I do apologize for writing this a little late but in truth I was very tired yesterday and decided to leave it to today. It's been a week since I have returned from Plast camp in Victoria but I'll report on that adventure after I finish off this week's happenings. It's actually been a fairly exciting and productive week.
A friend of mine from Canada, Alicia, came down to visit after spending part of her Christmas vacation with her sister, Angela, in Thailand. This was Alicia's first trip Down Under so I was delighted to show her around Canberra. She was very lucky in that the weather held for here entire time here and it was always sunny and in the low 30sC.
One of the first things we did was celebrate Ukrainian Christmas Eve on the 6th. Traditionally, I am supposed to have 12 meatless and non-dairy dishes but I don't have the talent to make them; only mothers and grandmothers seem to to do it properly. Instead we went for dinner to Zeffirelli's, an Italian restaurant. I had the fettuccine carbonara and Alicia had some sort of gnocchi in a spicy sauce. I also wore a traditional Ukrainian vyshyvanka (vyh-shyh-VAHN-ka), a shirt with sewn patterns on the cuffs and front. We then listened to Ukrainian Christmas carols on a CD I have.
The next day, I decided to take Alicia to a few of the attractions around Canberra. Luckily there is a tourist bus, 81, which takes you to these places. We first stopped off at the National Zoo and Aquarium but decided not to enter after we saw that admission would cost nearly $30/person! There was some time before the next bus so we wandered around the area and I pointed out Scrivener Dam, the dam that created Lake Burley Griffin. When the bus arrived we went to the next stop which is the Telstra Tower.
Telstra Tower is a very conspicuous communications tower on Black Mountain opened in 1980. Because of its shape, it is sometimes called the "Syringe". Anyway we went in and found the $7.50 entry price to be quite reasonable. The first thing we did was go downstairs to watch a wonderfully dated and kitschy movie made in 1980 or 1981 about the tower and its construction. The movie has been, no doubt, playing since that time and has not changed a bit. We then went up to the observation decks, one interior and the other exterior and got some great views of Canberra and the surrounding area.
On the 8th, Alicia and I went to the War Memorial which is both memorial and a museum; both are spectacular. We managed to get the 12:00 tour and were taken around many parts of the museum. The tour lasted about 2 hours and was very informative. We learned about the Australian landings at Gallipoli and Australian involvement in both theaters of war in World War 2. Even still we didn't get to see the whole of the museum. We also saw the table used for the British surrender of Singapore to the Japanese. There was also a fantastic video using lights and sounds about a Lancaster bomber on a raid over Germany. Sombre, yet fun, I would recommend the War Memorial to anyone visiting Canberra.
On the 9th, Alicia had to leave since her flight home left from Sydney early on the 10th. As such, she caught a bus to Sydney. I bade her farewell and thanked her for coming. It's not often that I see people from Canada down here, especially people I know, so her visit was something a little special.
I'll also mention that I had a driving lesson earlier in the week. Fenner Hall has a van that can be used for Hall functions and I mentioned that I would like to be a designated driver. The lesson involved me driving around for a little while and we got gas along the way. I was a little nervous at first, having never steered something so large before and doing it on the opposite side of the road, but it didn't prove to be so difficult. I managed not to hit anyone or anything and now I feel much more comfortable driving on the left, though I haven't had further occasion to. I also feel much better if I take a driving trip around Australia sometime at the end of this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment