Capital

We went on a weekend excursion to Canberra this month...Australia's capital.  (Bet you didn't know that!) 

Our friends Caylee, Dan and fam joined us.

We had a lot of fun and this is what greeted us on our way in... 

First stop was the Old Parliament House...but even more first was the Aboriginal Embassy out front.  The Aboriginals have claimed this land as their 'embassy' and have a whole campsite permanently set up there.

Aboriginal drawings on the courtyard tiles

then the Old Parliament House.  This place was top notch!  My fave.  I want to go back and walk every inch of this place.  I love old buildings with history and culture and this had heaps of both. 

It's a beautiful building with perfect Australian verandas out front.

And straight out the front doors you can look all the way down the road, straight down to the War Memorial.  That was done on purpose by the architect so that the members of Parliament would always see it when entering or exiting the building and remember those that protect their country.

(the War Memorial is all the way down there...I promise!)

See!-culture and history...

.love it.

...Questacon came next but there will a a whole other post on that so we'll just skipperoo like a kangaroo to the next stop...

New Parliament House.

I live in Australia...crazy!

Here's the Australia seal

{cue national anthem}

View from the top of the New Parliament House...directly in front is the entrance to the New House, then further down after the courtyard is the Old Parliament House and then on yonder there is the -not so small in real life- War Memorial.

The inside was immaculate.  So pretty.

Check out my prince charming on those steps ;)

I just love this place!  It was gorgeous and I learned a lot about the government of Australia.  They follow the old rituals of parliament passed on from England.

So cool.

...more on that the next time we go back and have more time...I keep saying that...I really need to go back.

I loved driving around to see all the embassies in Canberra.  There must be at least 25 or so and they're all built to look like their native country.  They were interesting to see!

Here's just a few...

~South Africa~

~Papua New Guinea~

~Thailand~

and

~China~

The last one is my fave.  Can you guess which one it was?

~USA~

YES!-Canberra was good to us.  I even got to go home...almost, American soil at least.  Thanks Canberra!

The US Embassy was huge.  While the other embassies were a single or maybe a couple buildings, the US embassy too up a few blocks!

We definitely were taking pictures of the entrance, sign, seal and flag.

We definitely saw 3 guards at this embassy and zero at the all the others.

We definitely saw one of the guards come out with a camera-looking device as we were walking back to the car.

We definitely don't know if we were or weren't supposed to be taking pictures...but it shouldn't be a problem...right? :)

Guess we'll never know.  At least I got to see my flag, recite the pledge and maybe, just maybe got a tid bit excited!

Almost just like home. :)

and now just some randoms...

-the view from the War Memorial down to Old and then New Parliament House-

-the best tree ever-

-view from the Canberra lookout-

Canberra was just an area of empty land in the middle of Sydney and Melbourne and when Australia couldn't decide between the two fro a capital, they made Canberra.  It's laid out very geometrically and even includes a man-made lake.


-all smiles-

-the lovely Archibald family-

-me and the man-

and this is what greeted us on our way out...

good weekend Canberra, good weekend.