day one: adventures in the nation's capital of canberra. henceforth known as a ghost town with it's own tumbling tumble weeds. amazing how quiet this city is. after brunch in the civic (supposedly the centre of town and where nothing happens and no one frequents) jamie and i headed out to the motel monaro in kingston. a nice place to stay.
after checking in it was off to the post-impressionist exhibition at the national gallery. this ball was just hanging in the sky overhead.
there was a line just for us to wait in and it took about an hour and a half to get to it's end. it was pretty amazing, the exhibition i mean. we weren't allowed to take photos (of course) and although i did purchase an electronic tour guide, i didn't end up using it. jamie and i made up our own stories. much to the disgust of some of the patrons, we laughed a lot and gasped in awe. ;) van gogh's starry night was simply breath-taking, a cliched term i know, but so true.
we caught up with joel, a work friend of jamie's for dinner. mmm... indian food. and then to a pub to listen to the worst cover band in the world. i'm not kidding. who would've thought anyone could get an angels song so wrong? or acdc? well, we found them. it was a bit of a late night.
day two: breakfast alone because the boys didn't get up til noon.
joel drove us around the "city", from one lookout point on redhill, through the embassy district (check out the metal cows, they're on the lawn at the new zealand embassy - yes there was the question of why cows, why not...?)
this is joel and myself standing beside scrivener dam. yes, we stopped to look at a dam. for jamie. ;)
then onto mount ainslie... spelt different ains, but there you go. you've been mounted. ha! some great views over the city from here.
joel dropped us at the
war memorial later in the afternoon, and whilst fascinating we could only manage to get through world war I and II. there really is only so much one can take. i'd like to get back to do a little more some day.
then into the evening for chinese, icecream and conversation. all good things come to those who go on holiday.
day three: after checking out and having a late breakfast it was a walk over to the old bus depot markets (for the longest time i read the road sign as old bus depot markers and was wondering what the big deal was...)
we visited the glassworks just near the markets, wonderful to watch them work. didn't buy anything - way too expensive. but pretty.
a terrific bookstore in kingston is the book grocer. and they had an amazing sale on... i ended up getting 6 brand new books for only $31. a couple of wodehouse's, a recipe book, a couple of biographies and something else. could've spent all my money just there. ah... sweet books.
but the
old parliament house called to us. joel came along for another visit. really enjoyed walking through this building.
jamie getting into the character of a politician...
i won the voting game, by the way. i didn't expect the boys would continue playing after a couple of spins, but they did to the bitter end... victory was mine.
the tent embassy is still there. which i'm glad of. it's part of our history. may it always be canvas. ;)
italian for dinner before we got dropped off at the airport. bumped into a couple of the swing dancers who were in town for jump town. it was a great weekend. not sure i'll get back to canberra anytime soon, but it was definitely worth a visit.
(supplementary photos provided by jamie, thanks)
