Canberra!

I just had a very good week which reminded me why I started a blog, because I don't want to forget about it! I was down in Canberra (Australia's capital) for the week, working in the MP's office. I think I'll just do a day-by-day kind of thing cause I did a lot:
I arrived on Sunday, so I had the day to explore Canberra. They didn't have my bag at the airport (of course), so I got to my hostel sans luggage and went right back out to find The Australian War Memorial, which was really cool-- it's up a long street called Anzac something with lots of memorials lining it, finishing in a big memorial/museum thing. (I'm going to post a bunch of pictures later when I can actually be bothered). Anyway, that was cool, and the weather was perfect for sitting in the shade and reading, and also for walking around, so I saw quite a bit of the city, which is very pretty but also very quiet-- I was literally about a minute out of the main shopping district when I was walking among very suburban-looking houses.
On Monday I caught the bus over to Parliament house, and basically spent the morning being given a tour by my coworker all around-- I went in the government and opposition meeting rooms, sat where the Prime Minister sits, saw the House and Senate, went up on top of the building where there's a big flagpole, lurked in a corridor till the PM walked by surrounded by his posse... I seriously think I saw most of the building, and it is HUGE. All the offices for the Senators and Reps are in there, so it's pretty spacious.
Ok I lied about the day-by-day thing because I can't really remember what happened when.
BUT some highlights were sitting in the gallery for Question Time-- I had a very good view and was sitting right behind some Sri Lankan minister who was visiting, sitting in the actual CHAMBER (In the adviser's box) while the House was in session... apparently hardly anyone gets to do that. I also got to go up to Main Committee (where they send things that aren't as important) while the MP gave a speech I wrote!! It was on the 6th anniversary of the Bali Bombings, so not some important policy issue, but it was still really cool to see it in the official Parliament records after :).
Umm what else. Oh, because Michael Johnson's the Opposition Whip, we had to do some calling of other reps to get them in the chamber. This was always amusing cause we had to flick through all the channels on Parliamentary TV to try and see who was already in there, and then we'd be about to dial someone and a staff member would shout "No! Russell's just walked in! It's ok!" It was funny to me cause we were literally right across the hall from the chamber, but we couldn't look in to see who was there so we had to squint at the tv.
On a more serious note, I did learn a lot about Australian government, which really interested me. I hadn't so fully grasped before the way they vote as parties-- if your party supports a bill, you vote for it. If they don't, you vote against it. No exceptions. It made all the speeches and stuff seem pretty pointless, because the government was always going to get their way... I prefer the American system in which individuals can make choices depending on (hopefully) what they think is best for their constituents, even if that goes against the party lines.
Also, the food in the cafeteria was really good. And cheap!

Anyway, yeah, I think that's it. I will post pictures later. It was basically a lot of fun and very interesting... being able to open the paper yesterday and see them talking about stuff I was watching live (sometimes in person, sometimes on TV) was really cool. More later!

Oh no wait. I forgot about Friday! They only work Monday-Thursday in Parliament, so I had all of Friday to hang out before my flight. I walked across the lake (that kind of divides Canberra) to Questacon, a really cool science museum-thing. That was fun. Then I walked over to Old Parliament House, where Parliament sat in the 1920s-80s before Australia got too big and there were too many Members to hold them. It was really interesting to get a tour of that, and see how it's all changed... though the tour guide kept explaining things "for our American visitor" and I had to refrain from telling him that I actually did know what the House of Representatives did, having worked there all week. Ah well. There was also a really good photo exhibition called "Beyond All Reasonable Drought" with pictures of parts of Australia which are so badly effected by the current drought... definitely eye-opening.
And then my bag got lost on the way home too. But it's arrived now!
Ok, that is it this time.

A little late...

Well, after nearly 2 1/2 weeks in Australia I've finally got around to setting up a blog! The reason for the delay is mainly laziness, and the catalyst for finally doing it was I heard something on the radio today that I didn't want to forget, and I'm rubbish at keeping a diary. Basically, I was listening to the radio in the car and a man phoned in, sounding remarkably happy. The host said "you're sounding cheery!" and the man said "Well, I woke up alive this morning, so I'm already ahead!." This just seemed to me such a good example of what I've experienced in Australia so far-- people are nice, they're friendly, they remember your name and are interested in hearing about you. The person who you're buying a ticket from at the station calls you "mate." My friend Lily, who I'm staying with here in Brisbane, keeps telling me that I shouldn't sound so surprised when people are nice, but I am, because it's so different from what I'm used to. (not that that's bad, by the way-- the niceness kind of freaks me out, to be honest) Anyway, now that I've said that I should probably do a bit of an update as to what I've been doing in Australia.
As I said, I've been in Brisbane for 2 1/2 weeks, and the first 2 were purely holiday. Lily and I went to most parts of Brisbane, it seems-- scoped out some markets, went to two different comedy shows (Frank Woodley and Tripod, both hilarious. Australian comedy is wonderful), watched a lot of Gossip Girl (and West Wing, to be fair), and just had a relaxing time. We did some good Australian things as well, like going to Brisbane Forest Park and seeing all the Australian animals-- wombats, wallabies, snakes, and a platypus who we watched for about 15 minutes. Last weekend we went up to Toowoomba, where her relatives live, for a big party for her Uncle. It's only about an hour and a half outside of the fairly large city of Brisbane, but as soon as we were on the way it was suddenly farm country-- lots of cows and even an emu farm, which was kind of awesome. The party was also typically Australian (or so I'm told)-- a game of hide-and-seek involved the phrase "Don't hide there, that's where the cane toads and snakes are," and later in the evening (when quite a lot of alcohol had been consumed by some), some cousins embarked on a mission involving golf clubs and cane toads, justified by their being an "introduced species" and a "pest." (To be fair, again, they did examine one animal and, seeing it was a green frog, declared it a "good one.") There was also a massive bonfire and, the next morning, what looked like a full English breakfast except for the fact that it had been cooked entirely on the barbie (and lacked black pudding.)
Coming up to date, this Monday I started an internship at Michael Johnson's office. He's the federal member of Parliament for the district of Ryan, which is made up of Brisbane's western suburbs. It's been very good so far (everyone is, of course, nice), and next week I'll be going down to Canberra because Parliament will be in session, so that should be good.
Anyway, sorry this is such a massive post, I didn't think I had quite so much to say. I'll try to update this semi-regularly.
Bye for now!