A Little Bit of Everything

This was a pretty eventful week. Apart from writing essays, there were a few things that I was able to get out and do around Canberra too. Wednesday I was invited to the Canadian High Commission (which is the embassy, but apparently in Commonwealth countries when another commonwealth nation has its diplomatic mission, it's called a High Commission instead). Simon was invited too but opted out. I met a few really cool people, both people who worked there and people who were in Canberra studying. There was a surprising number of Vancouverites. I'm so used to meeting people from Ontario, that it kind of caught me off guard. It was fun. The staff spent most of the time explaining how to register to vote from abroad, so I left thinking I was in the know about something and it turns out it was pretty much bound to happen. I've registered, now I just need to send off the paperwork. Other than that it was a chance to meet other Canadians studying in Canberra, which was cool.

Thought I'd also document the other High Commission that I could go to :-)

Outside the High Commission

The scary gate to get in. Apparently they don't get many visitors. Wonder why :-)

Friday night a bunch of people from my program met in civic (downtown, the whole 5 blocks of it!) for dinner and drinks and some karaoke. I'm not comfortable posting pictures of them here, but there was about 20 of us for dinner and a few less for karaoke. It was my first ever experience in a karaoke room, this place had about 5 different rooms that you could rent with your friends on an hourly basis. We had a pretty big room since there were so many of us. It was a really good time. I even got over my fear of singing after the Fleetwood Mac disaster a few years ago (let's just say I will not try 'go your own way' ever again!), and a friend and I sang Thriller. A lot of the classic karaoke songs were sung, and we all participated in an epic rendition of 'my heart will go on' to end off the night. It was a perfect way to go out and relax without it totally affecting my day the next day.

This doesn't do too much to show the room, but there were two screens, one in front of the dance floor (!!) and one over the couches along the wall.

Simon and a possum we saw on the way home. Definitely not as scary as raccoons or skunks!

And finally, last night we went down to the field on campus to celebrate Earth Hour. We got there just before the hour begun. They were running late so it actually begun before the Vice Chancellor started the countdown, which was a little awkward, but it was neat and again nice to get out and take a break from essay stress. For the hour the lights were off there was a fire show and a drum group. The fire show was pretty cool.

This was a giant fire whip, which was crazy. When the guy whipped it, all of the fire would erupt then go out. Don't worry, we were well away from where it could hit us.

I tried taking a few photos with flash but these ones are much better. Apart from the whip there were long sticks with fire on both ends, shorter sticks in sets of 2 with fire at one end, and the ball and chain fire things too. Reminded me of LOVE, since 3 people from the crew are able to do that stuff!

I *think* this was the ball and chain combo.

Oh and this made me laugh. I guess the event on campus was the main one for Canberra, so there were lots of families with kids. There was a giant earth hanging on a string, and the kids were basically using it as a punching bag. The symbolism of that killed me! At one point they hit it so hard that it fell off, rolled down the hill and knocked over one of the light stands.

So there you have it. Now it's a beautiful Sunday and because I slacked all day yesterday I'm going to have to spend most of it at the library. Urgh! I will get out for a run later on. I'm at week 5 in my training so I've got to run 3 minutes and walk 1 for 9 repetitions. Longest toughest run yet! I just hope my shins/knees can handle it. At some point, probably when I get home, I'm going to have to invest some time and $$ into fixing my legs before they quit on me!

Til soon!

Fireworks aka Skyfire 2011

This weekend was pretty low-key for Si and I, for me mainly because I was pretty exhausted from the week. I meant to go out on Friday and ended up sleeping instead. Saturday, however, there were fireworks to celebrate the end of Enlighten Canberra, the event that had been happening the last two weekends. So a group of us got together and went to watch the fireworks down by the lake, with a bunch more people from Canberra and surrounding suburbs. I thought it looked like English Bay during the Celebration of Lights, but Simon told me that gets up to 100,000 people and they were anticipating 10,000 in Canberra. Oops! I blame the fact that it was dark :-)

Anyway, because its Autumn and the sun is setting early (booo!!!), they started at 8:30pm. It was pretty windy when we got to the lake, and all of the smoke etc from the fireworks came in our direction which was unpleasant, but bearable. I ended up doing what I *always* make fun of my mom for doing, which is going nuts taking pictures of the fireworks. But, I'd like to think I was doing it for the purposes of journalism, so you can all see the fireworks we saw. (Yes, I can hear the cynics saying 'fireworks are fireworks, so what?', because that's how I sorta feel!) Anyway, here are some shots of them.

