indonesia, china, america, and australia... all in one day!

this weekend the asc took us on a trip to canberra (the capital of australia... just in case you didn't know). quick lesson: in the early 1900s, there was a disagreement between sydney and melbourne over which should be the capital city (melbourne was at the time, but sydney was bigger and wanted to be the capital or something.). there was lots of arguing until finally they decided to pick a spot right in the middle, and canberra was born. it was literally built to be the capital, so the whole city is designed around all the government buildings and such.
i was pretty excited about this trip because i'm a huge nerd and like museums, but i knew that it was going to be a long 2 days. yesterday (friday) we left from wesley at 6 am to make the 3-hour drive down to canberra. everyone kept saying that it was going to be freezing and that they had just gotten snow, so i was surprised to find that it was not really that cold at all, and it was really sunny. friday was a day of embassy visits, starting with indonesia. i found out that australia and indonesia actually have a really important relationship, and indonesia is sort of leading southeast asia in becoming more democratic. that visit was fun because we got to play with all kinds of indonesian instruments and puppets and stuff that they had there for the little kids that visit.
after indonesia we got to go visit the chinese embassy, which i guess is a huge deal because we're americans and they're not usually too keen on letting americans visit. turns out they were really nice though, and they had a pretty garden. the last embassy we visited was the united states! it was funny because that one was the most strict on us, even though we're american. fun fact: all the buildings in the american embassy are made out of brick in the colonial williamsburg style. the brick was to represent america's permanent presence and dedication to australia. also, the fact that they styled it after american architecture set a trend for all the embassies to be styled after their countries' architecture, so the chinese and indonesian ones were really cool (belgium was actually my favorite... it looks like a pretty country mansion). after all the embassy visits we just went to the YMCA where we stayed for the night and had discussions and played games, which was good because i did NOT feel good at all. bleh...
day 2, saturday (today), we had a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. we started out at the old parliament house, which was not exciting at all except for the funny tour guide. after that we went to the national museum, which was really cool, but we only had a little over an hour, so it was pretty rushed. but they had this sweet thing where you could record a fake radio program, which provided lots of entertainment. after the national museum we got to go to the national gallery, which was freakin sweet because i love art museums. i got to see a real jackson pollock, which was huge and awesome. apparently it was a big controversy when they got it because some prime minister bought it for something like $2 million, which was a lot of money. except now it's worth over $100 million, so i'd say it was a good move. i also got to see a monet and some gauguin and cezan and lots of others... we didn't get to spend much time in there, either, which was a bummer, but it was still really cool. our last stop was the war memorial, which i was not excited about but was actually really really cool. it was huge! and we got to see all kinds of sweet old planes and stuff that dad and papa and hayden would enjoy... and they had this sweet discovery center where you could play and take pictures. i promise i'm like an 8 year old child...
after a few hours at the war memorial, we got on the bus for another long ride home. but it was very exciting because guess what i saw... KANGAROOS! seriously, picture driving into estes park and seeing all the elk. now make the scenery a little flatter with different trees and turn all those elk into kangaroos. that's what it was like. there were tons of them! we were passing huge groups of them for a good 20 minutes. kimberly, the director, said she's never seen so many at once, especially not on the way to or from canberra. so it was very exciting. i have yet to get close enough to get a picture though...
basically canberra was really fun and educational, and i'm glad to be back :) i didn't take my camera (sorry mom...), but i know that all my friends took heaps of pictures, so i'll try to get some on here.