Canberra

Helllllllooo EVERYONE!

YES. I know. It’s been a while!

So it’s time to update you on this past week in the Land down Unda.

Well, School has started to pick up. I’m starting to have projects and papers due which is always fun. The nursing home is pretty fun too. Most of the residents know me now and I am enjoying taking walks and going to exercise class with them.

So I’m having a hard time remembering all of the things that happened this week, so I’ll start with the most recent.

Friday and yesterday, our whole group went to Canberra (pronounced CAN-BRA), the capital. Our phrase of the weekend was “Canberra: it’s what you make it!” Most Australians will tell you that Canberra sucks. When I explained that I was going there for the week-end, I got responses like “God bless ya” and “I’m sorry to hear that”. Lol.

Let me give you a brief background on the city. Back in the day, Sydney and Melbourne were fighting over which city should become the capitol. So the government chose neither, and created a capital that was situated in between the two. Canberra is an extremely quiet city- it’s culture is nothing compared to Sydney’s, but all the same, it’s a great place contrary to what most Australians will tell you.

There is so much to do there and I learned so much from every place we visited. In the two days we were there, we went to the Old Parliament house, National Portrait Gallery, The Indonesian Embassy, the British High Commission, The Aboriginal embassy tent, The ANZAC war memorial, National Museum, and National Gallery of Australia.

It was such a great trip! I saw a bunch of kangaroos and even an emu on the 4hr bus ride there and back! Kangaroos are much more graceful than I imagined. The birds here are amazing too. I’ll look out the window of my room, and there’ll be a cockatoo sitting on the electric wire. Its so cool. I see lorikeets and other colorful birds on a daily basis. Australia truly is a beautiful country.

Well, I know this post is short, but I must get back to homework… hopefully I’ll be able to update you more this week!