canberra

the bus ride to canberra is only three or four hours long, and our group isn't big enough to load an entire charter bus to capacity, so a handful of us got our own seats to and fro. that was nice.

on friday, our group was on the bus by a bleary 7 am. we stopped at macca's (that's "mcdonalds" for all you septics (septics is short for "septic tank" which is rhyming slang for "yanks," which i've learned to not take personally)) somewhere along the way, at which i learned that a cup with strawberries in the bottom, yogurt in the middle and blueberries and granola on top is not a parfait. oh no, they'll look at you kind of odd if you call it that and still not figure it out even if you point at the refrigerator and say "top shelf." i can't remember what they called it now, but suffice it to say that it was a tired, humorous, and ultimately berryish experience.

anyway. so. as soon as we arrived we were sent to the papua new guinea high commission (come on, it's an embassy, whatever) and the united states embassy. thrilling. notably, however, we got to talk to the american embassy about apec, which is supposed to be a really cool meeting of a tons of world leaders here in sydney but is sounding like a huge annoyance for everyone involved. the ascers will be out in the bush that weekend, and everyone tells us what a wonderful idea it is to get out of the city. i'd imagine the place will be in diplomatic gridlock, something that looks cool on c-span or something but is awful for the natives.

on saturday, we visited the old parliament house, the national gallery of australia (where the security guards were just a little too excited about making everybody jittery), and the australian war memorial. all were top-notch facilities of education and preservation. parliament is a large white building where it's easy to get antsy enough to find an obscure stairwell with fire extinguishers and get locked in (this really happened, but not to me), the national gallery has some of everything and i found myself strangely attracted to the "pop art" section--what am i doing looking at andy warhols?! it's just a bunch of soup! the australian war memorial was perhaps the best memorial i have or ever will go to, although it just impressed the fact that i don't understand war at all. there is something about it that my little peabrain can't wrap itself around. i just don't follow.

on sunday morning we went to the national museum, perhaps the coolest place in all of canberra (no really). it was like museum meets the sisomo generation meets every lover of all things unusual (me!)'s playground. we stupidly and exhaustedly chose to spend a half-hour less there than planned, but most of us were kicking ourselves a half hour in. the place is a must see. really. go.

we stayed at the nicer of two youth hostels i've ever been in. i mean, it's hard to hold a candle to english breakfast, but it was very clean, accessible, and spacious.
also, here's a word (several in, fact) about canberra.
it's a giant park with some buildings tucked in at strategic points. it is a planned city, and there's a spot at the australian war memorial that the entire city is designed for--it's like the mall in dc with the way there's a huge lane and view with old parliament and new parliament lined up with each other. the memorial itself is beautiful and so appropriately somber--and covered with smooth stone. for those of you that like that kind of thing.

but the rest of the city is a little dull. there's people, and cars and shopping and whatnot, but the city has this odd feeling of just being empty. i never had to push a crosswalk button to cross a street. i asked for directions to a place and got lost for about five minutes until we ran back into the youth hostel. there was a nightlife of twentysomethings after dark, but they're pretty self-contained and dull looking. we lost our bus once, but just by walking around bumped back into it. the place just has an australian feeling of big and empty, but never in a way where you feel that it's quiet... too quiet. there's just no wrong to be done. i don't even think there was much vandalism there, and it's not that they lack space for it. all the interestingly dangerous people are just not in canberra. it's kind of odd and/or surreal.

by the way, as of august 19, the asc group has been here a solid month. hard to believe, right? miss you guys much but am still glad to be here.