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.