Thursday, December 11, 2008

"A special welcome to all Qantas Club and Qantas Frequent Flyer members...."

"The rest of you should just be grateful you're allowed on board."

David here. I've been flying a lot on Qantas the last few weeks, Nhulunbuy, Brisbane, and most recently Canberra. Qantas is a really nice airline, but I've noticed that only their Club and Frequent flyer member get that special welcome, and the rest of us just get a welcome. Seems unfair.

Regardless, this entry isn't about Qantas, but about my recent trip to Canberra. I went their for a conference. The day after the conference I was able to walk around Canberra. Canberra is a completely designed city. It looks beautiful, and it's sort of like if Washington D.C. was relocated to the Foothills of Colorado. Unfortunately, it is a very confusing city to walk around. I decided that since I had only a few hours to kill, I would go to a book store. I think I've, inadvertently, made it my goal to visit a book store in every place we visit, even more so since Darwin doesn't have any good book stores. Perhaps book lovers will sympathize... I found one that was located a few kilometres away from the hotel, and to get there I had to go through most of city which allowed me to see some of the sites. With the walking directions from Google Maps written down, I set out with the confidence that only Google Maps can provide. Two and half hours later I reached my destination, thanks to a handful of errors in the directions. It wasn't till I headed back that I threw out the directions completely and made it back in half the time. What makes it confusing is that Canberra is a round-about. It's one big circle. Here is my "mental map" of the journey, inspired by the family circus. If you couldn't tell, as the day went on I got a little more loopy. Hope you enjoy. Click on the map to make it bigger.

It sort of trails off at the end where I just took the same route back. On the way, I looked up and a Kangaroo came jumping out into the middle of the street, got in the left hand turn lane, and turned left. Without using indicators! I actually haven't seen a kangaroo in full sprint before, and they are very impressive. I guess they are a bit of pest in Canberra though (as well as elsewhere in Australia).

Crossing this to get on the footpath was not fun at 8:30 am.


Black Swans

Old Parliament HouseAboriginal Tent Embassy
Canberra's Forrest?
Parliament's Private Ski Slope?

New Parliament

1 comment:

Jenni said...

The Parliament House is where Barbara P took me to see the University of Canberra graduation. It's gorgeous inside.