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Published: June 21st 2006
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We spent 4 days in the nations capital, Canberra. It has just over 300,000 people living there so is a lot smaller than Sydney, Melbourne and the like. In yesteryear when men were men and all that jazz Melbourne and Sydney were great rivals so it was decided to build a capital city in between them both: Canberra was built in the early twentieth century for the sole purpose of becoming the new nation's capital.
Our Youth Hostel was the most expensive one we've stayed in so far: still only 15 round pounds a night though. It was well worth the money: it had a free pool table, nice TV room, was clean and generally looked modern. It also had on the Lower ground floor, a heated Swimming Pool and Jacuzzi- the perfect atmosphere for us to to detox after Sydney.
Our first main activity was going to the National Museum of Australia. To quote a stereotypical geordie: the museum was purely belter! Like much of Canbeerra it oozed modernity, they had a futuristic looking sculpture outside the museum as well as "The Garden of Austalian Dreams". The concrete "garden" we stood on looked like a road map with
Anzac Avenue
Taken from the War Memorial. Parliament House is in the background. various place names on it, the tour guide explained the symbolism of the various markings: some related to the history of the Aboriginies, whilst others symbolised the arrival of the White Man in the eighteenth century. At one end of the garden there was a big white looking house with a palm tree and swimming pool : apparently this represents the Australian dream.
The first section of the museum went down a storm with all of us, it brought out the child in us: not that that usually takes much coaxing out of us at all! We went into K-Space, an interactive section of the museum about what a city would look like in 2030. Firstly we had to get a mugshot taken of us and then we were directed to some computer terminals: here we had to design a house or car for the future. After completing our designs we were given some 3D glasses and shown into a small Cinema: we watched in awe as we were guided through a futuristic city comlpleted with all of our houses and cars (Our mugshots in front of our designs). It was awesome- bring on the future i say (Probably
Abstract and bring the beat back
T and Sal recreating the sculpture behind them at The National Museum of Australia won't look anything like they portrayed it, like in the 60s when people said we wouldn't need food by the year 2000, only tablets?!?)
The other sections included Sport, Aboriginies, colonisation and parts talking about the shaping of the Australian identity-enjoyed it! That night we headed into town for a night out, twas alreet- but Canberra's pretty dead compared to Syders.
The next day me, Wilson and T-bone visited Parliament House: this is where the Australian Parliament go to attempt to run the country. It's built on a big hill which offers great views of the whole city, especially of the Anzac War memorial which is directly opposite Parliament House in the distance. We had a guided tour around the House which was really good: even Dan's initial scepticism of anything that wasn't about dinosaurs, nerdy stuff or food was soon put to rest! They have based a lot of the style in their Parliament on Westminster in England: their House of Representatives and Senate look exactly like our Commons and Lords. As well as the view from the rooftop and the Parlimentary chambers the building contained several paintings of grandeur figures from the past: old Prime Ministers
3 Queens
At Parliament House. and the Queen. They also had one of only four original 1297 Magna Carta's that are in existence on display, it was signed by Edward I- the King in Braveheart. The story of how they came to aquire it was interesting: the document went missing form the abbey in which it was kept in the 1540s, and was found almost 400 years later in an attic in the abbey (which had since became a school)- the Aussie government snapped it up at auction for only 12 grand! It's a steal, it's the sale of the f"@&*$% century. To put into context how cheap they bought it for: an American Senator bought another one of the 4 copies 10 years later at auction for $20million?!?
Whilst we were at one of the urinals in the toilet at Patrliament House, Dan said, "Oh my God, i bet Tony Blair's had a pi55 in here" to which i replied something along the lines of "have i ever told you, you look a bit like John Prescott" If his hand didn't have a more prior engagement i'm sure he would've went for me! Toilet humour eh?! Boom Boom.
That night/early morning we
Up on the Roof
From the roof of Parliament House. Way in the background, behind the white building and lake is Anzac Avenue and the War Memorial watched the "Socceroos" (I've still gotta put that in quotation marks cos the names so ridiculous) against Brazil. Thought Austrlia were awesome and deserved a point, strewth mate Harry Kewell missed a sitter?!
The next day me and Wilson walked for bloody ages, eventually ending up at the War memorial, another huge museum. On the walk there you go through Anzac Avenue, which has various commemorative statues in memory of Australia and New Zealand's servicemen along the side of the road. The museum had impressive sections on most of the conflicts in which Australia was involved in, the parts of the museum about torture suffered at the hands of the Japanese during World War II were especially harrowing i felt. There was a huge section which had huge war planes and tanks displayed, behind which were cinema screens that showed reels about the 2nd World War- was quite atmospheric when you heard the plane engines roar.
Following the Anzac memorial we began the long walk to Parliament House again, this time Parliament was in session so we could watch all the Big Guns in full flow. There was much sarcastic knee slapping from me and Wilson up in
Magna Carta, 1297
Ohh I bloody love history i do, i do. the gallery as the House would suddenly erupt into hysterics over some quote one of them had made that had since backfired?!? Political humour eh?! One of the pressing issues for one MP was the fact that there was a sign up in the building barring the use of photography, so he decided to go into this "We'll fight them on the beaches" style speech about why this was a disgrace- God, people and their passions.
When the PM had filtered out for the day we had a quick look to see what the Senators were upto, there were only about 7 of them left in the chamber but they were having a right go at each other over something or other. Seemed to be about scoring points over each other rather than doing anything productive.
As we set off for the long walk back home we saw some protesters outside with banners and flyers: it was about the apparent use of Concentration Camps in Modern Day China. It talked about a certain religious group's followers being put in the camps so their organs could be harvested and given to people who needed a donor?! Dunno how true it was, but it sounded shocking.
That night, after muchos Jacuzzi chilling, we caught a bus to Melbourne at Midnight. On one of the service stops Dan regaled us with a great tale as he recalled how he burst out laughing just as the coach stopped- Will's sarcastic reply to how we were all sooo interested in what he was laughing about had me on the brink of tears with laughter. Actual tears of laughter soon followed as we viewed the Top 25 songs on Dan's I-Pod. Suprisingly for a man who claims to have discovered the Arctic Monkeys and the Kaiser Chiefs there was not a single critically aclaimed band in sight- only Power Ballads and Weird Al Yancovic (see my sister blog (EC's site) for the full list.
Mike
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Andy
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Now now
Michael, there is nothing wrong with a good old power ballad, why just last week i witnessed william belting out ' i will always love you ' in the Griffin. You should embrace all music!