Busy in Canberra

I made my way to Canberra for a visit with my pseudo cousin, Will, and his girlfriend, Sandy.  Will is one of my favorite people and after spending a few weeks with Sandy and getting to know her a bit more she's made her way onto that list as well.  Here's the gist of my month in Canberra.

The first few weeks consisted of lots of lazing around.  Monica (Will's mom) flew down from PNG for a week and a half.  We had Thanksgiving dinner and did lots of Christmas shopping.  On Thanksgiving I was able to FaceTime with my whole family, dad's side and mom's side (with the exception of a few people), which was very special.  I wasn't too upset about missing the holidays until they came and seeing everyone on Thanksgiving was tough but I was glad to be with family in Australia. A few days after Thanksgiving Will and Sandy moved into a new house and from there it was full steam ahead… packing, moving, cleaning, unpacking.  Sandy and I managed to sneak in a couple hikes after the move.  We did one small one up Mt. Ainslie.  It was with this hike I realized how unfit I am.  I've been walking a lot since I left the States, but on flat surfaces.  Add an incline and my cottage cheesy bum protests.  We did another hike that was supposed to be 8k round trip (5 miles).  We hiked and hiked and hiked some more and after about 2 hours I was really surprised we hadn't made it to the summit.  I thought surely we'd gone at least 2k and hour.  Finally, we came across a sign that said the summit was still 2.5k up another trail.  At this point I was thoroughly confused.  In two hours we did 1.5k… uhhh my distance perception is terribly off.  Then we saw another sign saying the Visitor's Center was 4.8k away which is where we had just come from.  Two things 1) I'm really glad my distance perception isn't off because I knew there was no way we'd only done 1.5k in 2 hours and 2) the internet lies!!!  We looked up the hike before going and chose it for its 8k distance roundtrip and moderate difficulty.  The hike to the summit was actually 14.6k roundtrip.   We attempted the final 2.5k to the summit but only got another 1k farther up the trail before deciding to turn around.  In total we did about 12k (about 7.5 miles) which isn't too bad considering we set out to do an 8k hike.

Monica working on the Thanksgiving turkey.

Sandy's turn to work on the turkey.

Mt Ainslie

The view from Mt Ainslie.  It over looks the city of Canberra.
Straight ahead you can see the War Memorial and in the distance
Parliament House.

Namadgi National Park - the place of deceiving hikes.

We had a couple hitch hikers.

So lovely.  This is what I love about Australia.

Taking a breather and soaking up the scenery.

This picture doesn't capture the steepness of
this path, but it was relatively steep for a decent
portion of the hike.

Pit stop number two.

More steps.

2.5k to the summit.

4.8k from where we'd just come from.

Breather on the way back down.

Another grand adventure took place in the kitchen.  Will and Sandy have a loquat tree in their backyard.  Prior to this I'd never seen a loquat let alone tasted one.  One word: heaven.  These little fruits are candy.  If you have the chance to eat a loquat, do it, and then eat another five because one isn't enough.  Sandy and I did a number on the loquat tree and picked all the reachable fruit.  Then proceeded to spend the next 10 hours in kitchen making jam, BBQ sauce, syrup, and pie filling.  The jam was a bit liquify but really, really good especially on cheese.  I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Time to pick some loquats.

Sandy and I picking away.

Bongo feeling at home.

Our America's Next Top Model pose showing off our loot.

This may not look like a lot of loquats but
it was a ridiculous amount.

Cutting and pitting before cooking.

The back green and red pots are BBQ sauce and the front
two are syrup and jam.

That would be a jalapeño in the BBQ sauce.

BBQ sauce and syrup in their finished form.

Sealing the jam jars and another batch of syrup.

About 1/3 of the pits from all the loquats.

