched a really
smart school group answer heaps of questions about democracy… James said that
New Parliament House is not as cool, so we never went there.
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| Some building in Canberra... Treasury? |
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| Strolling the wintery streets |
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| The Senate |
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| Hanging coats like Politicians |
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| Australia's first PM, Sir Edmund Barton |
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| King George V |
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| The House of Representatives |
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| James playing with the typwriter |
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| Playing media in the House of Representatives |
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| Mr Speaker |
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| Lounging in the Speakers chair. |
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| James and George V |
We were (I was) really tired afterwards (I was
even hesitant to walk all the way across the grass to Old Parliament House). So
we went home, via Coles, and picked up ingredients for a late lunch of nachos
and a birthday treat for James packet mix chocolate mousse- it had the least
amount of ingredients to add! We made nachos and mousse and watched Anonymous, A Knights Tale and HIMYM. I also had a nap during Anonymous so James turned it off and
watched A knights Tale. We got ready
to go out for James birthday (I was hesitant to get out of my pyjamas), and
left for a pre-drink beforehand in Civic. Our pre-drink was at Honkytonks, a really cool bar in the
centre part of Canberra. After ordering wine, I saw that they had mulled cider
and mulled wine, perfect for Canberra weather.
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| Civic |
After Honkytonks
we strolled to ANU for dumplings, where some of James friends were already
waiting for him. James couldn’t be bothered finding out if it was BYO before we
left, so after we got there and found out that it was, him and Dristie went to
the bottle shop, and I trusted in James to get me an OK bottle of wine (above
$10, but under $15) was my parameter. They scored a pretty good bottle on sale
for $20, so I was actually pretty happy with that! James went crazy with the
dumpling order, so 5 of us feasted on pork dumplings, beef dumplings, fried
dumplings, other dumplings and some steamed greens and garlic. I was so full
from the nachos and mousse, so I struggled to eat much. After dumplings, a few
of us trooped on into the night at Uni Bar. The footy was on downstairs, so we
watched Carlton loose to West Coast over a shot of Sambucca. We migrated
upstairs to the dance floor, and we went (I went) crazy. I requested the DJ to
play One Direction and he told me that his dignity was at stake… then he played
call me maybe… We moved on after a
while, but we should have stayed. We ended up at a bar/pub that smelt like an
over-heated, over-chlorinated pool… gross. After Finally being able to leave
the pub for home (“not without Mikey!) we had a stop off at Maccas for a post
drinking snack, and took the cab all the way back to Gungahlin.
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| Disco balls as Uni Bar |
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| the boys |
The next morning didn’t start ‘til 10am. We
didn’t really go much, which was nice and relaxing. We planed a walk around the
lake at Belconnen, but that never happened. We took the bus to Belconnen, and I
saw the foyer of the Australian Bureau of
Statistics, where James works. Then we walked up to the restaurant for James’
colleagues’ farewell luncheon. After lunch was the bikie pub Pot Belly. After the pub, James and I
walked a little of the lake, and decided to go back to Gungahlin and cook some
fish and chips before heading out again.
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| Belconnen Lake |
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| The Canberra sky in Gungahlin |
The night began back at Honkytonks, where mulled cider kept me warm outside. Next up was Knightsbridge Penthouse. It was very
full inside but we worked our way out to the backyard and sat in the cold. A
few wines flowed, we played with the lamppost, and we shivered ourselves away.
After getting sick of the cold, we moved on to the book room at O’Malley’s, were we read a book called “straight”
by ‘Dick’. The boys found it very amusing, because someone had physically
whited out the rest of Dick’s name so that it read as ‘Straight Dick’.
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| Freezing at Honytonks with mulled cider |
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| Lightposts at Knightsbridge Penthouse |
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| being literary at O'Malley's |
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| A game of table tennis to finish the night |
The next morning was tough, and there was
still some places to visit. After two nights of drinking and not enough
sleeping, I was surprised that I wasn’t living off the red bull that James put in my handbag. We started off at the Australian National Gallery (which
turned out to actually be the Australian
Portrait Gallery). I loved seeing the painting of Crown Princess Mary of
Denmark. Then we went to the actual the Australian
National Gallery where we visited the exhibition on Eugene
von Guérard. It was spectacular. The
landscapes were really lovely, vibrant and realistic. Being in this Gallery
reminded me of being in all the galleries I went to in Europe, especially Musée d’Orsay in Paris. We view the
Sidney Nolan section, too, and read the story of Ned Kelly in his paintings. We
were having lunch at 1, so we didn’t get as much time in there as we liked, but
what we saw was really amazing.
Lunch was a
Brodburger… and it was pretty good. James attempted (feebly) to eat the
Brodburger deluxe.
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| Shamefully failing. |
After filling ourselves up, we went to the National War Memorial, and paid our
respects to all those who fought, and who are still fighting. The Memorial was
amazing. The diorama’s really deepened my understanding of the conditions in
the trenches, and the danger that surround the soldiers. We didn’t have time to
see everything, but we got through WW1, and then it was time for me to go to
the airport.
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| von Guérard (I couldn't take photos, so this is from the abc.net) |
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| von Guérard (abc.net) |
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| National War Memorial |
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| The eternal flame |
The flight was cruisey.
I was exhausted so I slept most of the 40minutes. I woke up for some in-flight
snacks, and then when we landed. James was out partying again, I was sad not to
be going out in Canberra for the third night in a row, but gosh, I needed to
sleep after the nights I had!
xx