With the police boat in the foreground and the light on the right hand side in the background is a monument that apparently plays music, but doesn't do much else.

The right hand side is where Parliament is located.

Some black swans (there are quite a few here), that I'm guessing weren't too pleased about the people, smoke, or loud noises.

A blurry view of the National Library (same one from last post), all lit up.

Again, police boat in the foreground. Unlike in Vancouver they were the only boat in the water. I'm not even sure if motorized boats are allowed on the lake.

Don't worry, the police boat isn't on fire, it's just the fireworks.

And there you have it. Kind of a cheesy post but my next planned post was going to be about the National Gallery, only when I got there I realized I wasn't allowed to take pictures so that idea went out the window. You get fireworks instead :-)

The Gallery was great, I went on Sunday with a few of the lovely ladies from my program. The place is HUGE, and it definitely would take a few more visits to see everything. Next time I go I'm going to wear running shoes and bring snacks. Seriously, you could spend days there. We didn't go through the featured exhibit about Russian Ballet, but we saw some of the pop art and surrealist and minimalist art, as well as a lot of art from Australia's history, like colonial art etc which I thought was a pretty cool way of learning about the history of the country.

We also went through a Sidney Nolan exhibit (famous Aussie artist, see the collection we saw here), and though my feet were hurting like crazy (decided to wear fancy shoes, big mistake), we made it to the Aboriginal/Torres Straight Islander exhibit, which I need to spend more time in when I return. The piece that stuck out to me, called Austracism that I really want a copy of, is here. It really hit home because I found it so similar to some of the attitudes I've encountered about First Nations people in Canada. I also have a fundamental problem with sentences that start "I'm not racist, but...", because clearly, anything that follow is going to be fueled by racism or ignorance. So yes, I spent a long time looking at this one and hope to get a copy before I head home. I didn't realize til I read the explanation that it was also a take on the word ostracism. SO clever!

It was a great time, and I need to go back. One of the girls I went with wants to go speak with the people who maintain the Aboriginal tent village outside of old Parliament, which I would love to do too. Apparently its been there since the 1970s. So yes, though it may not happen soon, when I have some time I will head back to that area and do some more exploring!

For now, back to writing an essay :-)

Til soon!!

Balloon Extravaganza

Because it's been so long (sorry!!), I forgot my awesome trick of uploading these photos backwards so they go in chronological order. So this one is going to be a bit messy, but the story remains the same!! On Monday morning I went with a friend from my program to see hot air balloons that were supposed to fly over the lake here in Canberra. It was supposed to start at 7am so we were up at 6 and out the door at 6:30. We walked over the bridge to the Parliament lawns which were about 30-40 minutes away, and checked out what was going on. There were lots of people out but sadly not too many balloons.

As it turns out the wind was a factor and they were afraid the balloons would head in the direction of the airport, which as you can imagine isn't a good thing, so most of them were inflated but anchored to the ground. A few of the balloon people headed out of town a bit and were going to try to drift into where we were, but about 10 minutes after we got there it was announced that it was too windy for even that. So we saw some balloons, but not as many as if it had been a nice day. That being said, it was still definitely worth it and I managed to get back home before Simon had even got out of bed! Here are the pictures, just sadly backwards :-(

To give you an idea of the type of day it was, here's the Telstra Tower engulfed by fog.

Some of the balloons were still being inflated as we were leaving, like this Air Force one.

This is the War Memorial, which I hope to get to at some point, I'm told it's definitely worth it. It was pretty far from where we were, this pic is taken with my mega-zoom lens.

This is a demonstration that has apparently been around since the 1970s. It's called tent city, and though I haven't investigated too much (I hope to soon), it looks like the struggles of the indigenous people in Australia is very similar to Canada.

This is a wider view of tent city with the 'Old Parliament' in the background. New Parliament is even further away. Again, a trip for another day!

These are a few of the balloons that were inflated when we arrived. There were supposed to be about 40 but because of the wind and the attempt to fly from another location, I think we saw 6-7.

Platypus!

This strawberry is apparently from the Netherlands. At least I think that's what they said. To be honest I was half asleep! We did get delicious Dutch Pancakes with maple syrup and ice cream. So good at 7:30am!

