Literally, everyone looked at me and asked why I was going to Canberra. I was like, “I don’t know. I feel like it’d be like driving past Washington D.C. and not stopping.” So I went to Canberra for 2 1/2 days. That was plenty. I arrived on Sunday afternoon around 3:30 and it was basically a ghost town. Imagine going to Quincy Market on a Sunday afternoon and there being like 10 people there, because that’s what this was like.

My first full day, I visited the Australian War Memorial. It’s a memorial, but it’s also a bit of a museum. I took an hour long free tour of the World War I section of the memorial. The tour consisted of the guide, a Canadian woman and I. Before we started she asked where I was from and I told her “Massachusetts, in the States.” She says, “Oh, that’s funny. I was just saying how I haven’t seen alot of Americans in Canberra recently. Maybe they’re all just saying they’re Canadian?” I will take Donald Trump over Canada anyday, lady. She then asked me what I was doing in Australia and where I’d been and proceeded to correct my pronunciation of every place I said besides Sydney. I kindly told her she should feel free to come to Massachusetts and try to pronounce the names of our towns.

Anyway, I went on the tour and learned some shit you probably don’t care about so I won’t regurgitate any of it. Here’s some pictures….

The Hall of Rememberance was really beautiful. It houses the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, has huge stained glass windows and the depictions on the walls were done by hand using 6.5 million mosaic tiles.

After the memorial, I went around back and took a trail up to the top of Mt. Ainslie. It was only about 2,500 ft high, but it was the first Australian mountain I summited on my own and you could see the whole city from the lookout.

After hiking back down the mountain, it was just about closing time for the memorial. Over 102,000 Australians have died in military service and everyday at close they hold The Last Post Ceremony and tell the story of one of those men or women who was killed serving their country. On this day, they told the story of Private Gerald Campion who was killed, at the age of 27, by German artillery fire on October 10, 1917 sadly just 1 day after his brother, Willie, was killed in an attempted raid at Celtic Woods.

On my 2nd day in Canberra, I went to Parliament House. Due to stupid luck, I guess, the House and Senate are in session this time of year, just back from recess. I had my daypack with me and forgot that my Leatherman tool was in it, so I accidentally tried to get a knife through security. They confiscated it until I left for the day. Oops. There really wasn’t much to see in the building, but shortly after I arrived the House of Representatives sat and began session. Prime Minister Turnbull addressed the House with a statement about their efforts to close the inequality gap between the indigenous people of Australia (Aborigines) and the non-indigenous people. I was literally like 100 feet from the Prime Minister of Australia. When he was finished, the Head of State continued on the topic. After he finished, I headed over to the Senate for what they call Question Time.

That’s the empty Senate floor a couple hours before. Question Time was amazing, ridiculous, childish….I dunno. I had to stop myself from laughing a few times. I don’t know how anything gets done in this country. The President of the Senate would call on someone and they would ask a question to either the Attorney General (representing the PM), another Senator or one of the ministers (cabinet members). If the question came from the Labor Party and was addressed to someone from another party, when the person tried to answer, most of the labor party just yelled “interjections” at them. They were often insulting, questioning the other party’s integrity, and flat out dismissing their policies and asking why they hid stuff from the public during the election. It was madness.

The Minister of Defense was asked about their efforts to liberate Mosul in Iraq and told us about their mission. Shit that I feel like should be classified and not only was it available to the public sitting in, but it was being broadcast on tv in Australia. The level of access that people have to Australian government proceedings is absolutely mind boggling. It would never happen in the States.

Up next Melbourne……