Jan 4: War Museum, Portrait Gallery and the Parliament

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. It was built specifically to be the capital city of Australia. It was built as a compromise, to appease strong public pull to have one of Sydney or Melbourne named the politcal centre. Though it seems mildly silly to settle that argument by building a brand new city and holding it in neither of the most likely locations, it would be mildly hypocritical for me to get all upset about it... since Ottawa is roughly halfway between Toronto and Quebec.

Situated somewhere near the middle of the two major centres, Canberra is a planned community. It feels a little like huge university campus crossed with a surburban planning. It might be the cleanest city I've ever visited. The lake, around which the city is built is artificial. The capital building looks out over the war memorial. Domestically it is known as the easiest place to get fireworks and pornography.

We spent our morning catching up on household duties. I saw my very first redback spider. A redback is a common and highly poisonous spider. It's bite can be lethal to humans if untreated. The scary part is that we saw it in the backyard! We weren't digging through uncharted jungle, or hiking through a remote mountain pass... this was on the screendoor!

Anyways - we spent the rest of the day touring.

We saw the war museum and the National Portrait Gallery. The war museum is great. It is educational, and it makes you feel like a little kid, with all kinds of weaponry and story telling, it reminds me of an adult version of show and tell. The portrait gallery is brilliant. They take some of the most famous figures in Australia (past and present) and showcase their likeness with works of art (usually paintings or scultures). In each case, there is a short biography of the celebrity. I wonder if we have something like this back home.

Our evening was marked with meeting Mick's brother, his girlfriend and their beautiful brand new baby daughter. It was also the first time I'd ever heard anyone call Mick "Michael".