This was by far the coolest balloon, and made the trip worth it all on its own. It's a kookaburra balloon!! The thing was massive. We stared at it for a looong time :-)

Another angle.

Me in front of the balloon.

...and another angle.

This is the National Library of Australia. Somewhere I need to visit too!

This is the bridge we had to cross in order to get to Parliament. I think it's the main bridge in Canberra. The triangle-like structure you see in the background is New Parliament.

And this was me on the bridge at 7am in the morning. The circular thing you see in the background is the orange contraption I snapped pictures of on my run the day before, which you'll recognize from the previous post. Canberra, at least the center part, really isn't that big!

My next adventure, apart from essays, is hopefully to go to the National Gallery. There was talk of going on Sunday so hopefully that happens. And on the 23rd I'm going to a tea at the Canadian High Commission here, so I'll be sure to take pics and report back on that.

Til soon!

Sunday Runday

So before I start about today, I should say that I now have my iPhone back, wahoo, and it's connected to a network and everything, so I'm happily back to being a 21st century digital girl. It's allowing me to take pictures on the fly a lot more, too, which is really handy. This week went well, I have an essay due on Friday which is what I'm taking a break from writing seeing as it's supposed to be 1000 words and I'm at 115o having not yet written a conclusion. So some time out to see what actually needs to be in there still is a good thing :-)

Baby ducks! These guys were on path on my way to the library yesterday. What you can't see is Papa Duck who was on the other side of the tree and not very happy with me, probably because there was a couple on the other side of the tree ogling too. So I took off pretty quick a) to not irritate him further and b) because I didn't want to be 'that person' who got attacked by a duck for getting too close :-)

It's probably hard to see, but the moon is up there somewhere. I think I took this at around 5pm yesterday, so there was a moon and a sun. Of course the sun comes out the day *after* we were supposed to have an outdoor gathering. It's the Vancouver situation that's followed me to Canberra, I think.

This morning I woke up at about 9am and it was another gorgeous day. For those of you interested in my workout routine (meaning, probably no one), it's week 3 out of 13 in my 10k training, which I'm doing because I do it every new year for the Sun Run. I'm a few weeks or a month behind my Vancouver counterparts, mainly because of moving here and having no set 10k run to train for. I've looked up a few different runs here, in the fall (or spring here), I should be good to do a few of them. Anyway, the run I had to do today was the longest yet, and I've been going along this one path so I decided to take another exit and see where it lead me. I ended up where I suspected I would, but what I didn't anticipate was how long it would take me to get back to the path I was normally on. So I ended up out for 20 or so minutes longer than I was slated to be, which was ok since it was so nice out. These are a few of the pictures I took along the way, which I could do because right now I'm at run 3 minutes walk 2 (x7). The path only veered off of the lake for a bit, which was great. It was quiet and peaceful for the most part.

A view of the lake from the path.

A tugboat docked in the lake. Actually, I'm not sure it's a tugboat. It was docked outside the museum.

The lake from the museum path.

The museum. And I have a horrible memory so I don't know which one it is. The National Museum maybe? Eep. I'll get back to you on that.

More shots of the museum. I'll have to go in at some point!

The orange structure was fascinating. It almost looked like a roller coaster loop, only it was it's own freestanding structure.

And finally, these guys greeted me across the street from the Botanic Gardens. I was a little intimidated by them at first, but they minded their own business so I did too :-)

Well, there you have it. Now I'm back to writing my essay. If only it was as easy of blogging, but then I guess everyone would be doing it :-) Tomorrow is Canberra Day, which is a local holiday and the Enlighten Canberra festival is going on this weekend and next in celebration. When we went to look at events to go to last night we found that the options were pretty limited and fairly expensive which was sad, but tomorrow there is a free celebration happening from 2pm so I hope to make it there after a meeting I have at 4pm. I just hope the weather holds!

Til soon!

week 3

So this is a really quick update to say hi and let you know we're still alive. We're into week 3 and I ahve 2 essays due in the next week or so, which is making me a little nervous. Well, one I think I've got a decent grasp on, the other...eep!

Had to study on Sunday so I didn't get the chance to do one of the photo walks. But hopefully I'll have my iPhone back soon so I can take pictures on the fly without having to bring my big camera, which adds weight to my already heavy bag :-)

Will post again soon, I promise!