Planning a City

Ok, I promise this is the last blog about Canberra. You may get the impression that I've been there for weeks, but it just happens to be a bloggable city. And I have a few more pictures I want to share.

Canberra is a planned city. Mostly because nothing was there before they decided to put the capital of the country there, when Melbourne and Sydney were fighting to be the capital.

To steal from Wikipedia...

"Canberra is a planned city and the inner-city area was originally designed by Walter Burley Griffin, a major 20th-century American architect (interesting that an American designed the capital of Australia? I think not) Within the central area of the city near Lake Burley Griffin, major roads follow a wheel-and-spoke pattern rather than a grid. Griffin's proposal had an abundance of geometric patterns, including concentric hexagonal and octagonal streets emanating from several radii." (Traveler beware: this circular pattern can get you a bit disorinted)

"Lake Burley Griffin was deliberately designed so that the orientation of the components was related to various topographical landmarks in Canberra. The lakes stretch from east to west and divided the city in two; a land axis perpendicular to the central basin stretches from Capital Hill—the eventual location of the new Parliament House on a mound on the southern side"

 

"—north northeast across the central basin to the northern banks along Anzac Parade to the Australian War Memorial. This was designed so that looking from Capital Hill, the War Memorial stood directly at the foot of Mount Ainslie. "

"At the southwestern end of the land axis was Bimberi Peak, the highest mountain in the ACT, approximately 52 km (32 mi) south west of Canberra."

The straight edge of the circular segment that formed the central basin of Lake Burley Griffin was perpendicular to the land axis and designated the water axis, and it extended northwest towards Black Mountain. "

^{Black mountain and its Telestra Tower}

^{Lake Burley Griffin provides a beautiful  riverfront walking and cycling route around the two bridges.}

 ^{You can walk up Mt Ainslie for a beautiful view of the land axis to the parliament house, and you may even get to watch a hot air balloon drift by.}

Also good for some bird watching

Plus, the city has some pretty good names for streets.

Pink Sunglasses Spy on Embassy Drive

I don't think I've ever paid much attention to embassies. I can't actually remember ever consciously noticing one. So when our non-double-decker-red-tour van drove by a smattering of them, I knew that was something I was going to take a walk to check out.

Turns out, walking to see the embassies is not on the Canberra tourist list of things to do and that's probably intentional. Though they do mention an Embassy Drive, key word being DRIVE. There weren't any sidewalks leading directly there. And once I found the little embassy haven, there were a)still no side walks b) a total of three people, including me and c)random police cars parked in driveways in front of the security cameras. Clearly, we live in a cautious world, with everyone on high alert. But I wasn't going to let that stop me from my around the world photo snapping tour. They were all so cute displaying their national character. Besides, how intimidating does a tall, white girl with a camera, pink sunglasses, and a back pack look?

The green and yellow of the Brazilian Embassy

Sharp, clean lines of the Finnish Embassy

A little quaint French Embassy

The Chinese Embassy was quite unmistakable. Apparently when they had built it, the Australians tried to bug it, so they build a whole new section where they built it using only laborers hand-picked direct from China.

The Embassy of Egypt even had a sphinx statue (obviously not in this picture)

The Embassy of Indonesian had a tiki feel

Turns out they weren't even all embassies. The representation from other countries in the British Commonwealth actually are High Commissions.

Of course there was the British High Commission.

My old neighbors the Canadians, who even put maple leaves in their cement.

The plantation-esque South African High Commission

The New Zealand Commission with tin cows in front

And don't forget the High Commissions from Papua New Guinea and Singapore

And in front of Parliament was the Aboriginal Embassy, representing the fight for land rights for the orinigal owners of the land.

There are over 80 embassies and commissions, and they're even building more. Here is the future site of the Russian Embassy.

And yes, there was an United States of America Embassy. The biggest, and best of them all in its white trimmed colonial brick, opened in 1943.

Look real close and you may even be able to see the American flag

I thought about stopping in for tea with my American Passport, but the police car, security cameras and gate persuaded me that I'd rather get gelato back in the city. After all, it was a warm day and I had done a lot of walking.

I want S'more Halloween

Trick or Treat!

