Canberra. The capital city of Australia. A city that almost all Australians dislike. A place that, when brought up, an Aussie will generally say, "Canberra? Why would you want to go there? So boring." With all that in mind, imagine how thrilled I was to be giving up the majority of one of my few precious weekends to make the trip to the political capital.
En route, we stopped a Bundanoon, the first city in Australia to "ban" bottled water. Sounds thrilling, doesn't it? I mean, this city has... get this... fancy water fountains! And they sell... aluminum water bottles. Shocking! They even have Camel Bak as a sponsor... Oh and all of those aluminum bottles are extremely overpriced. And the citizens of Bundanoon are all crazy about their achievement. Now, I will grant that it's a nice move in the way of environmental awareness, in the whole Green movement--except when asked about if they're taking any other extra cautions for Green awareness, it turns out they aren't even trying to be part of that movement. They've banned bottled water and, for now, that's the only thing they're doing as a city. Also, the city is tiny. It's not really a city. It's a town. And they're all extremely proud... and frankly, they seemed rather insane and cultish and attention seeking. I think the move is an interesting and good step in an environmental direction, but they seemed to be doing it more for publicity and tourism. Lame.
After that short stop, we continued into Canberra where we went to Parliament Hill--their Parliament building is literally built into a hill. Epic. We sat in one of the debate rooms and talked to a clerk who told us about some of the processes of government, though she avoided all questions concerning her own opinion on anything. That was kind of interesting, but not really. Cramming into elevators with 26 other people (mostly lovely ladies) was far more fun. Just sayin'.
But then we went into the larger senate room, where the Senate was in session. We sat down and watched the wonderfully fascinating event that is Australian politics--and I'm not being sarcastic. Let me simply write this as a dialogue.
Senator Barnaby Joyce: I just want you to answer my question, minister. It's not even my question! It's their question! [he indicates the audience to his left... my group... we're Americans, though he does not know this] It's them you're affecting! These people want an answer, minister! We'll stay here all day and tomorrow and the next day until you stand up and answer the question.
[Senator Joyce continues rambling for five minutes--the minister does not respond]
Joyce: Minister, I know you can hear me. I know you have many deficiencies, minister, but deafness is not one of them! Hello? Hello? Wake up, minister! Wake up! Wakey, wakey, anybody home? No? Nobody home? Minister, come on and stand up and answer the people's question! Come on, we just want you to stand up, Steve-er, minister.
[more time passes with more rambling]
Joyce: Minister, if you sit there like that any longer, we'll need to get a gnome hat to put on you and move you to the garden!
[Joyce sits. Senator Not-Joyce stands]
Not-Joyce: Hear, hear! A garden gnome! You'd make a good one, minister! And it would put you to good use! Good use! Now, I agree with Senator Joyce. You need to answer his questions.
Anywho, you get the point. Not-Joyce talked for a while. Joyce got back up again. They just kept going and going. And Minister Steve never did stand up--at least not in the 30 minutes we watched. At one point, Joyce straight up called the government party stupid. Australian politics are far more entertaining to watch than American ones. And Australians hate their government! It's glorious.
Then we went and talked to an Aboriginal woman who lives in a tent outside Parliament protesting for Aboriginal rights and a return of Aboriginal land. And then we went to the hostel, ate, played games, and told stories.
The next day, we went to the National Portrait Gallery (good! especially the black and white photography), the National Museum of Australia (eh, okay. all history stuff and laid out weirdly), the National Gallery (absolutely fantastic, reminded me of the Pompidou and the Tate Modern--enjoyed the Pollocks, Rothkos, Picassos, Stills, and more a lot), and the National War Memorial (very well done, similar to the Imperial War Museum in London). I took several photos at the War Memorial around the inscriptions of names--several portrait shots of friends.
Then, we got on the bus to go back home. (Now there's a weird feeling. I'm calling Sydney home.) The bus ride was a lot of fun. Chilling with Alessandra, Tess, Rachel, and Nick mostly. But of course, given being on a bus, others were in and out of the conversation as well. At one point, several of us clambered into one set of seats, all squishing together. It ended up being like 2 guys and 6 or 7 girls squished into that one seat. Epic. We took pictures. And then we returned to our separate seats once more, though Allana decided to come lay across Alessandra and me, which resulted in more pictures.
I'm so glad to be getting comfortable enough with these people to be ridiculous. And I get to be ridiculous a lot. It's glorious. The Canberra trip ended up being a ton of fun, though I do think the city itself had little to do with that. Mostly, it was fun because of the people--though I really did love the National Gallery a whole lot. And then we came home and I got up the next day and..... well, go read the post about my trip to the Opera House and you'll know more, as chronologically it takes place after this post (but I had to turn in a blog post as an assignment, so I wrote about the Opera House trip for the assignment, causing this post to get overlooked for a few days).
:)
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