And of course my new hair cut was a highlight.  I vacillate between being funky and mature.  I've done this for years.  Stretch out my ear lobes and then let them close because I need to look mature only to stretch them out again because I'm bored then allow them to close again because I need to grow up.  I had black frame glasses and red cat eyes and blue and red funky rectangular glasses until the day I decided I needed to start looking like an adult which is when I converted to goldish/tan rectangle with nose pads. (For some reason nose pads are a symbol of maturity for me.  You only see mature people wearing glasses with nose pads.  Doesn't make any sense, I know, but for me nose pads = mature.) Next pair of glasses I get will most likely be something fun and sans nose pads.  And then there's hair.  I've had every color under the sun… blonde, brown, black, red, pink, purple, blue, pink with purple streaks, black with red streaks, blonde with blue tips.  I do something funky for a while then decide I need to grow up and do something mature like plain blonde.  In the last three years I've gone from solid blonde to solid brown to brown with 2 platinum streaks to solid blonde.  Then I got bored.  Blonde is great and mature which is what I should be at 26, right?  But let's face it, I'm not.  Yet again I tried the whole mature look thing and yet again I find myself gravitating toward the other end of the spectrum.  Time to admit I'm just not ready to be a mature looking grown up so bbbzzzzzzz off went a patch of my hair and with my newly acquired bald patch came a renewed sense of funky.  Sandy was a bit nervous about this because she'd never buzzed someone's head before.  Then I showed her a picture of me bald and told her that the worst thing that could happen was she'd mess it up and then we'd just shave it all off.  Pretty sure that helped cure her hesitation.  Thankfully, she didn't mess up and I am only partially bald instead of completely bald… again. 

Before

Before again

Step one: trim hair.

Step two: buzz patch.

Step three: pose for pictures.

Will decided he needed a hair cut too.

The end result… Bald Will and partially bald me.

After

Sandy graduated with honors just before Christmas.  (We don't have honors in the States but basically it's a program for one year after your BA where you write a thesis and then after that go into a PhD program.  They have MA degrees here but you can skip that by doing an honors program… I think I have that all right).  Because of this Sandy's parents came to Canberra for the graduation ceremony.  We all ventured to the botanical gardens one afternoon.  For some reason I thought of the botanical gardens as a oversized green house of sorts.  Not so, not at all.  It was acres upon acres of flora representing different parts of Australia.  I loved it and would recommend going to botanical gardens where ever you are.  It's calm and provides beautiful scenery for a lovely stroll. 

Rick and Audrey (Sandy's parents) with Sandy.

The cool guy was hanging out at the cafe in the botanical gardens.

The following day we went to the War Memorial.  This was a very sobering experience for me.  Though my Papa didn't fight in WWI or WWII, I couldn't help but think of him as I walked around.  I thought of my friend Shawn who was killed in Iraq.  I am fundamentally against war.  This does not mean I am anti-military or anti-America.  I am against war because it claims innocent lives.  However, I understand its necessity in todays world.  We do not live in a utopia where agreements are always reached in a board room in a cordial manner.  And because of that I am thankful for the men and women who sign up for military service knowing they could be sent to war and could potentially be killed.  It was these thoughts that I pondered as I walked through the museum.  It was the thought that my Papa could have been killed and  I could have been raised without a grandfather.  Or he could have been killed before my father was born and I wouldn't exist.  It was the thought of Shawn who only had 6 months left in the army and was killed before his last tour to Iraq ended. It was the thought of all those men and women who sacrificed their lives for a cause they believed in or might not have believed in.  It is heart breaking.  I can't imagine what it's like to go to war and I hope that is something I never experience first hand.  Thank you to all of the men and women who experience the tragedy of war so that I don't have to.

Those are red poppy flowers that people put
in the wall as a symbol of remembrance.

It created a really beautiful scene on the wall with all the names
of people who were killed.

These pictures are hard to read but basically there were 3 Japanese
men who were sent in submarines to attack Sydney during WWII. 

These men knew they would most likely die during their mission.
One wrote a letter home before leaving on the mission saying his
goodbyes.  Can you imagine knowing you are most likely going to die
and writing a letter home to your family saying your goodbyes?
Makes me tear up even thinking about it.

Though these men were the enemy and killed during
their attack on Sydneythey were still honored by the
Royal Australian Navy because of their bravery
and courage to undertake such a mission.
Rear Admiral Muirhead-Gould responded to
criticism for his decision to honor these men, the enemy,
by saying "Theirs was a courage which is not the
property or the tradition or the heritage of any one nation:
it is the courage shared by the brave men of our own
countries as well as of the enemy; and however horrible war
and its results may be, it is a courage which is recognized
and universally admired.  These men were patriots of the
highest order.  How many of us are really prepared to make
one thousandth of the sacrifice that these men made?"  How remarkable is that?  

Glass, stone, metal and wood pillars.  I can't
remember what they represented.

The view from the War Memorial steps.

That's the end of my Canberra adventure.  The next morning Will, Sandy, and I got in a car and drove down to Melbourne for Christmas and New Years with Sandy's parents.

BIG BIG Thanks to Will and Sandy (and their roommates) for putting up with me for a solid month.