I'll take a treat! You may not be able to tell that is is all hallows eve way down under (due to a general lack of enthusiasm about the holiday), but we had a little Halloween fun ourselves making candy corn marshmallow s'mores.

In my limited worldly travels, I have learned that s'mores are an American delicacy. Mostly because no where else has graham crackers. Or has even heard of them.

I was generous and decided to culturally enlighten my colleagues with an afternoon tea s'more roasting session.

Due to the lack of anything graham, these s'mores were made possible by Megan, who is awesome :)

Obviously, we couldn't have a bonfire in our staff room (plus there it's fire ban season here now). So we made do with what we had: microwave, panini toaster, and toaster oven with a hot plate. All methods proved to be fruitful, once we figured out that we needed to turn the hotplate on.

And as first-timers, Kyla and Pieter, representing Australia and the Netherlands, quickly learned the skill of obtaining a perfectly warm, ooey, gooey, marshmallow for their first ever s'mores. And that's there's no way to eat a s'more without getting chocolate and marshmallow all over your fingers and face.

I think I've now completed my duty as an American. The world is now a better place.

May your Halloween be just as sweet, smiley, and safe!

Happy Halloween!!!

More than a Gateway to Everything Else

Bill Bryson referred to Canberra as "he "gateway to everything else" in Australia. I was pleasantly surprised that there were a few, at least 3, things to see.

When in a national capital, one is obliged to do some obligatory sight-seeing. We arrived a day before our work conference to a cold, windy, miserable Tuesday. Now granted, it doesn’t take much for the weather to be more miserable than sunny, delightful Perth, but it slightly dampened our walk-around-the-city plans. So we hopped on a bus. You know, one of those double decker, red, hop on hop off city tour busses.

 

Well, they didn’t even bother running the double decker in that weather, so we were in a little van. But it was still red. But it was a great tour of the city and oriented me to what would be my three sightseeing stops.

1. The Australian War Memorial

 

 

The Roll of Honour lists over 100,000 soldiers that have died in wars from World Was I onwards, up to the current conflicts. The contrasting red poppies added a certain air of solemnity and were quite beautiful.

 

Just like in Arlington, there is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, guarded by service men and women (though they're changing of the guard isn't quite as elaborate but still stoic.

 

And you can go inside the tomb, where the soldier is watched over by beautiful stained glass and painted representatives from the armed forces.

 

 

 

It was interesting learning about the wars, particularly War II from the Australian perspective. They also had a moving exhibit with video and sound recordings of soldiers and families talking about "Coming Home".

 

 

 

2. Parliament

I’m not much into American politics, so you can image how much I’ve learned about the politics of Australia being here only a year and as a foreigner who can’t vote. We jumped on a tour that was just starting and got taken to see the great hall (which you can rent out for functions!) with the tapestry that was painted in 1986 and hence has Haley’s Comet.

 

 Can you find Haley's Comet?

 

We saw one of the four copies of the Magna Carta in the world. And we got to see the House of Representatives and the Senate. Parliament is a HUGE building, so to make it a little easier, they’ve color coded the different parts of the building: green for the house, red for the senate, and blue for the prime minister section (I forget what they call that part where all the important offices are). 

Unfortunately parliament wasn’t sitting at the time so we didn’t get to witness any action, but I still think I now know about 300% more about how the Australian government works.

The building itself is pretty neat too. It’s built into a hill (so it’s not on the top fo a hill above the people) and you can actually stand on top of the building (above the government). 

Plus it’s got a great view back to Old Parliament, Mt. Ainslie and the War Memorial.

 

3.  National Museum

My sister is a museum professional, so I had to go into at least one Australian museum. Turns out, it’s very much like an American museum.

Not a bad spot for a museum

 

We were in a bit of a rush, but saw some cool things. Like a giant 6.35 kg horse heart from Phar Lap, the legendary horse of the Depression that died in America in 1932 and led to the Aussie saying "A heart as big as Phar Lap's".

 

And model trains..

 

And a bushfire sign...

And a steamboat!!!

 I think the Sabino is better :)

And a whole lot about Aboriginal culture, which is only found in Australia. But it is really cool to think that these are the oldest surviving race of people.