Canberra!!

Two weeks in the “bush capital” and I can’t really complain. First impressions:

Quiet, OH so quiet! Saturday afternoon and the main shopping area in the middle of the city is practically deserted – less people around than the Adelaide equivalent (Rundle Mall etc.) in the middle of the week!! Sometimes it’s almost eerie…

Full of birdlife. Black swans and ducks at the lake (on the look-out for bread), sulphur-crested cockatoos, galahs, magpies, crows… they’re everywhere, and usually being noisy, especially the cockatoos! :)

Pretty. There’s random patches of scrub everywhere, tree-lined streets with nature strips wide enough to camp on, and the lake is gorgeous especially when the sun is shining.

Checking out Lake Burley Griffin

Quaint. Every suburb around where I live has it’s own little shopping hub. I live in Kingston, and the ‘Kingston Shops’ resemble overgrown corner shops that include cafes, bars, restaurants, pubs, supermarket, homewares, furniture, books etc. 10 mins walk away are the Manuka shops (on a bigger scale than Kingston, they have Mackers and Starbucks and a 24hr supermarket) and 15 mins walk away are the Griffith shops.

Friendly or not? People in service position tend to be super friendly. But walking along the street, no-one smiles or says “hi”, like I’d expect Adelaide folks to do. So I’m undecided on this one. Canberra, lift your game while I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt!

Kinda cold. They say it’s unusual for this time of year. But seriously, overnight temperatures of 10 or 12 degrees? Crazy! It’s February, the hottest month of the year! And there’s been plenty of rain too. Good for the drought so I won’t complain.

What have I been doing?

Found a place to live – yay! I will be able to walk to work and to the shops etc, and the area is young and funky, if a little pretentious. Lots of new friends are moving into the same area too. It’s a sunny 2 bedroom unit sharing with a lovely girl from Sydney.

Catching up with old friends! It seems that in the last few years a small herd of friends from uni have moved here (mostly AIESEC alum) so it’s been great to meet and catch up on the goss!

Meeting new folks! A few get togethers with some of the other grads I’ll be starting with, with a couple more planned for this weekend before we finally start work on Monday! Everyone seems lovely with a pretty diverse range of experiences, so should be great :)

Sightseeing! I’ve been to Old Parliament House, the Portrait Gallery, the National Library (free wireless – woo hoo!), Parliament House, and the Telstra Tower (well, not an attraction in itself, but the view is impressive!). I’ve also checked out the city centre, and went to the Multicultural Festival on the weekend where I saw more people than I’d seen in the rest of my time in Canberra put together (I thought I didn’t like crowds, but I must have gotten used to them cos it was great to be in one again!) and ate some awesome Russian and Hungarian food. Plenty more sights still to see, but I heard a rumour we might see some as part of our Induction for work?! Anyway, plenty of time later.

Michelle, Nayana and I holding the (replica) Mace at Old Parliament House!

Reading! Soooo nice to just lounge around and read read read! Grabbed some great $2 books at a sale, and have also been indulging in crosswords, which I haven’t done since I was a kid. I do the “quick crossword” (haha yeah right) and usually only get about two thirds of it. Man, I don’t know how Gran did it! Practice I guess J Also finally jumped on the Sudoku bandwagon. Never completed one, and still kind of working out the strategy. But it’s pretty fun to try, and is keeping my brain from going stale :)

Oh, and yesterday we headed to the lawns in front of Parliament for the Government’s apology to the Stolen Generations. I'm glad I was there for it, it was a special moment.

Start work and move into my new place next week - can't wait - wish me luck! :)