Australia South

G'day
Once again I'm in Australia. I know my trip is starting to wind down when I start backtracking to my original destination. I started in Melbourne. I've already seen the city but I met some people there, so we walked around for a long time. I saw some things that I didn't see the first time, like the Royal Botanic Gardens, so it was well worth it to see see the city again. When I was done with Melbourne I had to eventually get to Sydney where my flight departs from. However, Canberra was on the way so I made a stopover. I wanted to see Canberra since I first arived in Australia, so I took my chance when I got it. Canberra is an interesting City. It was founded by an act of parliament to make it Australia's perminant capital. It's also its own territory, making it independant of the state of New South Whales. It is actually a city-state, one of only a small handfull in the world. I even studied it in my Geography World Cities class in university. The whole thing was designed by an American. All the streets, parks, government buildings, and even the lake is all new. The city began in the mid-1900s.

I took a 10 hour night bus and arived bright and early in the morning. I was surprised by what I saw. The road system has a circular design. And the different circles in the different parts of the city are connected by a main street. Its very confusing becasue most roads travel in every possible direction, so if you are walking on a street you can be walking north, east, southeast, northwest, and so on. Its quite confusing to get around.

But despite this I did eventually make it to the parliament building after hours of getting lost. I guess I could have took a bus, but, oh well. I loved this building. It was just built and finished only a few years ago, and the final cost was a whopping ONE BILLION dollars. Wow. The first thing I noticed is that it is built into the Capital Hill. I literally walked on top of it covered in grass. The explanation for this is that parliament shouln't be above the people. The people should be abover their elected servants, so the building is actually underground. However there are massive polls above the building waiving an enormous Australian flag that can be seen from the entire city. I went inside for a tour. The building is huge and awesome. Marble floors and pillers in the reception hall, big open spaces for the upper and lower houses, great natural lighting (for being underground), statues of the Queen, a large cafe, a Great Hall, everything you could want. It looks like it cost a billion dollars. Outside the building was another of those main connecting streets. You can see a perfect line connecting the parliament, down a large feild with flags, joining the old parliament building, across the lake, continuing on the other side with a large street leading to the massive War Memorial building/museum (which I also went to). This row goes all the way accross the city, yet from both ends you can see the perfect line connecting the buildings.

All in all, my impression of Canberra is that it looks fake. Not becasue everything is the National this or the Royal that, but the city as a whole just looks fake. Becasue it's designed and everything is new, even the lake it's built around. But don't get me wrong, fake is not a bad thing. It's a very interesting thing. I've never seen a city quite like it.

Later that night I heard music. I followed it and found myself at a Latin festival. There was music, and international food and drink, and it was great. I met this girl who was wearing the exact same Joyride Bolivia tshirt that I was wearing, so Ihung out with her and her friends, who had connections with some of the bands. So I wnt into one of the pubs and starting drinking with the bands. It was great fun. I had a long discussion with this one musician about some of the differences between Canadian and Australian politics. Afterwards around 1 am the band left, so I went outside and there was some amazing regge music going on (yes I know, at a Latin festival haha). So I stayed there for another cupple hours, by myself but in a croud. It was so good. I was told that Canberra was usually a very dull city, and I picked the only day of the year when it came alive.

So now I'm in Sydney. I witnessed yet another event here that was just lucky. Just yesterday, I heard on the news that the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Elizabeth 2 were going to meet in Sydney Harbour, meeting in the same city for the first time since 1939 when they delivered troups for WWII. The Queen Mary 2 is the largest cruise ship in the world and the Elizibeth 2 is her sister ship. So this is Royal history here. I wandered on down to the Opera House at the harbour and found a good spot among the estimated tens of thousands of people. The Mary 2 was so big it couldn't fit under the Harbour Bridge. I saw the Elizibeth 2 cruise in and give three loud honks to Mary 2. There were cheers, and then there were fireworks marking the occasion. People were crazy about it, the Sydneysiders were so excited that this was happening in their city. I was just there for some free entertainment.

So that's it, now you're up to speed. I'm in Sydney for a few more days and then a detour to the Blue Mountains. See ya there.

P.S. I can't seem to upload pictures from the Milford Sound, but I know what the problem is, so I'll post them when I get to a home computer and I have some time. Here's some late pictures of the south of New Zealand and Christchuch.

http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2125020&l=ec431&id=58000349
http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2125021&l=a6847&id=58000349

UPDATE! Canberra and Sydney links are uploaded:
Canberra: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2125251&l=03841&id=58000349
Sydney: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2126134&l=d18a4&id=58000349