Canberra in Pictures

Hello ScoFans!

Before I wrap up the week in Canberra by showing you the pictures taken post conference, I'd just like to thank those of you who told me I'm never allowed to travel again. I said late last year I don't like travelling, one of the girls at work was trying to send me to overseas, and now if she ever tries again I can print of your comments and say "I think you'll find my readers won't allow me to travel. And they know what's best for me, right?"

That being said, next years conference is in New Zealand, which for those of you who don't know it's the very eastern part of Australia.

So let's recap my sight seeing part of the week.

Thursday

I caught a taxi out to the National Film and Sound archives. When we got close to the building the taxi driver kept asking me for directions and I'm like "Isn't it your job to know where we're going? I'm from Melbourne. I don't know where anything is"



I think I've mentioned "Picnic At Hanging Rock" around these parts before. It's a great movie, and those costumes were the highlight of the NFSA for me.

Then I went back to the Parlimentary Circle type area and checked out Questacon first, and then walked around Old Parliment House and Parliment House.

Oh, and I saw your mum at Questacon. What, she didn't tell you I said hi? *Bam!*


That's old Parliament House. From the front and across the road.




That's Parliament House. See how there's the grass hills up the side? Well you can actually walk up there and stand on top of Parliament House, which I think should be mandatory for every Government building.


There's the view from the top of Parliament House, looking away from the city.

In Canberra there is also a gift we receive from the very generous United States. It's a cement eagle sitting on top of a tall pole. Really, thanks guys, it's exactly what we needed.


That's the Eagle there. That tall skinny one.


And that's me there, giving a bird of my own. You're welcome.

Friday was pretty quiet. Mum and dad came up late in the day and we went and got tickets for the art exhibition that was on at the National Gallery. The paintings have traveled here from France or somewhere like that, and it's caused all sorts of chaos. These are a few pictures from the line on Saturday morning (we got there and 9:30 - it opened at 10)


That was what was in front of us. It goes up around the bend there.

That was behind us. We'd started moving by this point, because the thing we were behind in the other picture we've now moved past.


That's my dad, knowing his place and giving me the royal treatment I deserve while I was tweeting about having to wait in line.

And yes, I am wearing two long sleeved shirts only to roll the sleeves on both of them up. It might be impractical, but it's a style.

It took us two and a half hours to get inside, and when we did we weren't allowed to take pictures, so I've downloaded from the Internet my favourite of the ones that were in there for you to look at.

There were Van Gogh's, Monet's and Picasso's, but it was "Rest" by Vilhelm Hammershoi I really liked.

The other thing I found amusing was Edouard Vuillard did a portrait of Felix Vallotton which looked like this..


And Felix said "As if, that doesn't even look like me dickhead" so he painted his own portrait..

I think the first one is more accurate. With the blurry face.

On the Sunday we went to the mint and learned how to make coins, before making our own coins. It's actually pretty easy.. you just put $3.00 into the machine, press a button and BAM!.. a dollar comes out.

On the way home we stopped at the "Dog on the Tuckerbox"


There are a few stories about why there is a tribute to a dog on a tuckerbox here.

The first, and the one my mum heard growing up, is that the dog was waiting for the owner at the pub, but the owner died inside and didn't come out. The dog sat by the owners tuckerbox (lunch box) waiting for him to return, and refused to eat or move until the dog died as well.

The second, the one written in the poems around the dog, describes a very bad day the owner was having. It gets to lunch time, the owner thinks "Great. Some food and a break", only to come back and find the dog shat in the tuckerbox.

Which one is true? Who knows?

What I do know is there was some of the best graffiti I have seen in a bathroom ever at the bathrooms here.


Thanks, because until now I'd thought he was a pretty nice guy.



Wise words. Perhaps too wise for a bathroom wall in the middle of nowhere.

So that's it, my Canberra trip all posted about. I'll throw in one more pic of me as a freebie because the other two weren't great.

There I am standing on PH with Dad. I rolled one lot of sleeves down, it must have been cold.

Anyway, that's it from me. The cats are pretty close to the hawks and I have to see how this ends.