After our drive through the mountains we had time for a brief stop in the nation's capital, Canberra (pronounced Can-Bra). It is a relatively modern city, just over a century old, that the guide book describes as a mix between crop circles and suburbia. It's an accurate description but it really is a lot better than it sounds. The highlight of our stop was Parliment House pictured above and below.
The building itself is modern, impressive, and surprisingly accessible to the public.
For those of you not familiar with the parlimentarian process Down Under, there is nothing civilized or polite about Australian politics. We listen to clips of the latest parlimentarian debates most days on the radio and it almost always involves two people yelling at each other and saying unflattering things about their opponent. In the background the person assigned to keep control of the proceedings is always yelling, "Order! Order!" to which the politicians raise their voices even louder. Makes American politics seem tame.
This is the chamber where all the yelling happens. It was quiet the day we were there; it was the weekend and nobody, including the politicians, works on the weekend here.
"G'day Mr. Prime Minister. How're you going, mate? Yes, I have a question. Do you like my kangaroo?"
Zach enjoying the views from the roof of Parliment House.
Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted to in Canberra so we made a detour there on our way back home from Sydney a few days later.
We stopped at the American Embassy hoping to stand on some American soil. But we didn't have official business so they wouldn't let us in. They wouldn't even let us take any pictures of the complex itself. Initially we were just going to settle for a picture in front of the boring sign.
But then Mom snuck a picture out the back window of the car while Dad packed things up in the trunk. The buildings were classic colonial style--red brick, white shutters, slate roof--and could have been taken straight out of Virginia. Very un-Australian.
Despite our failed attempts at touching American soil and taking a few snapshots of our native embassy, we instead managed to enjoy the Australian turf and snapped a few nice shots of our little American Down Under with his kangaroo in front of the old Parliment House.
All in all we thought Canberra was a can-do city and would love to make it back there again someday. Maybe when Zach is old enough to remember. Hopefully he won't still be dragging his kangaroo around everywhere by then. Gotta love Mr. Kanga!
